Foreign buyers dig Gulf Coast

The Gulf Coast residential real estate market scored a big victory in a new study of international home buying activity.

In fact, according to DataQuick and Inman News, the Gulf Coast's three metro areas all make the top 10 list of where foreign buyers purchased homes for most of 2011. DataQuick is a San Diego-based real estate data analysis firm, and Inman News is a real estate news company, based in Alameda, Calif.

The study analyzed homes purchased in 97 major metropolitan areas nationwide from May 2011 through January where a foreign mailing address was on the buyer's property deed.

The Cape Coral-Fort Myers area ranked second on the list, while the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota region was fourth. The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area ranked ninth.

Clearly, price played a role in the rankings. While the residential market on the Gulf Coast is a shell of what it was in the boom, to many foreign buyers, that means bargains.

For example, prominent local real estate executive Michael Saunders told Inman News that about 13% of the firm's 2011 transactions were connected to a foreign buyer. Saunders, founder of one of the largest real estate firms on the Gulf Coast, Michael Saunders & Co., says buyers have come everywhere from Canada and England to Brazil and Russia.

The DataQuick-Inman News list, moreover, was Florida-heavy, past the Gulf Coast trio. Lakeland-Winter Haven; Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach; and Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, also made the list. The full list:

1.) Lakeland-Winter Haven
2.) Cape Coral-Fort Myers
3.) Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford
4.) North Point-Bradenton-Sarasota
5.) Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach
6.) Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, Ariz.
7.) New York County, N.Y. (Manhattan)
8.) Honolulu, Hawaii.
9.) Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater
10.) Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev.
Source: Inman News, DataQuick