Canadians Now Biggest Foreign Buyers Of U.S. Homes

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By JUNE FLETCHER

September 5, 2008; Page W8

Andre LeBel knew he had come home when he walked into a bar in St. Petersburg, Fla., ordered a Bloody Caesar and the bartender made it without cocking an eyebrow.

The spicy drink -- a blend of vodka, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce and tomato and clam juices -- is popular in his native Canada, but until recently it was virtually unknown elsewhere. That was before Canadians started to snap up property in the U.S., drawn by the buying power of the newly strong Canadian dollar and the depressed prices of American real estate. The largest proportion of foreign buyers of U.S. homes from May 2007 to May 2008 -- 24% -- were Canadian, double the percentage a year earlier, according to a recent report by the National Association of Realtors.

Most Canadian buyers head for the Sunbelt, with Florida accounting for a third of all of their purchases, the report said. The Realtor group estimates there were 7,200 Canadian buyers of Florida homes in the period covered by the report, more than double the 3,500 a year earlier. In some Florida resort communities, so many Quebec residents have bought second homes that French is now commonly spoken.

Mr. LeBel says there are about two dozen fellow Canadians at the Pasadena Yacht and Country Club in the St. Petersburg suburb of Gulfport, where he bought a $360,000 penthouse condo in December. He golfs regularly with Toronto friends who jet down to their second homes on weekends, and he has no trouble finding Canadians to join him at Tampa hockey games to root for visiting Canadian teams. "We're making the area more cosmopolitan," jokes Mr. LeBel, chief executive of SOCAN, a Canadian copyright collective.

The Canadian dollar hit a high of US$1.10 in July 2007 and is now worth about 94 cents; it was worth only 80 cents three years ago. Unlike many Americans, Canadians also feel flush from a continued strong housing market and escalating home equity. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, overall home prices grew 11% in 2007 from the year before, to an average of $307,265, and they are expected to rise an additional 5.3% in 2008. The group says home sales have been boosted by growth in after-tax income, strong employment and short-term interest-rate cuts in Canada.

Florida has long been a popular vacation destination for Canadians. Yet they had chiefly been renters, since many were priced out of buying. Now, their tendency to buy in clusters is starting to change the character of some resort communities.

In the four years since they bought a two-bedroom condo in Hawaiian Gardens in Lauderdale Lakes, Fla., Rachel and Pierre Valois say the number of fellow French Canadians in their six-building section of the community has grown from a handful to the point where they now exceed the Americans. Mrs. Valois says community parties now include traditional foods from Quebec like homemade baguettes, pâtés and crudités, and the homeowners' association newsletter and all community announcements are written in both French and English. "A lot of residents seldom speak English," says Mrs. Valois, a retired supervisor for a hydroelectric company. "Some don't speak English at all."

That bothers Ethelreda Farnsworth, a retired fashion coordinator from Pittsburgh who has spent winters at Hawaiian Gardens since 1985. She says she no longer attends events like the annual New Year's Eve celebration because she doesn't speak French and doesn't know what her neighbors are talking about. Instead, she and the remaining American residents gather for a party in her two-bedroom condo. "We feel like outsiders," she says.

Csaba Horvath, a 45-year-old Montreal computer engineer, bought a $220,000 vacation condo in Hollywood, Fla., last winter at the urging of a French Canadian friend, who had already purchased a home in the same high-rise complex called Quadomain. After he closed on his one-bedroom unit in July and was on his first vacation there, Mr. Horvath was surprised when he got on an elevator, nodded to a fellow resident and got the reply: "Bonjour." Mr. Horvath has since bought a second condo in the complex that he plans to rent out. "Everybody loves Canadians because we pay in cash," he says.

Financial firms are helping drive the move. HiFX PLC, a San Francisco division of a British asset-transfer firm, held two seminars in Canada this year on how to buy U.S. houses -- and drew 400 people in Calgary and 200 in Toronto. Canadians sometimes have trouble getting American loans, and U.S. banks often require them to make down payments of up to 50%. Sensing a market, RBC Bank, a U.S. division of Royal Bank Financial Group in Toronto, set up a program that allows Canadians to buy U.S. property worth up to $2 million with a down payment of less than 25%. RBC has doubled the amount of such loans it has issued over the last year, says Alain Forget, a company vice president.

After Florida, the second most popular U.S. destination for home-buying Canadians is Arizona, the Realtor report says. In Phoenix, 752 Canadians bought homes in 2007, almost double the number of the year before, according to Information Market, a data firm. For real-estate agents who have seen home prices drop for more than 15 straight months, the Canadians are a godsend. Arizona's priciest home sale this year was a $14 million mansion in Paradise Valley purchased by an Ontario attorney, Jeffrey Slopen. But Canadians of more modest means also are buying.

Agent Mark Carvalho changed his business approach last year to focus on Canadians. He launched a Web site called Canadians2Arizona.com, which includes testimonials from Canadian buyers and schedules of the Phoenix Coyote hockey team. His proportion of Canadian clients jumped to 90% from 10%, he says. Agent Mark Dziedzic calls his Web site -- which shows a cactus-filled landscape under a banner of maple leaves -- ArizonaforCanadians.com, and his agents are called Team Canada. The Phoenix broker, who used to be a Toronto financial planner, estimates that about half of current home shoppers in the region are Canadians.

Scott Robinson, an Ontario sales manager, just closed on a stone-and-stucco house in North Phoenix with a three-car garage, saltwater pool and sports court. He plans to use the house, which is less than two years old, as a vacation home. The owners originally asked $622,000, but it was being offered for $525,000 in a "short sale," or below the level of the mortgage. He got it for $386,000. "For that, you'd get a fixer-upper" in a Canadian resort area, Mr. Robinson says.

Lenora Hanwell, a Calgary schoolteacher, has never been to Arizona. But she says she has spent hundreds of hours trolling the Internet for "smoking deals" on Phoenix duplexes. She plans to make an offer soon, sight unseen. "The market's so low, you have to get in," she says.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1220583879...=googlenews_wsj

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Foreigners invading our borders.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Foreigners invading our borders.

Yeah, I loved the bit about "feeling like outsiders". Damn French speaking frogs!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Foreigners invading our borders.

Yeah, I loved the bit about "feeling like outsiders". Damn French speaking frogs!

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Probably for several years now.

As of 1998, there were 660 thousand Canadians (not including Canadian/American duals) in the US--including on Green Cards, temp work, student and dependant visas. If you factor in that several of these (temp workers and GC holders) would have bought homes....

[Cassie 8]

My friend doesn't call me "sleeper cell" for nothing!

Buwhahahahahahahahahaa!!!!!

[Marilyn. 340]

My friend doesn't call me "sleeper cell" for nothing!

Buwhahahahahahahahahaa!!!!!

yeha I have been telling people for awhile now that us Canadians have been planning to take over the US.... one American at a time...

[Cassie 8]

My friend doesn't call me "sleeper cell" for nothing!

Buwhahahahahahahahahaa!!!!!

yeha I have been telling people for awhile now that us Canadians have been planning to take over the US.... one American at a time...

hehehe that's what my friend said to me: "We shouldn't worry so much about the Middle East, we need to keep an eye on those quiet polite Canadians coming down and getting married and just living under the radar until the day they get THE phone call....."