Foreign holiday home searches up 156% as buyers seek sun

Our market analysis has revealed that a cooling property market could be tempting domestic homebuyers to look further afield. Since the start of the year, search interest for terms surrounding foreign property purchases has climbed as much as 157%.

Examining search trends for holiday homes and property purchases

We analysed data from Google Trends for a number of search terms around holiday homes and property purchases, also looking into how interest in these terms has changed since the start of the year.

What's been causing a surge in Google searches?

We found that search interests for the term "holiday homes abroad" have soared, up by 156% since January of this year. When it comes to the destination of choice, a French property purchase has seen the largest increase in popularity, with the term 'Buy property in France' seeing a 112% increase.

Search interest for properties in the United States has also climbed by 96%, with interest in the same search term for Greek properties up by 52% since the start of the year.

The UK remains the most popular!

The search interest for UK holiday homes has crept up by only 1% since the start of the year. However, with such a search interest score of 39.9, the UK remains by far the most popular when it comes to our holiday home house hunting, with the USA coming in second with a score of 16.5.

Declining interest in Spanish and Portuguese holiday homes

Finally, the search interest for the term "buy property abroad" has increased by 7%, while searches for Italian holiday homes have remained flat, and Spain and Portugal have seen dips of -35% and -39%, respectively.

‘UK holiday homes remain by far the most popular search overall.’ - GetAgent CEO Colby Short

“With house prices returning to normality in recent months following the pandemic market boom, homebuyers could be forgiven for looking further afield when it comes to making a bricks and mortar investment.

Property market performance aside, who can blame them for wanting to ditch the unpredictable British summer for guaranteed sunshine and a cheaper cost of living.

But while there may have been an increase in search popularity for foreign holiday homes, it’s fair to say that we know which side our bread is buttered, with UK holiday homes remaining by far the most popular search overall.”

Research and methodology

Table shows the interest score and change in score for each search term since the start of the year