2020-07-03
Yesterday the IRS Statistics of Income Division released 2017 data for Form 8288-A, Statement of Withholding on Dispositions by Foreign Persons of U.S. Real Property Interests.
When a foreign person disposes of U.S. real property, the buyer is required to file Form 8288-A. The IRS release breaks out the following data by country:
The average sale price per property for each seller’s country can be determined by dividing the total sales by the number of forms filed. The average sale price can vary significantly from year to year. Therefore, the chart below reflects the average sale price per property for the 5 years from 2013 to 2017.
(Click here for a PDF version of the chart.)
It is interesting to note that Sweden had the highest average price per property. The average for Sweden varied from year to year, but was more than $1 million for four out of the five years and averaged roughly $2.7 million over the five years.
It was also interesting to note that the three largest countries behind Sweden were tax havens in the Caribbean.
Germany's average for 2017 was very low. The total number of sales in 2017 by German residents was 9,180, with a total sale price of $765,451,238, making the 2017 average German resident sale equal to $83,382. Excluding 2017, the average for German residents from 2013 to 2016 was $313,768.
It is important to note that these numbers do not reflect the total investment from each of these countries. Instead, the numbers reflect the average price per property sold by country.
For some countries for some years, the numbers are small enough that the IRS lumps them into a single category called “all other countries.” This means that the data is not broken out for all countries for all years. The chart only includes countries for which data was provided for at least 4 of the 5 years. If data was provided for only 4 years, a “(4)” is indicated at the end of the country name.