By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
It’s a niche market, to be sure.
But, international homebuyers are coming to Jacksonville, and real estate agents who are trained to work with them stand above their competition.
Realtors learned who’s coming and how to find them at a September international real estate conference, sponsored by the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors’ Global Business Council.
Realtor Global homebuyers bought $92.2 billion worth of real estate in the U.S. market last year. That’s up 35 percent from the year before and accounts for 7 percent of total existing home sales, according to the National Association of Realtors 2014 Profile of International Home Buying Activity.
Florida got 23 percent of those buyers, nearly double that of the next busiest state.
South and Central Florida captured the lion’s share of Florida’s global business. Jacksonville had only 3 percent of the state’s sales, but is still very attractive to buyers, said conference speaker Vani Ungapen, director of Global Business and Legislative Research for Florida Realtors.
A third of foreign buyers are purchasing a vacation home; one-quarter buy rentals for investment purposes. Retirement is not a big driver, though, because of visa restrictions. Only 6 percent are of foreign buyers are retiring here, Ungapen said.
Canadians top the list of foreign nationals statewide. But in the Jacksonville area, where global homebuyers purchased $244 million last year, the top countries of origin were the U.K., Venezuela, Western Europe, Latin America and China.
Realtors like global buyers because the often pay in cash (82 percent) and they purchase more expensive homes, $300,000 on average in Florida.
Some Realtors travel to overseas real estate conferences to market themselves to prospective buyers. But Ungapen said there are ways Realtors can find international clients much closer to home.
• Be involved in organizations that focus on global business, such as JaxUSA and Enterprise Florida. These groups sell the city and state as a good place to relocate a business.
• Work with universities; many of them have offices for their international students. Many foreign students have parents who are wealthy and who would rather buy a condo as an investment, rather than pay for a rental for four years.
• Make your website user friendly to global buyers, with features like language translation. floridarealtors.org/Global has tips on how to do this.
• Advertise in international magazines.
• Attend trade expos and trade missions. Not all of them are held overseas. This year’s NAR conference in New Orleans, for example, has about 2,000 international agents from 40 different countries that attend.
• Participate in Sister Cities events. Jacksonville has sister cities in eight different countries.
• Reach out to companies directly. About 25 foreign-based companies have offices in the Jacksonville area. Their employees need homes. Enterprise Florida keeps a list of those companies with contact information of top executives.
Are you sending the right message to your international home buyer?
Business coach Marie Hope shared these tips on gift-giving customs from around the world.
• Latin countries: Business relationships become personal. Find out about your Latin client’s lifestyle, then select insightful gifts that will reflect how important the person is.
• British: A nice dinner or bottle of wine makes a good gift.
• Hindu: When giving a gift, expect that is will not be opened when it is received.
• Muslim: The Koran forbids alcohol. Gifts of liquor or any product that contains alcohol, such as perfume, should never be selected.
• Chinese: A gift will be refused three times before finally being accepted.
• Worldwide: Fine chocolates are a gift that is universally appropriate.