No, why? The expat money went into local markets (very unequally but that's another point). Vancouver, London, etc. But even in small towns real estate investors are not necessarily local. My mother just moved into an apartment owned by a lawyer living a few hundred kilometers away.

It depends on what you understand when OP says "all real estate is local", I assume that it's the thing itself and its customers. It can be seen as inexact because yes, the investors often are not and that is that second statement, but we all know what OP meant, so no need to start nitpicking over nothing. I see no merit in arguing over words whose meaning everybody understands just for the sake of it.