Rich Foreigners Buy U.S. Homes: Unreal Estate

Buyers from India paid the most, a median price of $322,200, with those from the U.K. and China shelling out an average of $275,000. British purchasers were more likely than those from other countries to spend more than $1 million for a property. Buyers from Mexico increased their share of million-dollar purchases as well, from 3.9% in 2008 to 6.8% in 2009.

"Real estate in the United States is still viewed as a very safe, very good investment by the foreign buyers," says Norman Flynn, the association's past president. "They will still maintain a very positive impact on the market as it continues to move forward."

Florida is starting to recover from its "cataclysmic drops," Flynn says. "It is the one state that is probably the most attractive to foreign buyers."

Flynn finds it intriguing that Asian buyers are, for the first time, starting to show interest in the Sunshine State. These buyers, who once primarily bought property on the West Coast, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, are also showing new interest in other regions.

"I'm aware of one firm that strictly works with Vietnamese clientele in Virginia and does extremely well," he says. "You wouldn't think of Northern Virginia as a hotbed of Vietnamese buyers, but they have 42 agents -- all of them Vietnamese -- and they are doing very, very well."

-- Reported by Joe Mont in Boston.

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