Foreign buyers scooped up over 284,000 U.S. homes last year

​​​​DALLAS – Nationwide, the number of foreign buyers in the home market has surged to a record high in the last year, and Texas is one of their favorite destinations.

International buyers snapped up 284,455 U.S. properties—a 32 percent hike from 2016, according to the National Association of Realtors. More than 34,000 of these purchases were in Texas.

Although foreigners purchased proper​​ties nationwide, five states accounted for 54 percent of total residential property purchases: Florida (22 percent), Texas (12 percent), California (12 percent), New Jersey (4 percent), and Arizona (4 percent).

"[Realtors and others] are doing a lot of business with foreign buyers," said Real Estate Center Chief Economist Dr. Jim Gaines. "Texas represents a very nice opportunity for them. We’ve been the fastest growing state in the country for years."

The greatest volume of Texas’ foreign home buys—about 40 percent—came from Mexican and Latin American purchasers. Asian buyers were a close second with 39 percent of the offshore acquisitions.

"The Chinese are very entrepreneurial, and Texas is a very entrepreneurial state," said Gaines. "We have a lot of Asians relocating to Texas."

Buyers from China spent the most on U.S. housing—some $31.7 billion. The largest share of their 40,572 purchases—37 percent—were in California. Texas was their second favorite U.S. home market, accounting for 11 percent of their deals.

Canadian buyers spent $19 billion on U.S. homes, followed by buyers from the United Kingdom ($9.5 billion), Mexico ($9.3 billion), and India ($7.8 billion).​