Redfin: Luxury home sales fall; foreign demand lax

Real estate brokerage Redfin reported that sales of U.S. luxury home fell 2.2 percent in the third quarter, compared to the same period last year, in a market with fewer foreign buyers.

“We’ve … seen banks in the Miami area raise lending requirements for buyers in Venezuela and other Latin American countries affected by the slump in energy prices,” Nela Richardson, chief economist of Seattle-based Redfin told Luxury Daily.

“Redfin agents in the San Francisco Bay Area report that some of the Chinese buyers they are working with have cancelled their plans to buy homes in the U.S. now due to concerns about the stock market,” she said.

Redfin reported that the 2.2 percent year-over-year decline in luxury home sales in the third quarter was the first annual drop since 2012.

Redfin also reported that, despite the slowdown in sales of luxury homes, luxury-home prices rose almost 4 percent in the third quarter, compared to the third quarter of 2014.

Richardson also told Luxury Daily that the stock market will remain an important factor in the luxury home market: “High-end buyers tend to be sensitive to stock market volatility while buyers in the rest of the market are not quick to react to it. Particularly in enclaves that foreign buyers are attracted to, we’ve noticed a change.” [Luxury Daily] — Mike Seemuth