Holiday Homes Portal News

Millions of Britons search for homes abroad

Date: 28/09/2009
Article source: www.opp.org.uk

Overseas property portal RightmoveOverseas.co.uk has revealed that in the first half of 2008, it recorded some 10,200,000 searches for overseas property from potential buyers in the UK – up 26% y-o-y.

Among the 10 most popular destinations on the portal,

Overseas property portal RightmoveOverseas.co.uk has revealed that in the first half of 2008, it recorded some 10,200,000 searches for overseas property from potential buyers in the UK – up 26% y-o-y.

Among the 10 most popular destinations on the portal, the largest increase in searches was seen in the USA, where enquiries were up 50% and averaged 190,000 per month. Only Bulgaria saw a tumble compared with 2007 figures, down 13% y-o-y.

Over the first six months, 69% of all searches have been for properties in Rightmove’s top 10 countries. The two most popular, Spain and France, made up one third of all searches.

Outside the top 10, some of the destinations that have seen the largest increase in search numbers are Egypt (up 195%), Morocco (up 165%), and Panama, which generated a rise of 106% in searches y-o-y.

Australia and New Zealand also fared well, with searches up 47% and 55% respectively.

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of people searching for property in these two countries were doing so for relocation purposes (66% in Australia and 64% in New Zealand). Rightmove’s research found that there was a clear difference however, in the next most popular reasons for buying in the two countries. Some 15% consider Australia an investment-only destination, whereas retirement is the second most popular reason for buying in New Zealand, with this being the primary motive for 12% of users.

Other destinations that performed particularly well during the H1 2008 include the Caribbean (up 17%), South America (Brazil and Venezuela both up 13%) and South East Asia (Philippines up 118%, Malaysia up 50%, Thailand up 13%). The portal believes that this is due in part to the fact that properties in these areas are often marketed in Dollars, meaning that UK buyers can get a lot for their money at the moment.

The portal believes that Bulgaria’s downturn has had an adverse effect on several other Eastern European countries, as statistics show y-o-y falls in searches in:

Country decrease y-o-y

Romania -29%

Slovakia -26%

Czech Republic -10%

Poland -7%

While searches are up in the majority of countries covered by Rightmove Overseas, the number of physical enquiries about properties on the site has remained flat compared with the first half of 2007 at 6.5 %.

Justin Figgins, director of Rightmove Overseas, told OPP that although enquiries are strong, certain factors are holding back the Brit investor at present.

“Search numbers have not been affected, essentially because owning a property overseas is still very aspirational, so there remains a lot of interest in seeing what’s available," he said. "However, buyers who want to purchase abroad but are reliant on selling their UK property are having to hold out, because they not finding buyers as quickly as they might have done a year ago.

Those who do not need to sell their UK property are waiting because of the exchange rate – for these people, their overseas purchase is discretionary, so there’s no great urgency to buy, so they can wait for the Pound to get back to 1.3 or 1.4 against the Euro before committing. We’re also speaking to people who have told us that while they’d love to buy a place in Spain now, they feel that prices will still fall, so they want to wait until they feel the market has reached rock bottom, then try to snap up a bargain,” he explained.

Country ranking   -   increase/decrease y-o-y

1 France    +9%

2 Spain    +30%

3 USA      +50%

4 Italy     +18%

5 Portugal +22%

6 Bulgaria  -13%

7 Cyprus   +21%

8 UAE        +1%

9 Greece   +17%

10 Turkey  +13%