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Region in Top 10 for International Home Buyers

Posted: March 28th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Investor Visas, Sarasota Immigrants | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The “Sarasota Herald-Tribune” has reported that Sarasota county is No. 4 in the country for foreign home-buyers.   In fact, five of the top ten regions for foreign home buyers are in Florida.  They include, “Lakeland-Winter Haven, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Orlando and Miami-Fort Lauderdale. Tampa-St. Petersburg came in at No. 9.”  In Sarasota County 6.5% of homes are bought by someone from overseas.

Here are some figures:

6.7 percent of buyers were foreign in Sarasota County from May 2011 to January 2012, while 6.1 percent were from another country in Manatee County.

13.1 percent of new homes sold in Sarasota were to foreign buyers while 12.3 percent of existing condominium sales in Manatee changed hands to international buyers.

Most intriguing is this:

The percentage of buyers who pay in cash is even higher than domestic buyers, who in 65 percent of transactions handled by Michael Saunders made their purchase without a loan in 2011, she said.

Most of these foreign buyers come from Canada, with the UK coming in second.  The county is seeing a small increase in the number of home buyers from Asia and Latin America.