Foreign property investment in United States real estate is a major source of investment facilitated by an open economy legislation (foreign individuals and corporations are free to purchase residential or commercial real estate in the U.S.).
There are several reasons why our clients invest in property overseas. These include privacy, portfolio diversification, tax savings, political holiday home and retirement planning.
Investment continues to grow in the United States. With an extensive range of investment opportunities, combined with our liberal foreign ownership laws and robust regulatory systems, makes it a highly competitive destination in the global real estate marketplace.
WHAT IS FOREIGN PROPERTY INVESTMENT?
Foreign property investment refers to the purchase of real estate by foreign nationals. It is a major source of current investment in the United States and property sales to foreign buyers totaled 78 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. In recent years, the largest share of foreign residential buyers originated from China and Canada, followed by Mexico.
Out of 195 countries the U.S. consistently leads in receipt of foreign direct investments, with around $450 billion received in 2016, a large part of which was in real estate. The sector is bolstered by infrastructure and remains a key pillar of the country's economy.
WHY IS INVESTMENT IN U.S. REAL ESTATE IN PARTICULAR SO ATTRACTIVE TO FOREIGN PROPERTY BUYERS?
Two of the most important factors are stability and liquidity. United States real estate is considered a mature market that provides safe, slow returns. This allows more tumultuous markets like Asia or even Europe with the unrest of Brexit, to reliably store and grow their money. Size and popularity of the U.S. market also make it highly liquid compared to other real estate opportunities, allowing investors to buy and sell with relative ease.
The total value of all the property in the world is estimated at $217 trillion, of which about 75% is residential. Given its immense overall value and the fact that, with very few exceptions, the entirety of human existence takes place on property owned by some entity, it is no surprise that that the industry acts as a metric for economic stability and is an attractive target for investors. The U.S. housing market alone is estimated at $33.3 trillion and the U.S. commercial real estate market is estimated at $17 trillion.
