Most people, for good reason, use an escrow agent when buying and selling real estate (at least here in the US). As a buyer, I would be doubly uncertain about directly transferring someone Bitcoin since it's at least as irreversible as a processed wire, and probably harder to have good legal recourse for. If you can find someone who would do escrow with Bitcoin, you'd probably have better luck.
Take a look at BitPremier: http://www.bitpremier.com/. They advertise your high-value good on their site, and then once they pair you up with a buyer they also serve as an escrow agency.
Doesn't even have to be "from abroad" - if a buyer has a stack of bitcoins and I want a stack of bitcoins, going through an exchange is going to be expensive given the pretty broad spreads (if there's even the necessary liquidity).