Rising home prices lead Americans to start buying in Europe
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(NewsNation) — As home prices, and the cost of living itself, continue to increase, more Americans are relocating to Europe.
Bloomberg reports that Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece and France are among the most popular destinations people from the U.S. are flocking to. Requests from Americans looking to move to Greece, in particular, rose 40% in the April-to-June period, compared to a year earlier, according to Sotheby’s International Realty, while a Knight Frank real estate specialist Bloomberg spoke to said U.S. demand for places to live in France and Italy is the highest it’s been in at least three years.
Americans, Bloomberg wrote, made up 12% of Sotheby’s Italian revenue in the first quarter. A year ago, it was 5%.
NewsNation business contributor Lydia Moynihan, a reporter with the New York Post, said this is just the economic reality that Americans are grappling with.
“People used to come from Europe to America to pursue the American dream,” she said. But currently, “This is just the economic reality that Americans are grappling with — that now, you can have a better quality of life in Europe, arguably, than you can in any major city in the United States.”
Although Bloomberg points out that it’s traditionally been the wealthy and retirees who have been prime American buyers of European real estate, cheap housing and the rise of remote work have attracted younger people to the continent. This is especially true as people are priced out of the housing market, and rising crime rates in some U.S. cities and political divisions have led Americans to look for a quieter lifestyle, the publication pointed out.
For instance, the average price of a home in Atlanta was $404,575 as of June 30. That’s 19% higher than in 2021. In comparison, an 800-square-foot property in Sicily cost 86,560 euros on average, Bloomberg said. That is $88,462 U.S. dollars.
“I would never have looked to buy in Italy if the market in the U.S. hadn’t been so crazy,” Stephanie Synclair, 40, who moved to the country from Atlanta, told Bloomberg. Now, Synclair, an entrepreneur, has plans to work remotely while she explores the local food, wine and arts scene.
