Canadians driving sales boom in Florida

Published 17th Jun 2011

The strength of the Canadian dollar, and the desire of the USA's northern neighbours to secure a cut-price home in the sunshine state, is thought to be behind a large increase in property sales across the board in Florida last quarter.

According to the National Association of Realtors, 17 out of the state's 19 metropolitan areas recorded a sales increase year-on-year in Q1 2011, with a 13% sales growth overall across Florida. This is reflected in The Move Channel's own search data for June, which has seen a 61% increase in Florida property enquiries compared to the same month last year.

Local agents report that the increase is primarily due to growing interest from Canadian buyers, whose strong dollar is prompting them to secure a dirt-cheap holiday home in the sunshine state. "Without a doubt, Canada is fast becoming the best market for Floridian property", says Garrett Kenny, CEO of estate agency Coldwell Banker Feltrim. "This was proved when I recently re-launched a prime development in Orlando and the first 15 sales we made were all to Canadian cash buyers." A recent report from the Bank of Montreal would seem to prove Kenny's claim - one in five of customers surveyed by the bank would consider buying US property for investment or personal use.

As an established market for families, particularly in the city of Orlando where Disney World has been a children's mecca for decades, Florida is an ideal market for overseas buyers to secure a property, particularly with prices now bottoming out so severely, says Ray Withers of investment firm Property Frontiers. "Orlando remains one of the most sought after vacation destinations due to the guaranteed sunshine and wealth of activities available", says Withers. "It is certainly a good time to buy, particularly as high quality homes are now on the market for less than 50% of what they were priced at five years ago."

Source: ' TMC '

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