By KIMBERLEY HAAS
Mexico keeps coming up in real estate-related keywords.
Point2 analysts have examined the search volumes of more than 2,000 real estate-related keywords for people looking outside of the United States. These were potential buyers planning to stay in the western hemisphere.
They found that Mexico is the most popular home buying location, recording a 60% increase in searches year-over-year.
According to them, the first six months of the COVID pandemic were marked by confusion, frustrations, and lockdowns.
“Confinement was the word of the moment and people had no choice but to witness their once-treasured homes turn into something resembling more of a stifling prison cell,” Andra Hopulele wrote in the report.
Hopulele explained that is why in the second half of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, Americans jumped at the idea of buying a vacation home abroad.
Now that pandemic fears have lessened and restrictions have loosened, people have reconsidered where they want to live, especially if they work remotely.
The analysts say Mexico is attractive because of dreamy locations like Puerto Vallarta, Tulum or Cabo San Lucas.
Home seekers aren’t just looking for their next vacation home, but also a more joyous lifestyle and their very own slice of paradise, according to the analysts.
Canada is the second most sought-after location.
Despite a 13% drop in monthly searches, Canada maintained its position as the second-most desirable destination for second homes, according to the analysts.
“Specifically, Vancouver, BC, and Toronto, ON, remained the first- and second-most wanted destinations for American home seekers looking for a vacation home. (Or, let’s face it, looking to actually move there). Notably, Hamilton, ON, lost its place on the podium. This year, Montreal, QC, moved into one of the three places that American homebuyers preferred as their next homebuying location,” Hopulele wrote in the report.
Costa Rica was in third place.
Hopulele said while last year was all about Tamarindo, Jaco and Santa Ana, this year it was Tamarindo, Santa Ana, and San Rafael that took the limelight.
The methodology for the research was as follows, according to Hopulele.
- To discover the most-searched destinations for Americans who were looking to buy property abroad, they analyzed more than 2,000 keywords related to real estate in combination with all of the countries and territories from the Americas.
- They used Ahrefs.com to extract the average number of searches per month, for the past 12 months (June 2021 to June 2022).
- They then ranked these locations based on their accumulated number of searches.
- For this study, they analyzed the same keywords, during the same periods of time as in previous editions (2015, 2018, and 2021) to be able to accurately assess and compare the evolution of homebuyers’ interest.
According to Debbie Slobe, a writer and communications strategist who had an article on the topic published in mexiconewsdaily.com, quality of life and COVID helped drive younger families to Mexico during the past two years.
“According to Andrew Selee, President of the Migration Policy Institute, of the approximately 1.5 to 1.8 million U.S. citizens living in Mexico today, at least 550,000 are children of Mexicans who have returned, according to Mexican census numbers. But there is also a growing number of young families from the U.S. with fewer direct ties to Mexico that are making the move or are already settled in the country. There is no official count of the number of American families living in Mexico today, but if their obvious presence in communities across the country is any indication, it is surely in the thousands, if not tens of thousands,” Slobe’s article says.
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