Americans top foreign searchers for UK property

US residents are the top overseas seekers of UK properties, according to property portal PrimeLocation’s new research.

Overall, English speaking nations lead the table, with the US representing 21% of the total number of searches conducted from outside the UK during 2011. Australia came second with 9%, followed by Canada (7%) and Ireland (5%).

France is just ahead of Ireland in fourth place with 6%, while Spain is equal with Ireland at 5%.
Philip Green, director of estate agent Goldschmidt and Howland, agreed with the research.
“We deal with a large number of American clients looking for London property so it’s no surprise to me that they are high up on this list," Green said.

Nigel Lewis, property analyst at PrimeLocation, added: “London leads the charge here and in recent months many agents have reported up to 60% of buyers hailing from overseas, which has helped drive up demand and therefore prices in central London exponentially and by 7.37% over the past year alone”.

“Many British expats are also likely to be keeping an eye on the UK property market with a view to one day returning to live in the UK. Purchases of UK residential properties by overseas buyers have been increasing over the last few years and we expect that this interest will remain undiminished going into 2012”.

The UK is an attractive location for international buyers from a business, education and property investment perspective, and “there is a strong demand for property surrounding International schools and the American schools”, which in turns “buoyant in the rental sector”.
Lewis added that although Russian and Chinese investors remain active within the market, they buy at high cost rather than high-volume.

“Most of the Prime homes being bought by non Brits in London are Russians buying at the top end and Chinese looking for investment properties but they aren’t buying in large enough numbers, just very high prices instead”, he added.

http://www.opp.org.uk/news-article.php?id=6296