American real estate is still considered to be a great investment by foreign buyers – according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2025 International Transactions in US Residential Real Estate report, overseas buyers acquired $56 billion worth of existing US homes from April 2024 through March 2025, a 33.2% increase from the previous 12-month period.
International buyers purchased 78,100 properties, up 44% from the prior year and the first year-over-year increase since 2017. The median purchase price for foreign buyers of $494,400 was a record high.
Foreign buyers who resided in the US as recent immigrants or who were holding visas that allowed them to live in the US purchased 43,700 homes (56% of all foreign purchases) with a total dollar volume of $26.9 billion. Foreign buyers who lived abroad purchased 34,400 homes (44% of all foreign purchases) with a total dollar volume of $29.1 billion.
The top five countries of origin based on the percent share of foreign purchases, existing homes purchased, and dollar volume were:
- China: 15%; 11,700; $13.7 billion
- Canada: 14%; 10,900; $6.2 billion
- Mexico: 8%; 6,200; $4.4 billion
- India: 6%; 4,700; $2.2 billion
- United Kingdom: 4%; 3,100; $2 billion
The top five US destinations based on the percentage of all foreign buyers were:
- Florida: 21%
- California: 15%
- Texas: 10%
- New York: 7%
- Arizona: 5%
“International interest in buying US real estate increased following the global economic recovery from several years of pandemic-related disruptions. However, elevated home prices and interest rates continue to dampen overall potential sales activity and remain well below pre-pandemic levels,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Boosted by a significant increase in the state’s housing inventory, Florida remained the top destination for foreign home buyers, extending a streak of at least 15 years. To some degree, due to stubbornly high mortgage rates, a greater share of international home buyers paid cash – 47% compared to 28% among all buyers – and they were more likely to purchase homes priced in the upper end of the market. Foreign buyers are drawn to investing in American real estate, in part, by our country’s strong protection of private property rights.”
Photo: TommL / Getty Images
This article did not detail if foreign buyers cause housing costs to rise in the U.S.
I would like to see an analysis of 4 groups of home buyers and owners and how foreign buyers, owners of many homes, and large investor groups are impacting the cost of homeownership in the U.S.
Those 4 buyer (and owner) groups are:
1) Investor groups composed of American only investors
2) Investor groups that are composed of 25% (or higher) of foreign investors.
3) Owners who own more than 3 homes (primary and secondary / vacation homes).
4) Owners who own more than 20 housing units (rentals).
The claim has been that there is a shortage in the U.S. housing supply, and that this is a big contributor to rising home prices and lack of affordable housing.
What is NOT discussed in detail is the demand side, the number of buyers (and owners) and who they are.
What percentage of buyers (and owners) are regular people seeking to buy (or owning) a primary residence, versus buyers (and owners) who own multiple homes, many of which sit empty most of the year (particularly in resort towns), and what percentage of buyers (and owners) own multiple homes that are purchased as investments, either to fix and flip, or to own for longer terms, or for rentals?
The Demand side is important to understand because over the past many years investors have gobbled up much of the available housing supply. In some new housing tracts, every home was purchased by an investor, and regular buyers were shut out!!
Zillow gained notoriety when it was gobbling up homes around year 2020, even as home prices were skyrocketing, and then Zillow suddenly pulled back.
Perhaps Zillow stock prices had risen high enough during this buying spree for the upper managers to hit their target stock price and then pull out low interest loans on their self-inflated stock valuations??? I would love to know if that was the reason.
I am tired of taxpayers being asked to subsidize low income housing and to ignore environmental laws and quality of life building and planning codes simply as a way to shove in more housing at a slightly lower developer cost, while creating unnecessary crowding and reduced open spaces and even reduced parking space requirements, thus putting more pressure on cities and reducing quality of life for everyone in the area.
In my view, we need housing laws that LIMIT how many homes any ONE person can own.
One small family in California owns a whopping 22,000 rental units. That’s crazy!
This leads to monopolistic impacts, such as inflated rents.
That family is not the only mega home owner group. Many investor groups and even very rich individuals are owning many, many, many homes. That is driving home prices up.
I’ve said this since 1980. The goal of greedy people is to buy up everything (often during engineered recession events), and then push everyone into a rental class position, sometimes permanently. Many people want to recreate Old Europe, with a King, a small noble class, and a very large poverty stricken lower class paying rents, and almost zero middle class, but a compliant middle class willing to do the bidding of the rich just to hang onto their thin protection of a thinned out middle class.
IF voters feel that housing should be more affordable for everyone, then voters could push for several changes.
1) A foreigner who buys a home in the U.S. must also work in the U.S. for at least half the year and be in the U.S. physically during that 6 month period (not remote work).
