By Evan Philip, March 3, 2015
As India’s economy and GDP continue to grow exponentially, real estate companies in the Greater Seattle area have begun to focus on Indian investors to further home sales. According to a report by the Puget Sound Business Journal, 7% of existing U.S. home sales is attributed to foreign buyers. Of this portion, 6% of those buyers are from India, representing $5.8 billion in home sales from April 2013 to March 2014. This is an increase of $1.9 billion from the same period the year before, demonstrating the large potential profit in the years to come.
In the past, China has been one of the main focuses of real estate companies for investment from international sources. However, with the changing international demographics in the region, real estate companies are shifting their focus towards potential Indian buyers. Typically when Indians immigrate to the U.S., they look for property in areas that already have well-established Indian-American communities. In the Puget Sound region, Indian home buyers look towards Bellevue for potential properties. The U.S. Census reported that in 2010 more than 7% of Bellevue’s population was comprised of people from India.
The International Monetary Fund reports that India is currently the 11th largest economy in the world, and is the 3rd largest by purchasing power parity. It is also the second most populous country in the world, with over 1.2 billion people. Additionally, the Migration Policy Institute reports that there were over 1.9 million Indian immigrants living in the U.S. in 2011, the third largest immigrant group by country of origin. With such high levels of immigration and economic growth, real estate companies should not be the only ones looking to India for future investment and business!
