I’ve increasingly heard questions from our various industry clients and partners like, “How can I reach out to International buyers?” or “Are you planning to do something internationally?” Not only that, my European friends have started bombarding me with questions like, “Can you help me understand the local real estate market in the U.S.? and “Where should I buy now?” That is not only because I happen to have strong European roots, but the weak dollar and obvious real estate bargains have increased fellow Europeans’ appetite to buy U.S. real estate.
The good news for U.S. based brokers and agents is that the Internet has made it easy for even the smallest local company to promote themselves internationally. As an example, Trulia is a 100% U.S. focused online real estate search site, but it attracts a large number of international home buyers and investors. We’ve previously posted some testimonials from agents who have found international buyers through Trulia. Inspired by the recent flux of questions from local companies and international buyers, I decided to dig a little deeper and share our numbers for everyone’s benefit.
What States are International Home Buyers looking at on Trulia?
Here are the TOP 6 states with the largest international audience (% of all visits from outside of U.S.)
It may come as no surprise that the sun state is the most searched location for international buyers. Considering Trulia’s more than 5 Million unique users each month, these percentages speak huge volumes.
How about at a city level?
Miami, Florida still tops the list, but what is most surprising is that at a city level the international audience is more than 10% for the Top 5 U.S. Cities - Miami, L.A., Orlando, NYC/Manhattan and Las Vegas.
And to translate the percentages into something more tangible, for example in Manhattan, we had more than 20,000 unique international buyers searching during last quarter.
Where are these international buyers coming from?
Here’s an example for Manhattan - U.K. topping the list: (percentage of international visitors coming from each country):
How do we know all this?
We simply track where the users are coming from and match that with what they are looking for on Trulia. As a result we are also able to offer our advertisers hyper targeted advertising campaigns, for example: “Display this advertisement specifically for European buyers who are searching in Manhattan” or “Display this Chinese ad for those Asians who are searching for homes in San Francisco”.
Good luck with finding international buyers! They are out there in large volumes now! If you want to create some hyper targeted advertising campaigns, please contact our sales team.
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September 24th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
In addition to Trulia’s website, I suggest getting involved with some International Groups. At our Realtors Association here in Palm Beach County, we have an International Business Council that has networking events once a month, educational seminars as well as NAR Certified International Designations, which will put you into the networking groups for each designation. For more information please contact Ytonna Finnegan at 561-688-1352 or email at yfinnegan@rapb.com.
Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches
http://www.RAPB.com
http://www.RAPBInternational.com
September 29th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Brett Shaw from Cyberhomes:
It is no surprise that people overseas are interested in U.S. homes. Especially with the financial mess we are in now. There are many options for people to look at homes in the U.S. without having to visit them. Real estate websites make it easy for people to see homes. At Cyberhomes.com, listings are coupled with a large amount of local information, economic trends, crime rates, schools, etc. Google even has the streetview so that someone can “walk” down the street from anywhere in the world. Technology is definitely making the world smaller.