2) A foreigner cannot own more than 1 home in the U.S., and the size and price should be limited, such as a maximum value of 20% over the median value of homes in the same region (based on a city scale, not a neighborhood scale).
But I’m okay with a foreigner wanting a nicer than typical home.
3) Home ownership obtained through investor groups (or any combination of investor groups) should limit the total number of homes owned by any one investor to no more than 20 homes owned (and they must be sold or rented out after 1 year).
Partially owned homes would be summed up to reveal the total number of homes owned by a single investor in any combination of investor groups.
4) Homes owned through investor groups should limit the total value of the combined homes owned by any single investor. The value of partial ownerships would be summed up to reveal the total value of homes owned by a single investor in any combination of investor groups.
5) All homes must be purchased by a physical human being, OR, if a home is owned by an investor group, the investors within that group must be named as individual human beings and the percentage they own in that investor group. NO LLCs or other corporate type investors would be allowed to be investors within the investor group that buys the homes. This would prevent individuals from owning more than a total of 20 homes by blocking their ability to own under the names of many LLCs and corporate names or Shell companies.
NAR keeps pounding on build baby build. But we have been building non-stop since the first Euro-Americans arrived, and it never fixes the housing shortage or affordability problems. One reason for that is that some people own way too many homes, thus driving up housing costs.
I’m okay with 1 person owning up to 3 homes (primary and secondary/vacation homes).
I’m okay with 1 person owning up to 20 rental housing units, in part because some people need rental income for retirement money, and some investor money is needed to create rental housing because not everyone will be able to buy their own home.
Even 1 year fix and flip ownership can help buyers who cannot afford to front cash money to repair and remodel homes.
Related to my prior post, I read that nearly 30% of homes purchased in the 2019 to 2024 cycle were bought by investors (including mega investor groups), and that high demand had a big impact on pushing home prices much higher.
The second reason for housing shortages and high prices is that people REFUSE to recognize basic mathematical facts.
Rising populations will always drive up home prices and will drive up the prices of land, food, water, etc.
The U.S. hit 300 million people in 2006.
It now has 347 million people this year (2025) and still rising.
Thus, in just 19 years, the U.S. ADDED the COMBINED populations of:
California (39.7 million) PLUS Tennesse (about 7.3 million).
That’s a whopping load of humans to ADD!
And they want and need housing!
But costs keep rising with higher populations.
The U.S. population is projected to continue to rise higher into the future.
By year 2050, the U.S. is expected to hit 381 million people (and still rising).
Thus, just 25 years from now, the U.S. will ADD another 34 million people!!!
and that is equal to ADDING the current COMBINED populations of:
Pennsylvania (13.1 million), PLUS Georgia (11.3 million) PLUS New Jersey (9.6 million).
Wow! By 2050, we will have ADDED 81 million more humans compared to year 2006,
equal to adding the current population in year 2025 of the COMBINED populations of 5 states:
California, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New Jersey!!!
Gee Golly!
I wonder why home prices are rising higher?
I wonder why clean water supplies are in short supply?
I wonder why everything feels so crowded and traffic is so bad?
I wonder why aquifers are drying up?
I wonder why food prices are rising as agricultural lands are covered by more housing and expanding cities?
I wonder why open spaces are disappearing?
I wonder why when nature hiccups (storms, fires, earthquakes) there are people in the damage zones, people everywhere.
Hello! Do the Math. It’s time to wake up!
The core problem with most problems and conflicts on Earth is Human Over-Population.
The world hit and passed 8.2 Billion people this year and is projected to rise to a staggering 10.3 Billion by year 2084, just 59 years into the future!
After 2084, a very, very , very slow population decline is projected, but brutally slow.
Even at the end of this century (year 2100), the population is projected to still be a jaw dropping 10.2 Billion humans, which is 2 Billion more humans than today (in year 2025).
The entire planet had 2 Billion humans in 1927, and that is what we will be ADDING to our already over-populated 8.2 Billion today. It’s sickening.
Don’t expect anything to get cheaper, if you can get it at all.
Think of all the things that used to be nearly free (just your labor needed), things like wild food supplies, salmon, fish of all types, abalone, plentiful wild game, fresh clean water in most places in the world (even beaver ponds once existed in desert regions).
Factory farming is now moving out and stem cell meat grown in factories will become the essential food supply system. I hate this future that human over-population is pushing.
The Earth is NOT a balloon that you can just blow air into to make its surface area larger. Globally, there are 16x more humans now than 400 years ago. We have populated all the habitable continents and are melting down Antarctica with global warming, and I’m sure we will insist on invading the last continent and screw that up too.
We are pushing into the deep oceans and building floating cities on the oceans because we REFUSE to check our population to a sane level.
The Biosphere and its FREE functions are collapsing, including wild food supplies.
