3 days ago
Foreigners Are Buying US Homes Again While Americans Get Sidelined
In 2018, Luka Malkovich bought two duplexes in Milwaukee for about $100,000 each. The rental properties became a steady source of passive income, helping him to buy an additional six properties in Wisconsin. The now 30-year-old conducts most of his business from afar, splitting his time between the US, Serbia and his home country of Montenegro. From a real estate standpoint, he says, there's no better bet than America. 'It doesn't matter the administration, doesn't matter the president—it's always the US,' Malkovich says. 'The perfect time to invest here is always five years ago.'
Malkovich is too young to have experienced the 2008 housing crisis as a homeowner, but many foreigners hold the same optimistic view of the market. Sales of existing US real estate to non-US citizens hit $56 billion in the year through March, up 33% from the same period the year before, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The more than 78,000 existing properties sold to foreign buyers in that time totaled far fewer than what sales reached at the peak of such purchases, in 2017, but they represent the first increase in eight years.
