Southwest Florida Real Estate a Bargain… For Europeans
With an exchange rate of roughly $1.38 for each euro, Southwest Florida real estate looks like a relative bargain to buyers from Europe.
Which goes to show that the Southwest Florida housing market slump is all relative - to Europeans, it would appear like a seller’s market.
After all, they can get more square footage for their euro than back home while the warm, sunny weather is a major improvement over what they might experience in Scandinavia or Great Britain.
It’s an attraction that’s not lost on Florida real estate agents.
This week, many of them will gather at Lakewood Ranch for a three-day session to discuss trends in international real estate, profiles of European buyers, immigration and government policies affecting U.S. and Florida real estate and much more.
The International Council of the Sarasota Association of Realtors is organizing the Sarasota International Real Estate Congress from Thursday through Saturday at Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club.
Dale Friedley of the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s Office said the trend in international buyers has shifted from being predominantly Canadian to increasing numbers of Britons and Germans.
There are 164,000 total parcels and 2,227 - 1.35 percent - are foreign owned, Friedley said. Showing the strongest growth are the Brits, who account for 760 parcels, up from 288 in 2000.
John Swart, chief executive officer of Lakewood Ranch Commercial Real Estate, will serve as a panelist this week.
Many areas of Southwest Florida already have a sizable international segment of second-home buyers - affluent owners who aren’t hampered by the Florida mortgage concerns that continue to plague the natives of the area.
“Often what happens is that someone will have a relative or friend buy in an area. Then they will talk about it and then other friends and whatnot will gravitate to those same areas,” Swart said.
“The only issues from an international perspective are the holding costs of insurance and property taxes.”
Paulette Gaar, vice president of Wagner Realty, with offices in Manatee and Sarasota County, said Wagner’s staff has bilingual staff members who work with increasing numbers of international buyers.
Milt Flinn, a broker for Lakewood Ranch Realty, said he has several agents on his staff who were born in European countries.
All the Scandinavian languages, as well as Polish, Yugoslavian, German and French are spoken in his office, Flinn said.
Understandably, agents find buyers feel more comfortable buying property if they are able to communicate in their own language.
And, in an effort to lure even greater numbers of Florida mortgage applicants, a trio of Brits on the staff lobbied to advertise the company’s listings on the largest real estate site in the United Kingdom.
“We get 200,000 viewings every 30 days. We have about 200 homes on the site right now,” Flinn said. “What we have here is a phenomenal deal for the square footage, compared to England.”
SOURCE: Bradenton Herald
