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Interest in NYC
real estate being swamped by Russians, TripleMint data show
The never-ending quest for the perfect apartment in
New York City could be getting that much tougher, new data suggests, thanks to
new competition for scarce supply from other parts of the world—and one
surprising country in particular.
Newly released figures from TripleMint, a
residential real estate start-up based in New York, points to a shift in the
countries most interested in buying into the city's active housing market,
which attracts more than its fair share of domestic and international buyers
and remains one of the world's priciest.
Over the course of 2015 and 2016, the company
tracked the location of visitors on its website hunting for housing, ranking
countries by a percentage of total foreign searches for that year, and compared
the results. It found the biggest mover was Russia, which jumped from #20 on
their top searchers list in 2015, to #2 last year, landing just behind the
United Kingdom.
The results were somewhat surprising, taking place
during a volatile period in U.S./Russia relations. The country is being hammered by accusations of
hacking as well as electoral meddling, although it was unclear
to what extent those events influenced TripleMint's data, if at all.
Nevertheless, the findings came as a surprise to the
company.
"We had no idea that we were going to find
that," David Walker, TripleMint's CEO, told CNBC in an interview. "It
was fascinating seeing this data and how much search traffic has picked up from
Russia."
The top foreign searcher for both years was the
United Kingdom, which saw a huge spike in 2016. Nearly 30 percent of the
traffic increase for the year from the U.K. came in the four days following the
Brexit referendum that could see Britain exit the European Union within the
next few years.
TripleMint's findings were consistent with other
data showing a steady influx of foreign buyers keeping demand and prices at
frothy levels. Last year, the National Association of Realtors said
international buyers purchased $102.6 billion of residential
property in the U.S. between April 2015 and March 2016.
According to TripleMint, the second biggest move came
from Mexico, which tumbled nine ranks from 2015 to 2016.
With respect to Britain, TripleMint's Walker
explained the influx of searches after Brexit represented a concrete example of
how policy shifts and news can impact where people want to live.
The proprietary
data collected by TripleMint is part of the company's focus on using indicators
and algorithms — which the 28
year-old Walker calls its "secret sauce" — to predict which
properties will come on the market before they do. They also want to use it to
help clear up market misinformation, he added.
"One of the problems in our industry is that
there is a lack focus on knowledge, education and transparency for the
client," Walker said.
Walker, a Yale University graduate, founded
TripleMint with his classmate Philip Lang in 2013. Last month, TripleMint
raised $4.5 million in Series A funding, landing the company's total funding at
over $7 million.
The round was
backed by DN Capital, which previously invested in Purplebricks, a real
estate company now public on the London Stock Exchange.
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