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International buyers are looking for more than just vacation homes

Focus shifts to urban areas

For years, international buyers have looked to buy properties in markets like Miami, Aspen and Palm Springs when searching for the perfect place for their “holiday.”

According to new data from Trulia (TRLA), international house hunters are shifting their focus away from traditional vacation areas to dense, urban areas.

“Foreign interest in U.S. real estate remains highly concentrated in mostly urban neighborhoods, particularly in Miami, Los Angeles, and New York, and is increasingly shifting toward high-density urban areas and away from vacation spots,” said Trulia’s chief economist Jed Kolko.

Trulia analyzed the site’s searches from January through May and found that 4% of the searches came from outside the U.S. That’s slightly down from 4.2% during the same time period last year. Canada (18.5%), United Kingdom (10.6%), and Germany (5.5%) remain the top three countries outside the U.S. for home searches on the site.

Trulia found that international searches are tending to focus more on urban areas as opposed to areas that are traditionally thought of as vacation areas.

“In general, these two types of places tend to get more foreign interest than the U.S. overall does: foreign searches accounted for 4.0% of searches for U.S. homes overall, 4.7% of searches in vacation areas, and 9.4% of searches in the densest urban neighborhoods,” Kolko said.

But the number of searches that are focused on what Trulia calls “dense urban neighborhoods” is rising. The chart below shows which areas international home hunters are searching for on the site. The share of searches for the dense urban neighborhoods is on the rise, while the searches for vacation areas are declining.

Click the image for a larger view.

Share of home searches from outside the US

Specifically, prospective buyers in Brazil, Australia, France, Italy and Russia are searching for urban areas with greater frequency. France leads the way with 29% of its searches looking at dense urban neighborhoods. Australia is second on the list at 27%, followed by Russia (27%), Italy (26%), Brazil (25%), Netherlands (24%) and the United Kingdom (22%).

The neighborhoods that foreign buyers are searching for are, unsurprisingly, mainly in Los Angeles, New York City, and Miami. In Bel Air and Beverly Hills, foreign buyers make up at least 40% of the searches. Three neighborhoods in New York City make the top 10 neighborhoods with the highest foreign search share.

Neighborhoods with the Highest Foreign Search Share

#

page4image23904

Zip code

Neighborhood

page4image25576

U.S. Metro

Foreign share of searches

1

90077

page4image31600

Bel Air

Los Angeles, CA

page4image34280

45%

2

90210

Beverly Hills

Los Angeles, CA

40%

3

page4image41992

90069

West Hollywood / Sunset Blvd

page4image43784

Los Angeles, CA

36%

4

page4image48696

10013

page4image49624

Tribeca / Little Italy

page4image50944

New York, NY-NJ

page4image52384

35%

5

10007

World Trade Center / City Hall

New York, NY-NJ

34%

6

page4image60256

90265

Malibu

page4image61888

Los Angeles, CA

33%

7

91302

page4image67728

Calabasas

Los Angeles, CA

page4image70368

32%

8

10065

Lenox Hill / East 60’s

New York, NY-NJ

31%

9

90049

page4image79744

Brentwood

Los Angeles, CA

page4image82384

31%

10

90046

West Hollywood / Laurel Cyn

Los Angeles, CA

30%

 

In fact, six of the top 20 are New York City neighborhoods and each of those neighborhoods have a higher percentage of foreign searches than Key Biscayne, in Miami, which is the most searched for vacation area.

Vacation Areas with the Highest Foreign Search Share

page5image6088

#

Zip code

Neighborhood or town

U.S. Metro

page5image10760

Foreign share of searches

1

33149

Key Biscayne

page5image15992

Miami, FL

page5image17208

27%

2

33140

Miami Beach / Mid-Beach

page5image22192

Miami, FL

page5image23408

26%

3

34747

Celebration / Four Corners

Orlando, FL

22%

4

33896

Davenport

Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL

21%

5

33019

Hollywood Beach

Fort Lauderdale, FL

19%

6

33897

Davenport

Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL

19%

7

92210

Indian Wells

page5image52912

Riverside-San Bernardino, CA

page5image54168

18%

8

33062

Pompano Beach

Fort Lauderdale, FL

page5image61392

page5image62400

17%

page5image63328

9

81611

Aspen

west of Denver, CO

16%

10

92264

Palm Springs

Riverside-San Bernardino, CA

page5image73712

15%

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