Swooping In From Overseas

Hasan Nazzal, who lives in the United Arab Emirates, has been shopping since December for land in Virginia where he could build a house and possibly keep horses. Leesburg appeals to him, he said, because it's close to one of his brothers, who has lived in the area for nine years.

"I see this as being for my son's future" or maybe a place for the family to gather, he said.

Nazzal, an engineer who owns an interior-design firm, said he can spend $1 million on the land.

As real estate agent Susan Safer bluntly put it, the home shoppers "are basically people with money."

Safer, who works for Tutt Taylor & Rankin Sotheby's International Realty, cited a man who spotted her firm's advertisement in a leaflet while waiting at his doctor's office in London. He picked up the phone, "and boom, he bought a house in Georgetown," she said. "Your grocery clerk in London is not going to have discretionary income to do that."

A study last year by the National Association of Realtors confirms the anecdotes. About 25 percent of the real estate agents surveyed in summer 2007 said they had more business from international clients than they did five years ago. The weak dollar was cited as one of the reasons for the uptick.

More than a quarter of the foreign buyers bought their homes with cash, and when they took out loans, they put down more money than domestic buyers, the study found.

About 26 percent of foreign buyers ended up in Florida and another 16 percent in California, with Texas in third place.

The Washington area ranked nowhere among the top 10 destinations, which does not surprise Guy-Didier Godat, an agent in the District with Evers & Co. The nation's capital traditionally has not been a hot spot for foreign buyers, he said. It lacks the vacation appeal of Miami or the it-place aura of New York, he said.

But that is changing, especially as prices in the D.C. region drop, said Godat, as he drove to Reagan National Airport to pick up a couple from Uruguay who had come to make an offer on a condominium. Bargain hunters aren't finding many deals in Manhattan, where prices have held up. Meanwhile, foreign buyers are worried about the economies of the usual warm-weather vacation spots as concern about a recession rises, other agents said. In addition, an increasing number of foreign companies and institutions have U.S. operations in the Washington area.

Philippe Rousseau, 37, moved to Bethesda last year when the French biotech company he works for transferred him to its Gaithersburg office. He originally intended to rent a house. But, disappointed with the rental offerings, he decided to buy instead because the euro was strong.

"We figured buying a house would be better for us, even if we're only staying a few years," Rousseau said. "The exchange rate made it easier for us to make a 20 percent down payment."

Alexandre Winter, who is French, moved to the District four years ago to develop a U.S. office for a software company he owned in France. He later sold the company and considered using the proceeds, as well as some money from an inheritance, to buy property in Europe. "We still have a family house in Europe, and I was thinking of buying the shares of my brothers and sisters and renting it," he said.

But instead, he's shopping with Godat for an investment property in the $800,000-to-$900,000 range.

"It makes more sense to take that money and invest it here," Winter said.