Cruel and filthy Factory Farmed animals (even fish) are the norm now, and crop lands use massive chemicals to force more food out of less acreages, water supplies are being depleted, and all that damage and pain is simply because there are too many people to allow room for open pastures, kind animal husbandry, and real organic and regenerative farming.
Elon Musk is a psychotic man who claims that the world population is falling. Not a single report says that. He is lying because he wants YOU (and most people) to keep having babies to pay the taxes to fund his space fantasies of a human colony on Mars.
We should buy him and his brood a 1-way ticket to Mars and get him outta here!
Mars does NOT have the properties to be a livable planet. Living on Mars would be like living at over 180,000 feet elevation (no oxygen). It has a super thin atmosphere, and its magnetic field is incredibly weak, thus solar radiation would do much damage.
Any human habitation on Mars would require massive amounts of supplies from the Earth, on a regular basis, and a biodome. It’s not a fun planet for life, and it’s why we haven’t found any, and if we do, it will be microbe type life, if at all.
If Elon thinks that Mars could be terraformed into an Earth-like planet (which it cannot), then Elon should apply that terraforming miracle to our damaged ecosystems on Earth first. Let’s see if he’s lying about that too. But he could start by STOPPING The damage he is adding by having so many children to fill his ego.
We keep thinking that “experts” and the super rich are brilliant.
Basic math and thoughtful contemplation of the facts of repeated promises and failures should clue you in that you are being lied to by many people who are indoctrinated or just do not care about Stewardship of the planet, other species, or even humans.
Challenge the lies and think!
For Population data, past, present and projections, I love Worldometers.
WRE will not allow a weblink in these posts,
Just Google the terms in the quotes below, and the weblinks will show up.
“Worldometers Population”
This will take you to the Worldometers Population Clock, a live count of global popualtions, births vs. deaths by the day and by the year is near the top, and it keeps moving as the live count keep going on. You will see that there are about 2 births per each death, and that means the population is rising higher.
Scroll down to the chart showing the population curve over hundreds of years and up thru year 2100. See the steep rise in population that began in the 1600’s and will NOT flatter out until year 2084 (IF we choose to keep having too many kids).
This is a great place to get basic past, current, and future data.
Google “Worldometers Population by Year”
You will see “the link that shows population each year, how many people were added each year, and the percent rise in population each year.
Notice that the growth rate in 1964 was 2.6X higher than in year 2025.
yet, the total population gain in 1964 (~71 million) and 2025 (~6 million) was very close,
and that is because the base population kept rising higher each year.
A smaller growth rate in 2025 X a very large base population is still a large number of humans added.
Google “Worldometers Population Projections thru 2100”.
This is show the population each year from 2025 thru 2100.
Notice the highest population is expected to be in year 2084 when the growth rate finally falls to ZERO and then after that year a steady but very slowly falling population.
See year 2100 for the 10.2 Billion population we will still have.
We can change our future by giving financial incentives for ZERO, 1, or max of 2 child families,
and we can insist on extremely high taxes for those who choose to have more than 2 children per 2 adults (i.e. more than 1 child per 1 adult).
Do we want to live in uber-high rises that block out the skies and force us to live in termite mounds and canyons of concrete, steel, and ashalt?
Do we want NO wild nature to exist?
Do we want to pay huge amounts of income for tiny homes (apartments)?
Do we want to have NO options to live off the land if we wanted to do that?
Do we want only highly industrial farming farming and brutalized animals?
Do we want to eat engineered stem cell meats?
Do we want to kill biotech in its nascency? (scientist need wild species and wild habitats to find and unlock nature’s solutions).
Do we want to pave over a once gorgeous and wild planet?
How you choose to breed (or not breed) will determine the world we will have.
We already have major conflicts over dwindling resources, and a few billionaires running our politics while most of us feel unheard, powerless, frustrated, and angry.
But most of this is our own doing.
Corporations and Billionaires profit handsomely in an over-populated world.
Why do you think Billionaires and Mega-Corporations are buying up all the farm lands and water rights? Why are we paying corporations to sequester carbon, rather than giving room the wild ecosystems that could do that for free.
Just wait until oceanic phytoplankton and land-based plant rich ecosystems are so damaged and denuded that you have to pay corporations to make your daily oxygen?
How will you Vote? Do you want your daily oxygen cannister?
We will all be slaves, literally, gasping for breath.
Stop breeding. Have Zero or 1 child and adopt the rest.
Your fewer children will thank you for that.
Oops, typo in last post. Sorry.
Population gain in 1964 (~71 million) vs in 2025 (~69.6 million).
Very close population gains, despite 1964 having a growth rate 2.6x higher than in 2025.
That is due to the much higher population in the “base year” of 2024 vs the lower base year population in 1963.