NY property is cool, eh?
Canadians No. 1 foreign buyers in city
Canadians love Big Apple real estate as much as ice hockey — scoring more New York City properties than any other nationality in the world.
Over the past 10 years, $15.37 billion in Canuck cash has flowed into the city’s commercialproperty market, nearly doubling the $8.8 billion of secondplace United Arab Emirates over the same period.
The frozen north’s warm feelings for New York keep growing. The amount Canadians spent on Gotham real estate jumped from $1.97 billion in 2014 to a record $3.85 billion so far this year, according to Real Capital Analytics.
The biggest investors from our neighbor to the North are pension funds, such as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System.
Insurers and asset managers are also big investors in projects like Hudson Yards, the biggest private realestate development in US history.
“Canada is a big, capitalrich country with oil sands, and there are only a limited number of realestate assets that they can trade back and forth with each other,” said Jim Costello, senior vice president of Real Capital Analytics.
“If you are running an investment fund in Montreal or Toronto, where do you go? The US is right next door, there are language and cultural connections ... It is an easy first destination for Canadian capital.”
Over the past decade, Canadian cash has bought 81 New York City properties, compared with 15 bought by the second place United Arab Emirates, according to Real Capital.
New York’s third biggest realestate investor over the past decade is China, which invested $8.1 billion in 30 properties, followed by Israel, which invested $5.26 billion in 59 properties.
Canadians are also big time residentialrealestate buyers.
“Foreigners, especially Canadians, are spending more on New York real estate now than ever before,” says Ryan Serhant, a broker at Nest Seekers International and a star of Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing New York.”