ORLANDO - So many television programs about purchasing real estate in the United States are now on Irish television that they've eclipsed Ana McColgan's beloved celebrity-chef shows. The trans-Atlantic real estate rush, though, may be rubbing off. McColgan too is in the hunt for a three-bedroom home in the metro Orlando area. "We keep coming over there anyWay, so I'd rather have it than pay for hotel rooms," said McColgan, a 40-year-old training manager who lives in Donegal,..Ireland with her husband and two children.

"Maybe we could rent it out to offset the cost of having it." A weak u.s. dollar and low mortgage rates, along with easy access courtesy of competitive international airfare, have made owning real estate in the United States highly desirable for foreigners in recent years.

The trend is not as pronounced in Southwest Florida, where Europeans - especially Germans - have long been fond of buying vacation homes and investment properties. Michael Schneider-Christians of Century 21 Sunbelt Realty in Cape Coral said that although there's continued interest, the deteriorating dollar hasn't caused a spike in inquiries. That, he said, is because prices have risen so rapidly here in the past year or so that the increase has canceled out the advantage of a strong euro. Figures released Wednesday by the Florida Association of Realtors show that the median price for an existing home sold by a Realtor in Lee County reached $235,200 in February, up 37 percent from a year ago.

Although no nationwide figures have been compiled since 2002 (when there was $40.6 billion in foreign investment in u.s. real estate), real estate experts said investment has only accelerated since 2001. Lowery's USA, for instance, saw slaes increase threeefold last year to $15 million. The company specializes in helping British buyers find properties in central Florida and managing those properties.

"There has been a tremendous sales binge going on here for about 15 months now," said co-owner Roy Young. Driving the attractiveness of u.s. real estate has been the weak u.s. dollar, which has fallen significantly over the past three years against the 12-nation euro and the British pound. This month, a euro was worth about $1.30, and a pound was worth $1.87. "There is a sense that the falling dollar does make u.s. real estate more attractive because relatively speaking, homes are more affordable than they are in other countries," said Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors.

The exchange rate played a role in Howard Gould's decision to purchase a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home in Kissimmee, near Walt Disney World, for $260,000 last September as a rental-home investment. He wasn't deterred by three hurricanes that had passed recently through the region. "We bought at what we thought to be a good exchange rate," said Gould, 56, a director of a turnaround and management company in Leeds, England.

e chose Florida because we like it there. We thought property, at least in that particular area, would appreciate at a fast rate." Technological advances such as the Internet also make it easier for foreign investors to look for properties in the United States and then market them to potential renters. Gould offers images of each room of his Florida home on a Web site, along with a calendar of which days the property is available. In 2002, the last year figures were compiled, the leading countries of origin for foreign investors of U.S. property was Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands.