Who's Buying Up America's Homes? New Survey Reveals Where They're From (2024)

FAQs

Who is buying up American property? ›

The top-five foreign buyers of U.S. real estate include Canada, China, Mexico, India, and the United Kingdom. Together, these five countries account for 29% of the $54.4 billion dollar volume of foreign buyer residential purchases from April 2020 to March 2021.

The company can build equity.

If the company has borrowed money to purchase the house, it can build equity over time, essentially increasing the percentage of the home it owns outright and can then borrow against later on.

With prices hitting new highs and many sales going for well over the asking price, buyers were wealthier with a median household income of $102,000. They were also overwhelmingly white, at 82%, and heterosexual, at 89%, of buyers. Just 6% were Black, 6% were Asian, and 7% were Hispanic.

The “mortgage Millennials” or Gen Z members who bought homes before prices shot up more than 30% during the pandemic, or when mortgage rates were around 3%, have the upper hand over those who did not buy during that time and now face record-high monthly mortgage payments and rising housing costs.

Chinese buyers are returning to the U.S. housing market after a long lull, but recent efforts by several states to restrict certain foreign purchases could make homebuying harder for them. Why it matters: Chinese buyers spent $6.1 billion on existing U.S. homes last year, more than any other international homebuyers.

Chinese investors are among the top foreign purchasers of residential real estate, along with Canadians, according to the National Association of Realtors. Other states have had concerns over foreign ownership of land and have made efforts to regulate it.

John Malone is the largest private landowner in the United States. Malone made his fortune as a media tycoon, building the company Tele-Communications, Inc, or TCI, and acting as its CEO before selling it to AT&T for $50 billion in 1999.

BLACKROCK AND SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES

Invitation Homes, for example, has approximately 80,000 homes for lease across the country and is the largest landlord for single-family homes in the United States (here) (here).

Large institutions owned roughly 5% of the 14 million single-family rentals nationally in early 2022, according to analysts.

As a general rule, you'll need an annual household income of at least $225,384 in order to afford a million-dollar home. However, specific salary requirements depend on factors like your interest rate and the size of your down payment.

Who just bought the most expensive house in America? ›

220 Central Park South, Penthouse 73—$188 Million

In 2019, hedge fund owner Ken Griffin logged the highest amount paid for a residence on record in the US, when he bought a penthouse for $238 million in the lauded limestone tower.

The boomers' share of selling rose to 52% in 2022 from 42% in 2021, according to an annual report by the National Association of Realtors. Baby boomers make up 39% of home buyers, up from 29% last year. Younger boomers dominated selling, comprising 30% of home sellers.

A recent study from apartment search website and research blog RentCafe reveals that the generation transitioned from renter to owner, with 52% of millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, owning a home in 2022.

In 2022, the average age of first-time homebuyers was 36, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This is up from 33 in 2021. A more notable stat, however, is that only 26% of homebuyers in 2022 were first-time homebuyers — the lowest percentage since the NAR started tracking the metric.

Baby boomers (born 1946 to 1964), still own the most homes, about 32 million, but lost around 350,000 homeowners during the same time period. Gen Z (born 1997 to 2013) made the smallest gains in homeownership over five years, just 1.6 million, for a total of about 2 million homeowner households.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) latest report on foreign ownership of American land, from 2021, 146 Chinese investors held 383,935 acres—nearly double the 193,700 acres that comprise New York City.

China owns roughly 384,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land, according to a 2021 report from the Department of Agriculture.

At the same time, the 98,600 homes purchased by foreign investors were 7.9% lower than the prior period — making up the fewest number of homes purchased since 2009. In total, foreign investment made up 2.6% of the $2.3 trillion in existing home sales in the period.

How have Chinese and Canadian investments developed over time? The share of Chinese investors in the U.S. real estate market remained somewhat constant until 2018 when it hovered at around 15 percent, before dropping to 11 percent in 2019 and then six percent in 2021.

Canadian investors lead this pack, by a long shot, with nearly 9.4 million acres of U.S. land — more acreage than 44 of the top 50 foreign landowners combined, according to the report. (These people own the most land in America.)

What countries are buying US real estate? ›

China, Canada, India, Mexico and Brazil were the top five countries of origin for foreign U.S. buyers. Chinese buyers had the highest average purchase price, at “just over $1 million,” per the report, with 31% of purchasers from China opting for properties in California.

Investors piled into the housing market in 2021 due to rock-bottom mortgage rates and surging housing demand, and are now retreating amid projections that home prices have room to fall.

The Biltmore Estate is home to the largest privately-owned house in the United States. George Vanderbilt, a prominent businessman from the late 19th and early 20th century, began constructing the Biltmore House in 1889. Located in Asheville, North Carolina, the 250-room home took six years to build.

BlackRock was founded in 1988 by Larry Fink, Robert S. Kapito, Susan Wagner, Barbara Novick, Ben Golub, Hugh Frater, Ralph Schlosstein, and Keith Anderson to provide institutional clients with asset management services from a risk management perspective.

