Spain dominates top 100 overseas property destinations

Despite reports of a slowdown in demand among British buyers looking at Spain, the country and its regions, dominated the list of the most popular 101 overseas property destinations - taking up most of the spots in the first 20 locations.

The research, from the UK Wordtracker database, listed the 101 most popular search phrases online in the UK during the first quarter of 2008 - analysing over 200,000 search requests.

Spain, as a whole, came top of the list accounting for over 10% of total searches. Although the Costa Blanca (5th) and Costa del Sol (23rd) were the most searched-for regions, the popularity of the Canary Islands has increased significantly, while the towns and cities of Tenerife (8th), Murcia (9th), Marbella (11th), Mallorca (10th), Torrevieja (12th), Fuerteventura (15th) and the Costa Almeria (18th) all attracted a strong level of interest in the first 100 days of 2008.

This interest in Spain from UK buyers is also supported by the Association of International Property Professionals (AIPP) Market Report 2007, which found that some 25.4% of British property purchases abroad last year were in the country, followed by France at 17%. “Some may be surprised to hear that Spain is still at number one as the primary destination for Britons buying property abroad as there has been some negative media coverage over the Spanish property market,” said Paul Owen, CEO of AIPP. “However, our figures show it is still the favourite destination for the British buyer; even a 6% decrease in purchases did not manage to knock it from top spot.”

AIPP research, which is based on completed property transactions, claims that the average spend by British buyers on an overseas property in 2007 was £99,200. With 242,000 purchases last year, it adds that £24bn was spent on overseas property by British buyers.

OPP Knowledge, a survey of British overseas property buyers undertaken by Datamonitor last year, found that 3.81m homes were owned by UK and Irish buyers who spend an average of £122m a day on international homes. Valuing the market at £44.4bn, both consumers and property companies surveyed predicted that this would double over the next decade.

Region share of top 20 searches:

1 Spain 10.84%

2 France 4.58%

3 Bulgaria 3.65%

4 Cyprus 3.37%

5 Costa Blanca 2.42%

6 Turkey 2.24%

7 Dubai 1.87%

8 Tenerife 1.77%

9 Murcia 1.42%

10 Mallorca 0.90%

11 Marbella 0.88%

12 Torrevieja 0.86%

13 Morocco 0.85%

14 Portugal 0.78%

15 Fuerteventura 0.77%

16 Florida 0.73%

17 Villamartin 0.72%

18 Costa Almeria 0.65%

19 Prague 0.63%

20 Gran Canaria 0.59%