Two-thirds of second home owners with property abroad are concerned about the impact of climate changes but they are not willing to cut back on travelling to their overseas property, the survey by Savills Research and Holiday-Rentals.co.uk, has found.
There are currently 425,000 UK owned overseas properties, which reflects an increase of 35,000 units during 2007, with the total value of UK owned foreign property now worth £58 billion, the survey found.
Overseas property investors are not just increasing, they are also going further afield to buy. Dubai, the Far East and the Caribbean are becoming more and more popular.
'Whilst the issue of climate change is an important concern for the majority of second home owners it is not seen as a barrier to travel,' said Jacqui Daly, Director Savills Research.
Investing in overseas property, both for leisure and investment purposes remains a key aspiration for many Britons, the survey also found. 'Taking regular holidays is also a top consumer spending priority, despite environmental concerns and the credit crunch. As a result, we expect to see continued growth in the holiday home rentals market, both in terms of supply and demand,' said Greg Grant, Managing Director, Holiday-Rentals.co.uk.
Leisure is the key motivation driving second home purchases accounting for 67% of all purchases with investors making up the rest of the sample including 17% buying specifically for fly to let. The ideal holiday location was rated as the most important factor amongst purchasers, which goes some way to explaining the ongoing purchase of property in locations where capital growth slowed or even turned negative last year, such as Spain.
Fly to let investors however, target locations that are served by low cost airlines and where there is good rental potential. Many investors have capitalised on the growth in city break tourism and have increasingly bought in cities including New York, Barcelona, London and Paris. Other city break rental destinations growing in popularity include areas of Eastern Europe such as Prague, Krakow and Budapest.