Knock-down property prices in southern Eurozone countries continue to attract property-buyers from the UK, with interest in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece getting noticeably stronger during the second quarter of the year.
Demand for information about foreign property rose 36% year-on-year for the three months to the end of June, according to the recent Overseas Guides Company (OGC) Quarterly Index, which measures interest in destinations popular with second homeowners and expats.
OGC, a free resource for overseas property-buyers, attracted 9,096 direct requests for information in the form of downloads of its free Buying Guides for Q2 2013, compared with 6,707 in Q2 2012. While this represented a decrease of 6% from the 9,685 enquiries it generated in the first quarter of 2013, the slight fall was largely down to the seasonal fall in enquiries about long-haul destinations, including Australia, USA, Canada and New Zealand.
“It seems the euro’s continued strength during the second quarter hasn’t put British buyers off tapping into some very attractive property prices in southern Eurozone countries,” said Richard Way, Editor at The Overseas Guides Company. “There are reports of buyers taking advantage of current favourable euro mortgages, expecting their loan to become even better value if the pound strengthens in the coming months.”
Way continued: “Enquiries for Spain were up, if slightly, on Q1, while Italy, Portugal and Greece saw hikes of 18%, 9% and 48% respectively. It’s interesting that enquiries for Turkey were also up by 30% on the previous quarter, despite the civil unrest in Istanbul – and that while France’s enquiries fell by 5%, it still remains our most popular destination.”
