U.S. real estate a ‘bargain’ for foreign buyers

U.S. real estate a ‘bargain’ for foreign buyers

Two years ago, while attending a home-builder convention in Orlando, Fla., a top-producing local real estate agent was bubbling over the interior design features of a vacation home.
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“All of my international buyers are just going to love this,” the agent said. “I can’t wait to tell them what’s now available.”

I was intrigued. How many international buyers did she have?

It turned out that more than 60 percent of the agent’s clients were buyers from overseas. And, she is not the only real estate professional cultivating the foreign market. According to the National Association of Realtors, 65 percent of Florida Realtors had at least one international customer, and the trade group’s “Profile of International Home Buying Activity” indicated that at least 7 percent of home sales in Florida were to foreign purchasers.

Good time for Mexico’s real estate market – BloggingStocks

Good time for Mexico’s real estate market

“It’s a time of hope,” claims Ana Laura Pulido, a real estate broker in Mexico. While its northern neighbor remains in the depths of a housing meltdown, the Mexican real estate market has been booming.

Mexico has long found its economy overly sensitive to the happenings in the United States, so to see the country’s real estate market thriving despite the turmoil in America is a very encouraging sign for our southern neighbor.

And don’t think that American investors haven’t started to notice this new trend.

According to Clark McKinley, the spokesman for the nation’s largest pension fund, the California Public Employees Retirement System, his fund sees greater returns for its money in Mexico and has already decided to pump over $300 million into Mexican real estate funds.

China Real Estate Brokers Face Slowdown

China Real Estate Brokers Face Slowdown

After booming in recent years, China’s real estate market is finally beginning to feel the pinch from sagging demand and tighter controls.

One of China’s biggest real estate agencies, Chuanghui Real Estate, has shuttered dozens of outlets in Shanghai and other cities, leaving behind angry customers and employees, following an ill-timed expansion just as the market was peaking.

Several other agencies around the country also have closed down or scaled back.

So far, the retrenchment appears to be mainly limited to property brokers — the businesses first to feel the pinch when people stop buying new homes, for whatever the reason. But the moves could herald the beginning of a broader slowdown in one of Asia’s hottest real estate markets.

U.S. slowdown may boost Canada’s real estate market

U.S. slowdown may boost Canada’s real estate market

The prospect of a U.S. recession has some homeowners and prospective buyers nervous about the impact on the real estate market in Canada, but one economist says a slowdown could actually boost activity in Canada’s housing sector.

It’s not surprising that economic uncertainty in the U.S. has been the focus of much discussion and speculation in recent days, since Canada has followed the American lead during four of the last six U.S. recessions.

But Gregory Klump, chief economist for the Canadian Real Estate Association, said it’s still an “open question” whether the U.S. slowdown will turn into a recession — as defined by two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

“The chances are about 40 per cent, but the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates and do so very aggressively to prop up their growth and keep them out of recession,” Klump told CTV.ca.

Spanish real estate agencies folding

Spanish real estate agencies folding

Half of Spain’s real estate agencies have folded in the past year due to a slowdown in the once-booming building sector, an industry association says.

Of 80,000 that operated at the beginning of 2007, only around 40,000 have survived and some 100,000 employees lost their jobs, according to the Superior Council of Real Estate Agents, a nationwide grouping.

However, many of the agencies that collapsed are small — sometimes just a person with a cell phone — that emerged to cash in on the Spanish construction boom over the past five years or so, the council’s president Santiago Baena told the newspaper El Pais.

American Apparel sees real estate opportunity

American Apparel sees real estate opportunity

American Apparel Inc Chief Executive Dov Charney said on Wednesday he saw opportunity in retail real estate for the fast-growing

  • company, given the struggles of many rivals amid the economic downturn.

    “There’s a lot of real estate out there now because a lot of retailers are struggling,” Charney said, speaking at the ICR XChange Conference for consumer companies. “That’s an opportunity for us.”

    “We’re very optimistic because we’ve been working on carving out a market niche,” Charney said.

    Of his customers, he said: “They have no credit or poor credit, they don’t own a home … they rent apartments with no heating bills and they generally don’t drive.”