Despite a foreign policy overhaul by the Trump administration that has dramatically reset ties between the U.S. and its allies, trading partners and adversaries around the globe, demand among foreign investors for a slice of the American homeownership dream has remained resilient.
Foreign buyers represented 1.6% of online visitor traffic to Realtor.com’s for-sale home listings during the first quarter, the real estate platform reported Tuesday. That figure is slightly below the 1.8% share of online traffic that foreign buyers claimed a year ago, but is well above the 1.2% share recorded in early 2020, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But international buyer demand is shifting, the company indicated, in response to geopolitical tensions and evolving investor appetites as U.S. housing markets adapt to various on-the-ground conditions.
Major markets tend to attract the bulk of in foreign buyer demand, and that remained the case during the first quarter. Miami, for example, claimed more than 10% of all international buyer views to Realtor.com’s listings. Following were New York, Los Angeles and two more Florida metros, Orlando and Tampa, each claiming between 2.8% and 4.7% share.
Los Angeles, however, has lost considerable favor in the eyes of foreign buyers for the past several years, with overseas online listings traffic slipping from nearly 8% during the first quarter of 2020 to 4.6% in the early months of 2026.
“Los Angeles’ declining global appeal is less about losing its allure and more about becoming less competitive,” said Realtor.com, citing market factors like spiking insurance costs and a high tax burden in the state that have made homeownership in LA “increasingly punishing for wealthy international buyers.”
In lieu of Los Angeles, the listings platform says southern markets like Dallas and Miami have grown their online traffic share among international buyers. Online traffic to Dallas originating in North America but outside the U.S. grew from 1.6% a year ago to 2.7% during the first quarter, while rising from 1.5% to 2.3% among South American shoppers.
“Sun Belt markets now offer a compelling combination of affordability, growth and lower taxes that Los Angeles simply can’t match,” the report continued. But the origin of international demand for certain U.S. markets is also shifting.
The slapping of hefty tariffs on Canadian imports and the war of words between political leaders about 51st statehood led to a sharp decline in Canadian demand for U.S. real estate last year. So-called Canadian “snow birds” typically represent the deepest pool of international liquidity, with concentrated interest in warmer, sunnier, southern U.S. markets.
After dropping from 41.8% of foreign online traffic share prior to last April’s tariff announcements to 34.8% afterward, Canadian online traffic share had recovered slightly to 37.8% by the first quarter of 2026 to 37.8%, signaling a cautious reengagement.
“The rebound in interest we’re seeing in Sun Belt and Southwest metros reflects that the appeal of warm weather and relative affordability hasn’t faded — but the full recovery of pre-tariff enthusiasm has yet to materialize,” said Jiayi Xu, an economist at Realtor.com quoted in the report. “These trends underscore how geopolitical and economic policy decisions can have lasting ripple effects on real estate demand, even across borders.”
Listings traffic from Mexico (6.4%), the United Kingdom (5.9%), Germany (3.9%) and Australia (3%) rounded out the list of top five countries from which the largest shares of international listings traffic originated during the first quarter.
