No, not YOU guys – you can stay

The Long March home

Foreign buyers disappear from U.S. real estate market

Foreign purchases of U.S. homes have dropped by half over the last two years, a fresh blow to the top end of the market in New York City, Miami and cities in California.

Foreigners bought less than $78 billion worth of U.S. residential real estate in the year that ended in March—a 36% decline from $121 billion the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors.

Their pullback is leading to price cuts in several coastal cities and causing new condos to sit empty.

A slowing global economy, a simmering trade dispute with China, President Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric and a stronger U.S. dollar have made America a less hospitable place for foreigners to invest over the last year, economists and real-estate agents said.

Purchases by foreigners are now at the lowest level since 2013, when buyers from Chinaand South America first began entering the U.S. market in large numbers in search of bargains and a safe place to stow their capital.

“It’s quite striking in terms of the magnitude of the decline,” said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors’ chief economist.

Real-estate agents said the pain from the foreign pullback is palpable when they try to sell high-end condos in Miami and New York or mansions in southern California and Seattle.

“Generally speaking, we are in the largest market correction since the Great Recession in New York City,” said Martin Eiden, a real-estate agent at Compass, who has had to cut prices on listings from Midtown Manhattan to Brooklyn in the last year.

“The foreign buyers have pretty much all but disappeared,” he added. “I’m helping a lot of foreign buyers get their money out of this country as fast as possible.”

No more $800,000 condos for the kids in college, either, according to the article.

We don’t have a huge inventory of Chinese buyers in Greenwich (though one did buy an $11-million house on John Street this spring), but if the NYC condo market slows, that could affect who can move out here, and what they can afford to pay.