As the U.S. dollar continues to lose value, the amount of foreign visitors on U.S. real estate websites like LandsofAmerica.com increase. We not only see this from our internal stats for our entire network of rural land websites, but also from the stats of many of our competitors in the rural real estate niche. So it is very apparent to us that foreign investors are looking at land in the US, my big question is: are they buying?
Every spring the LandsofAmerica.com staff travels to several different rural land conferences across the country. We try and keep our finger on the pulse of the rural real estate market. We made a point to ask many of the rural real estate agents that we spoke with at these conferences about the amount of foreign land buyers in their area. A good number of the agents we spoke with said they had received email inquiries or even phone calls from buyers outside of the U.S., but we did not find any agents that had actually sold any property to foreign buyers.
So my question to you is: have you or any agents in your office sold any rural land tracks to foreign buyers? If so, where are the buyers from? What types of properties have they purchased?
We are curious if they are just looking or actually buying property.
FYI: Buyers from New York or California are not considered foreign buyers.
2 responses so far ↓
Ashlie David // Jun 5, 2008 at 4:27 pm
This is an interesting topic right now. I don’t know if its the political environment of our country or the high gas prices….perhaps its all connected, but I agree, that there seems to be an increasing interest in attracting foreign buyers. Our brokers recently (February) attended The International Property Show in Dubai. This was a stretch considering we sell recreational land, and our brokers are traditional southern hunters and fishermen. But it was a wonderful experience for them. They had no idea what to expect, but found the people there VERY interested in the United States and in the possibilities of purchasing land here. While we have not had any deals actually close, we have two deals in process..where contracts have been exchanged, but no money has changed hands yet. As we’re finding, its very challenging to proceed as you would with a domestic sale. Every culture has norms and ways of doing business, and it takes time to learn how to communicate and move forward. Not to mention, working out the international commerce issues. So we’ll see what actually comes to fruition. But they have made many contacts and believe that at some point a sale will result from the trip. One very key reality they left with is that the people in that area of the world are extremely wealthy and they want to own land in the US. They may be slow to sign on the “dotted line”…but we want to the first people they call when they’re ready!!
Logan // Jun 18, 2008 at 3:40 am
Foreigners are scared to invest in many US commodities with the state of the economy and the mortgage mess.
Compared to most european nations, land here is a deal. With their currencies so strong in comparison it makes land seem like a screamin deal. It’s like buying real estate when interest rates are at 4%. Undoubtably the dollar will one day rebound, and when that happens the overseas land investors are going to be sitting fat….
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