The overseas buyers purchasing UK homes

The overseas buyers purchasing UK homes
Published:  7 Mar at 6 PM
Cash-rich foreigners from the Middle East, the Far East and Russia have long-since being buying homes in London, but they are not alone in buying homes in the UK.

Looking across Britain, who are the foreign buyers keen on a UK address, asks aol.co.uk. Property website Primelocation.com has carried out research on 100 countries from which UK residential property is being looked at online. English-speaking countries lead the way with Ireland, the US, Canada and Australia filling four of the top five positions.

US residents (including both American nationals and British expats) come top, representing more than a fifth of the overall number of searches made from outside the UK in 2011, while Australians made up almost one in 10 searches, and Canada and Ireland scoring seven per cent and five per cent respectively. Some of the searches are from nations which many people from the UK may never have heard of such as Djibouti, Kiribati, Mayotte, Niue, Reunion and Suriname.

The UK is obviously an attractive option for international purchasers from a business, education and property investment perspective. This explains the reason why 14 per cent of all British property searches on Primelocation.com originate from abroad. For example, many wealthy Asian families purchase flats for their children when they come here to study.

Demand from overseas buyers has also driven up prices, meaning some areas of London are now unaffordable for locals. However, those who purchased at the right time will have seen their homes’ value shoot up.