Canadians snapping up American homes
Movin' on up!
Snowbirds get to move up the ladder
Two hours after his flight landed in Phoenix, Calgary resident Doug Farley already was cruising the city’s vast stuccoed suburbs in search of the one attraction Canadians can’t seem to get enough of these days, cheap homes.
There are thousands of them here: almost new, unoccupied and dropping in value. The mortgage meltdown, combined with a surging Canadian currency, has Farley — and many of his countrymen — dreaming of winter golf on grass that’s always green…
“My dollar’s the same as your dollar, finally,” Farley said, grinning as he peered through a pool fence at a sparsely populated condominium complex in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb…
In Arizona, Jason Sirockman of Edmonton, Alberta, said he watched as home owners flooded the market with 58,000 homes, more than twice the amount in 2005 when home values peaked.
“Fifteen of my friends are on buying trips down here, and we’re all cheap,” Sirockman said. He brought his family to Scottsdale this month while he submitted a lowball all-cash offer for a three-bedroom home…
Sirockman returned to Canada without a house after the owner of the Scottsdale home turned down his offer. No worries. Sirockman told the seller there were a thousand other homes like his on the market, and someone was going to deal.
It’s an ill wind…
Posted: Sat - December 15, 2007 at 11:44 AM