Foreign buyers snag U.S. housing units

The Viceroy, a swank condominium complex in Miami, gives the impression that the United States is in another real estate boom. The sales office is exuberant. Buyers gush about the glam condos - designed by hipster tastemaker Kelly Wearstler - and their hotel-like amenities: poolside libations, daily housekeeping, and room service food stirred up by a celebrity chef.

This year, 262 of the Viceroy's 372 units have sold. But there's a twist: Nearly 90 percent of the buyers are foreigners. And they all paid cash.

The Viceroy's story is playing out across Miami and other big cities. Individual investors from Argentina, Canada, Colombia, France, Israel, Italy, Norway, and Venezuela are swarming sales offices to get in on what they see as one of the greatest real estate fire sales in U.S. history.

At one time, these people would have invested in the U.S. stock market. Now they see opportunity in the nation's debilitated housing market. The idea for the buyers is to rent out the properties and then sell them once the economy turns around.

The math is seductive: Prices at the Viceroy are roughly 52 percent off the 2007 peak. Units once sold for as much $670 a square foot. Today, the average price is $319.

"I have never seen such a high concentration of foreign nationals acquiring real estate," said Peter Zalewski, who has been in real estate for 15 years and founded Condo Vultures, a consulting and brokerage firm. "Eighty percent of the sales in downtown Miami are foreign-based."

Real estate brokers say they've seen surges in Washington, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In Seattle, Asians are buying property sight unseen, says Joe Brazen of Brazen Sotheby's International. In New York, 25 percent of buyers at the Armani-designed 20 Pine building, near the World Trade Center site, are from overseas.

"It's a positive in a sea of negatives," said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, a real estate consulting firm in New York.

This year in Phoenix, for the first time, there have been more buyers from Canada than from California, according to real estate data outfit, Information Market.

For the international investor class, the United States' bloated inventory of homes, high unemployment, and weak currency make for an unusually attractive buyers' market.

"Never before have all these things come together like this," said Patrick O'Neill, chief executive officer of the Hong Kong-based O'Neill Group, which helps the Chinese invest in international real estate. O'Neill said Chinese buying in places like New York is on track to double this year.

"Unless you want to go to Baghdad," O'Neill says, "the United States is the best you can get."