Florida Remains Top Destination for Foreign Buyers

by Kathleen Comerford

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Florida Remains Top Destination for Foreign Buyers: NAR 2023 International Sales Report

The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) has released its 2023 International Sales Report, emphasizing that Florida has maintained its status as the top destination for foreign buyers for the 15th consecutive year. According to the report, international buyers purchased $53.3 billion worth of existing U.S. homes from April 2022 to March 2023. However, this marked a decline of 9.6 percent compared to the previous year. Notably, the number of homes sold to foreign buyers, totaling 84,600 properties, also experienced a decline of 14.2 percent. These figures represent the lowest number of international purchases since NAR began tracking such data in 2009. Despite the drop in foreign purchases, it is worth highlighting that the decrease was less pronounced than the overall 17.8 percent decrease in existing home sales from the previous year.

Various factors contributed to the decline in international buyers, including a reduced housing inventory across the U.S. and elevated borrowing costs on a global scale. Nevertheless, experts anticipate that the post-pandemic recovery and resumption of international travel will likely lead to an increase in foreign transactions in the foreseeable future.

As for the Sunshine State, Florida was a top destination for foreign buyers from Colombia (80% of foreign buyers purchased in FL) and Canada (55% of foreign buyers purchased in FL) in 2023.

Check out Florida REALTORS® for more news and takeaways from the report.

Highlights

$53.3 Billion – Dollar volume of foreign buyer residential purchases during April 2022–March 2023 (2.3% of $2.3 trillion of the dollar volume of existing-home sales)
84,600 – Number of foreign buyer existing-home purchases during April 2022–March 2023 (1.8% of 4.73 million existing-home sales)
51% – Foreign buyers who reside in the United States (recent immigrants; less than two years at the time of the transaction) or non-immigrant visa holders (Type B)
$396,400 – Foreign buyer median purchase price (compared to $384,200 for all U.S. existing homes sold)
42% – Foreign buyers who paid all-cash (compared to 26% among all existing-home buyers)
50% – Foreign buyers who purchased a property for use as a vacation home, rental, or both (compared to 16% among all existing-home buyers)
76% – Foreign buyers who purchased a detached single-family home or townhome (compared to 89% of all existing-home buyers)
45% – Foreign buyers who purchased in a suburban area