First Weber Group REALTORS®: Wisconsin Real Estate

Foreign investors see the value in US real estate. Let's hope local buyers do as well. 

From the Real Trends email update May 2008, and Wall Street Journal...

Americans' love affair with real estate may be cooling, but -- thanks to falling home prices and the weak dollar -- attention is heating up from another group of suitors: foreign investors.

Foreign buyers have long looked to certain U.S. markets, such as high-end properties in Manhattan or South Beach Miami, as investment opportunities.  These days, however, real-estate professionals report increased international interest in a much larger range of properties, from mid-level to luxury market properties.  Almost one in five, or 18% of agents surveyed by the National Association of REALTORS® last year said they sold homes to international clients between April 2006 and April 2007.

For many foreign buyers, property in the U.S. is affordable. Foreign buyers also seem more optimistic about the long-term health of the U.S. market, says David Michonski, a certified international property specialist and chief executive of Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy in New York. "The foreign buyer has an unbridled confidence in the U.S. market that is lacking in the domestic purchaser today.  They view this as the bargain of a lifetime and are terribly excited about it," he said. (The Wall Street Journal)