Reflects change since 5 pm ET of prior trading day. Larry Fink is the founder, CEO and chairman of powerhouse investment management firm BlackRock, one of the world's largest asset managers. He and seven partners founded BlackRock in 1988.

Laurence D. Fink is the CEO and co-founder of BlackRock. Along with seven colleagues, he started the company. As of 31 January 2023, he owned 520,126 making him the biggest individual shareholder.

In fact, the average person will own at least three houses in their lifetime. Living in one place for most of your life may or may not be your goal, but if it is, there are things you must do as a homeowner to ensure your home lasts as long as you'd like it to.

Most rental properties are owned by individuals, but only a small share of individuals own rental property, according to IRS income-tax data. In 2018, 6.7% of individual tax filers (about 10.3 million) reported owning rental properties. Those filers reported owning 1.72 properties on average.

In the fourth quarter of 2020 there were an estimated 82.8 million owner-occupied households in the United States, according to recently released Census Bureau data. The number of homeowners increased by an estimated 2.1 million over the prior year.

What salary do you need for a 1 million mortgage? ›

Experts suggest you might need an annual income between $100,000 to $225,000, depending on your financial profile, in order to afford a $1 million home. Your debt-to-income ratio (DTI), credit score, down payment and interest rate all factor into what you can afford.

To determine whether you can afford a $650,000 home you will need to consider the following 4 factors. Based on the current average for a down payment, and the current U.S. average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage you would need to be earning $126,479 per year before taxes to be able to afford a $650,000 home.

To afford a 1 million dollar home, you need a minimum annual income of $200,000 to $225,000. You'll also need to have enough money saved for the down payment and closing costs, which can add up to over 20% of the purchase price. There are a variety of reasons someone might want a million-dollar home in the first place.

Tied with New York, Singapore often tops the list.

International Space Station: $150 Billion

The most expensive thing in the world is related to the Universe and it is the International Space Station. The amount which has gone towards its existence in terms of building and designing is $150 billion.

1. Hawaii. Hawaii is known for its beautiful beaches, warm climate, and breathtaking scenery. However, it is also the most expensive state to buy a house, with a Zillow Home Value Index of $834,582.

Experienced real estate professionals know there are hundreds of ways a deal can fall apart, from credit and financing problems to appraisals to just plain cold feet. But certainly, one of the more common deal killers is the home inspection.

Nashville was the hottest market, with an average listing time of 14 days. Seattle was the second fastest-moving, averaging 17 days. Omaha and Salt Lake City both averaged 18 days, and Cincinnati, Birmingham, Charlotte, Denver, Las Vegas, Manchester and San Francisco were also among the busiest.

The price is too high. When it comes to reasons a home isn't selling, “If it's not condition, it's always price,” says Simpkins. “And in fact, it's usually always price.”

The nation's largest private landowners are the Emmerson family in California who own over 2.4 million acres. The bulk of that land is dedicated to timber in Northern California. But the most headline-worthy transaction of 2022 was the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas.

What country owns the most US property? ›

In a study of USDA reports, Pew found the foreign country that owns the most U.S. land is not China or Russia, but rather, our neighbors north: Canada. Investors from the Great White North, according to the USDA, own about 12.8 million acres of U.S. land, most of it forest land.

Who owns the most land in the U.S.? While not private landowners, the U.S. federal government owns about 640 million acres of land, which is 28% of the land in the country. Out of all of the states, Nevada has the highest percentage of federally owned land.

1. EMMERSON FAMILY. The nation's largest private landowners, California's Emmerson family, are a prime example of this trend. Through their Sierra Pacific Industries, the Emmersons increased their landholdings by more than 100 square miles to over 2.4 million acres.

Across America, subsidiaries of the church reportedly hold 1m acres of agricultural land. This is thought to include land in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah and Texas. Church companies are also thought to hold land outside the US, including in Canada and Brazil.

Of the 1.3 billion acres of private agricultural land in the United States, foreign entities fully or partially owned roughly 40 million acres valued at $74 billion in 2021.

Foreign buyers living in the U.S. made up the lion's share of investors, buying $34.1 billion worth of U.S. homes — or 58% of the volume.

Canadian buyers made up the largest share of major foreign buyers of property in the United States in 2022 by country. In that year, Mexican buyers were the second largest group of foreign buyers, making up eight percent of foreign buyers.

Foreign investors are not allowed to buy land in China. The land in China belongs to the state and the collectives.

Chinese buyers comprise one of the largest groups of foreign buyers of residential property in the United States. Historically, between 20,000 and 40,000 residential properties were bought by Chinese nationals, but in 2022, both the sales volume and percentage of all foreign-bought properties declined.

How much does the US owe China? ›

Who Owns the Land? Of all private U.S. agricultural land, Whites account for 96 percent of the owners, 97 percent of the value, and 98 percent of the acres.

In 2019, hedge fund owner Ken Griffin logged the highest amount paid for a residence on record in the US, when he bought a penthouse for $238 million in the lauded limestone tower.