Eastern buyers build holiday let market

 
An upsurge of property investment in eastern Europe is being reflected in an increase in holiday lets being advertised in the region, the latest Holidaylettings.co.uk Trend Tracker has concluded.

New countries featuring in its January to June listings included Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia’ Mexico, and Argentina.

New self-catering holiday offerings also included Poland, Estonia and Slovenia and ‘a South American influx, most notably in México, Argentina and Brazil’.

However, countries with the greatest volume of holiday homes advertised over the last year were Spain (top) followed by France, Italy, Portugal, and Cyprus.

Over 2,000 Spanish holiday properties were added to the website in the first six months of 2007, compared to only 1,200 added in the same period last year. The number of Portuguese holiday homes listed increased from 300 to just under 1,000.

‘Another destination showing investment promise and working on attracting more holidaymakers is Cyprus. The number of holiday home rentals in Cyprus has more than doubled since June last year, supporting figures from the Cypriot Land Registry which reveal that 12,000 Britons now own homes in Cyprus’, said Holidaylettings.co.uk managing director Ross Elder.

‘These figures demonstrate the continuing attraction of western Europe as an investment location and how, with the case of Portugal, with its easy access from the UK, it still has property investment potential.

Meanwhile Bank of Scotland International has released figures suggesting Australia is the country where Britons aged under 45 years old would most like to live, and New Zealand is most popular among the over 45s.

The USA is next most attractive to under 35s, while Canada and France feature strongly among the preferences of all age groups.

Among those people who would most like to live in Europe, the clear preference for those aged under 35 was Spain, whilst those aged over 45 preferred France. For those aged between 35 and 45, there was a direct split between France and Spain.

Almost half of respondents (49 per cent) aged between 45 to 54 years olds and 45 per cent of 25 to 34 year olds have considered moving abroad or buying a home abroad.

In April Bank of Scotland released figures showing 198,000 British citizens had moved out of the UK during 2005.