Holidays in a Home Abroad Treble in a Decade

It’s officially winter, the clocks are going back this Sunday and the prospect of a British summer has been firmly knocked on the head. With the Met Office forecasting a warmer than average but chillier winter than last year and a distinct lack of summer season this year, more and more Brits have had enough of hope and disappointment and are taking matters into their own hands. Fuelled by the British love of all things foreign, the result being that increasing numbers of people are keen to join the notable overseas property set who make up nearly 5% of the British population, some 1 million buyers who have spent a massive £20 billion on overseas property in the last year alone, sky rocketing the number of people owning a holiday home up 45% on 2004 according to last years MINTEL report.

Research conducted by Yorkshire Bank comes hot on the heels of a report by industry figures for the International Property Investment Pavilion in which experts such as the Association of International Property Professionals and the IFS School of Finance confirm that this trend was likely to continue. Financial professionals are keen to point out, however, a growing need for clearer, more concise advice as well as more precise representation of properties by agents and developers, a suggestion that ties in directly with Yorkshire Bank findings.

The research found that 43% of homebuyers would now consider looking abroad for property, with 32% hoping to retire overseas and 15% seeing an overseas property as their only hope of getting on the property ladder at all. While Spain continues to hold the hearts and purse strings of the majority of Brits looking to buy abroad (66%), confirming recent YouGov poll results, many respondents to the Yorkshire Bank survey said they were nonetheless still put off by what they perceived to be a complex purchasing process. 44% feared being ripped off due to not understanding the buying process.

The International Property Investment pavilion report appears to have found similar misgivings to be widespread amongst its members and pointed out that independent financial advisers would increasingly be dealing with matters related to overseas property investment, requiring them to be fully versed in all the relevant issues. Underlining that the international property market has become an increasingly attractive investment vehicle, the organization was keen to point out the opportunities and the risks which accompany overseas investment, adding that it was important that investors were given prudent guidance when looking to buy abroad, with differences in the buying processes for different countries needing to be at the forefront of investors’ minds. With the overseas buying trend set to continue for the foreseeable future, it is thought that some 35% of IFAs will be giving overseas property advice within the next three years and by 2025, up to 2 million British homeowners — or a tenth of total home-owners in the country — could own a property overseas.

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