Engel and Völkers Americas CEO talks overseas buyers

Today’s HousingWire Daily features a crossover episode with RealTrending, a podcast that features interviews with the brightest minds in real estate and housing. In this episode, Tracey Velt, managing editor at RealTrends, an HW Media company, interviews Anthony Hitt, CEO and president of Engel & Völkers Americas.

In the episode, Hitt discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest have affected global investment in U.S. real estate over the past year. 

He also shares his expertise on global investment in the U.S. real estate market and offers some insight into who’s buying, as well the challenges in building a global brokerage.

Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Hitt. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Tracey Velt: Obviously, your brokerage company has a global focus, but you also work with domestic buyers. What are some of the things you’re seeing, what countries seem to be active in investing in real estate in the United States, and where are you seeing the most movement state to state?

Anthony Hitt:  It’s interesting, when people think of Engel & Völkers, they think of a luxury brand. They immediately think that we work exclusively with global buyers. When we look at the global investment business though, what’s interesting to me in the Americas is, we’ve always seen the impact coming from Canada. A lot of Canadians are interested in the US.

When we go over to Europe and Asia, the United States has always been a safe haven. That hasn’t changed much during the pandemic. We still have the level of interest from European buyers, whether it be a second home or an investment property. We certainly still see, especially in Canada, the influx of Asian buyers who want to be here. What the pandemic has caused, of course, is the challenge of how do you make that happen? So while we’ve seen a trend for fewer international buyers over the last year, there’s a pent-up demand that, as restrictions are decreased, we’re going to see an influx of those buyers.

HousingWire Daily examines the most compelling articles reported across HW Media. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories from across our newsrooms that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Victoria Jones.