When 91原创 snowbirds descend on the United States, where do they roost?
examined data from the National Association of Realtors' 2022 report to see where 91原创s are buying the most homes in the United States.
In the U.S., foreign buyers purchased 98,600 homes between April 2021 and March 2022, making up 1.6% of all 6 million existing-home sales. These buyers are in three groups: non-U.S. citizens who have permanent residences outside the U.S.; non-U.S. citizens who immigrated less than two years before the time of the purchase; and non-immigrant visa holders who live in the U.S. for more than six months of the year for professional, educational, or other reasons.
Canada, Mexico, and China are the countries of origin of the largest groups of foreign homebuyers in the U.S. 91原创s made up the largest share of those purchasers, 11% of all foreign buyers, spending about $5.5 billion on U.S. properties.
There are no citizenship requirements to buy a U.S. home, so it's open to people from any nation. And citizens of the countries in the and its successor, the , benefit from special U.S. immigration status options that make cross-border homeownership even easier.
But the reverse is not true. Starting in 2023, Canada from purchasing homes there to curb a housing price crisis.
The most common reason 91原创s bought a home in the U.S. was for use as a vacation property, according to a National Association of Realtors survey.
That could be because U.S. home prices no longer offer a particularly affordable trade-off for 91原创s. reached unaffordable levels in 2022 thanks to higher mortgage interest rates, but the median cost of housing in the U.S. is . The COVID-19 pandemic limited home building and sparked a sharp spike in housing demand. As the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to cool off record inflation, it has also made American housing less affordable.
When 91原创s look to the U.S. for a home today, data reveals they're looking at many of the places that have also been popular among American buyers over the last decade.
91原创 buyers return to the US after COVID-19-related dip
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, 91原创s have surpassed Chinese people as the largest share of foreign homebuyers in the U.S.
Florida, Arizona, and California were the three most popular states for 91原创 homebuyers in 2022. These top choices are also popular American retirement destinations along with states with fewer cold weather days each year than northern states.
The Phoenix metropolitan area, for instance, has long been a hot destination for so-called "snowbirds" from both the U.S. and Canada, who live farther north in the summer but spend their winters in warmer climates. It's such a common trend that restaurants and other businesses there advertise to and depend on the influx of customers in the winter months, sharing sentiments like, "Welcome, snowbirds!" in their shop windows and online.
91原创s spend an in Arizona each season, and Florida's economy similarly benefits from some 350,000 for part of the year.
#10. New York
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 2%
#9. Illinois
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 2%
#8. Utah
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 2%
#7. Nevada
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 2%
#6. South Carolina
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 3%
#5. Michigan
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 3%
#4. Washington
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 4%
#3. California
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 12%
#2. Arizona
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 23%
#1. Florida
- Share of all 91原创 purchases: 45%
This story originally appeared on and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
