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ObserverBritish visitors to America have grown used to the strange sensation of seeing bargains at every turn. They return from New York or Florida laden with jeans, designer shoes, CDs and iPods. Now they are buying homes, too.
The US property market, undergoing troubled times because of the credit crisis, has suddenly become great value for Britons dismayed by sky-high house prices at home. The market has been driven by an exchange rate that has risen above two dollars to the pound for the first time since the early 1980s.
British buyers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are looking for holiday homes at prices they could not have hoped to pay a few years ago. Others are selling their British houses and moving to the US. Still others are starting to buy shops and businesses. A recent survey showed that one in five US estate agents has sold a home to a foreign buyer in the past year, and 12 per cent were British, representing a third of all European buyers. In Manhattan the situation is even more foreign-dominated, with overseas buyers making up about a third of purchases in new condominiums (blocks of flats with the freehold jointly owned by the tenants).
The sheer speed of the collapse of the dollar is key. The pound has risen 34 per cent against the dollar compared with five years ago, including 10 per cent in the past 12 months. The euro has done even better, jumping 47 per cent since 2002.
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