New York (CNN Business) Foreigners are buying less real estate in the United States, and sluggish global economic growth is to blame.

Residential home purchases by people from outside the country plunged 36% to below $78 billion in the year that ended March 2019, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors.

Since 2017, the number of foreign buyers of US residential property has basically halved from $153 billion.

"Rising economic growth improves the spending capability of foreign buyers," Lawrence Yun, chief economist, and Gay Cororaton, research economist at NAR, wrote in the report, which was released on Wednesday.

Read More