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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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Foreign buyers continue fleeing the U.S. housing market, with their activity falling 14 percent between April 2025 and March 2026 to the second-lowest level since the National Association of Realtors (NAR) started tracking purchases in 2009.
Paige Terryberry, a senior research fellow at the conservative think tank Foundation for Government Accountability, made the point in a recent opinion piece for Fox News that “each home bought by someone from outside the U.S. leaves one fewer home for Americans to buy.”
Their decline in activity, then, should offer some modest relief to U.S. buyers, who are facing less competition for the available for-sale inventory across the country. But the truth is that demand is dwindling among Americans due to affordability pressures and high mortgage rates, whose impact is felt much more than foreign buyers’ activity.
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Foreign Buyers Continue Pursuing Usual Destinations—But Their Numbers Are Shrinking
Foreign demand for U.S. housing is cooling as geopolitical uncertainty, trade tensions and elevated property costs prompt more international buyers to hold off on purchases, according to NAR’s 2026 International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate report, released on Wednesday.
Foreign buyers purchased 67,100 homes in the 12 months between April 2025 and March 2026—the equivalent of 1.7 percent of all home sales. That was down 14 percent from a year earlier.
In dollar terms, their purchases totaled $45.3 billion, or 2.0 percent of all home sales within that period, down 19 percent from a year earlier.
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“The decline in foreign homebuyer activity mirrors the decline in international visitors and tourists to the United States,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. “Even a slightly weaker U.S. dollar over the past year, which provides more purchasing power for foreigners, did not induce more activity.”
The homes they bought were relatively more expensive than the ones purchased by U.S. residents—for a median price of $465,000 compared to $413,600—and nearly half of these (48 percent) were paid all-cash—something that, in the overall market, only happens in 28 percent of deals.
A majority of foreign buyers came from Canada (16 percent, or $5.2 billion), followed by Mexico (14 percent, or $5 billion), China (11 percent, or $7.6 billion), India (9 percent or $3.7 billion), and the United Kingdom (4 percent, or $1.2 billion). Canada made a significant comeback while China slipped from top place to third compared to last year’s data, even as they spent the most on purchases of all nationalities.
The destinations they sought were among the most popular, traditionally, for snowbirds and foreign investors, with Florida topping the list and accounting for 20 percent of purchases.
California followed with 19 percent, and next came Texas (12 percent), New Jersey (4 percent), and Georgia (4 percent).
“Foreign buyers from Canada and Mexico—countries that border the U.S.—bought the most housing units. However, Chinese buyers (from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) spent the most dollars because they bought higher-priced homes, specifically in California,” Yun said. “Florida, with its beaches and favorable winter climate, continues to be the top state to draw foreign buyers.”
What Impact Does A Decline In Foreign Buyers’ Purchases Have on the U.S. Market?
Because they represent only a very small share of all U.S. home purchases, the withdrawal of foreign buyers from the market will have a limited impact on Americans.
Broader issues such as housing supply, construction levels, zoning restrictions and mortgage rates are much larger drivers of affordability than foreign ownership. The Canadian experience is a clear example of the relatively small impact of foreign buyers on the overall housing market. A few years ago, the country introduced a four-year ban on foreign-buyer purchases to improve affordability, but analyses have found limited effects because foreign buyers represented a relatively small share of transactions.
The ban is set to expire next year.
The effects of declining foreign-buyers’ purchases in the U.S. would likely be concentrated in markets where foreign buyers are most active, including Florida, California, and Texas. In Florida and Texas, where there is a significant surplus of sellers already, less competition is likely to allow buyers willing to negotiate to obtain even lower prices.
But even in these states, any benefit from foreign buyers’ retreat will be felt in the upper-priced markets more than entry-level housing, as foreign buyers tend to buy more expensive homes than regular U.S. buyers.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Cristina Diciu.
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