All Cooped Up International Travel Opens Up

While it was possible to purchase a home outside of your home country during COVID-19 thanks to virtual tours, border closings and travel restrictions made it difficult for prospective buyers to visit different countries and shop for homes. This, in turn, dampened international homebuying both in the U.S. and internationally. But that’s beginning to change.

According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer,¹ international tourism saw a strong rebound in the first five months of 2022. This means that the sector has recovered almost half (46%) of pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

As travel has opened up so has international property buying. Pent-up demand – coupled with a search for investments, asset diversification, lifestyle reasons, economic factors, and even political uncertainty at home – will continue to drive the affluent to look at other parts of the world for their property needs.

While developed countries such as the United States² and those within the European Union are thought to offer the most investment security, affluent buyers are also looking at emerging markets or “frontier”³ markets – i.e. those that are transitioning to become more integrated with the global economy. Some of these emerging markets include Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Indonesia, Chile, and Dominican Republic.