low rate fixed mortgages make for bright french property market
News Posted On: 27 August 2010
We have all heard of buyers favouring the established markets, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and the US, but according to Primelocation those countries are accounting for 91% of all overseas property searches on the site. This is out of a 3% increase in searches on the month in July, and 108% compared to July last year.
Surprisingly, the portal said that the countries accounted for 77% of searches in 2008. According to the portal the 14% increase suggests that international property buyers place a high value on the familiarity of destinations in Western Europe and America that have traditionally offered security and price appreciation over the longer term.
Ann Wright, the portal's International Development Manager said that there is currently a rebalancing process taking place.
"Some emerging countries such as Bulgaria and the UAE became popular during the boom years as a sector of the market looked to profit on property purchases. Whilst those countries are still seeing increases in searches, the downturn has served to move the market in favour of more traditional holiday home buyers and holiday lets instead of investors purely interested in a quick return," she said.
"The well-known attractions, accessible culture and ease of access to destinations in France, Spain and the USA in particular, make these countries increasingly firm favourites with overseas buyers," she added.
With reports like this it is always worth remembering that they are concerning searches and not sales. According to many of the agents I have spoken to the quality of leads from the big portals has been an untold casualty of the crunch.
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