A new survey has highlighted a growing trend of potential foreign property owners buying for holidays, rather than as an investment. FX specialists Smart Currency Exchange revealed that almost half of the respondents to its survey were looking at buying holiday homes.
Some 25 per cent of these were looking at purchasing to retire or emigrate and only seven per cent reported that they were looking to purchase property purely as an investment.
Charles Purdy, director of Smart Currency Exchange, told OPP: "Anyone thinking of buying overseas needs to go in with their eyes open and doing as much research as possible into the property purchase system and also into intelligent currency strategies that can help cut the cost and remove risk from cross-border transactions."
The firm noted that Cyprus is becoming more popular as a destination, with Spain and Turkey also gaining interest. In contrast, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have seen declines in interest from potential purchasers, reflecting the weakness of sterling against those currencies.