Foreign buyers purchased residential properties for a variety of reasons and across geographic areas, with the prices of properties purchased typically above those of domestic buyers, according to NAR’s recently released 2016 Profile of International Activity in U.S. Residential Real Estate.
On average, foreign buyers paid $477,462 which is higher than the average price of all existing homes sold in the U.S. at $266,683.[1] In terms of the typical residential property purchased by foreign buyers, the median price of these properties was $277,380 compared to $223,058 for all existing homes sold in the U.S. in the same time period.[2]





[1] The mean or the average price is used to calculate the dollar volume of purchases and can be used as a measure of central tendency. It is found by summing the responses and dividing by the number of responses.
[2] The median is the middle value of the distribution. Half of all purchases fall below this value and half are above this value. Because home values tend to skew to the higher end, the median is often a better reflection of typical market activity.