Domestic homebuyers aren’t the only ones who are swayed by Texas’ economy and cost of living.
International homebuyers also believe in investing in Texas. Last year, foreign buyers paid $4.9 billion for 9,630 Texas homes, according to the Texas International Homebuyers Report released by Texas Realtors.
From April 2020 to March 2021, Texas accounted for 9 percent of all international home purchases, behind Florida (22 percent) and California (16 percent).
But sales to these offshore buyers were down 31 percent (107,000) and the total dollar value decreased 30 percent ($54.4 billion) in the U.S. compared to last year’s report. Sales have been down the past few years.
“The pandemic had a significant impact on the number of foreign homebuyers over the last year,” said Marvin Jolly, chairman of Texas Realtors.
Not surprisingly, the largest share of foreign homebuyers in Texas was from Mexico — 29 percent. That was more than the next four international homebuyer countries combined. The Latin America/Caribbean region represented 42 percent of international homebuyers in Texas.
In 2019 and 2020, Texas also was behind Florida and California in sales to international buyers. In 2020, foreign buyers paid $6.6 billion for 13,860 Texas homes, which represented a decline of 16 percent compared to the 2019 report.
Why has Texas appealed to international buyers? Jolly said the market draws foreign buyers for much of the same reasons most domestic buyers have been choosing the state.
“International homebuyers continue to choose Texas because they recognize the strength of our economy, abundance of investment opportunities, and attractive cost of living,” Jolly said.
The report is based on survey data from the 2021 International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate by the National Association of Realtors and the 2021 edition of the Commercial Real Estate International Business Trends.
