With high volatility in the U.S. housing market, a strong dollar, and the normalization of remote work, interest in buying a home abroad is higher than ever. Real estate in other countries attracts a lot of U.S. buyers, according to the latest Google search data.
But where in the world are Americans looking to buy homes?
Is Europe or are the Americas more attractive when it comes to buying a home abroad? According to My Dolce Casa‘s analysis of Google searches for homes abroad in the past 12 months, real estate in Italy tops the list. Out of the 86 countries analyzed, Americans dream about owning a home in Italy the most. Searches for homes in the land of la dolce vita totaled almost 800,000 in the last year.
Two Central American countries claim the second and third spots. Costa Rica real estate is a close second favorite for U.S. home seekers, being the subject of more than 700,000 online searches in one year. Homes in Mexico are the third most popular, according to Google data, which shows a total of around 580,000 online real estate queries for Mexican real estate in the same period of time.
Here are the top 10 most searched countries for buying real estate abroad:
- Italy
- Costa Rica
- Mexico
- Portugal
- Jamaica
- Spain
- Bahamas
- Greece
- Canada
- France
The top countries have some characteristics in common: warm weather and beautiful beaches and coastlines. The favorite destinations in Europe have Mediterranean climates, plenty of amazing beaches, and long coastlines to enjoy. Similarly, the Central American and Caribbean countries in the top have tropical climates and no shortage of sandy beaches and dreamy coastlines. The only exception in the top 10 is Canada.
Notably, the top 10 countries are equally split between Europe and the Americas, suggesting that there isn’t a strong preference for one or the other.
To determine the most popular destinations for buying homes abroad, MyDolceCasa.com analyzed close to 1,300 real estate terms searched on Google from the U.S. between April 2022 and April 2023, for 86 countries in Europe and the Americas.
The data analyzed focuses on Google searches such as “homes in Italy”, “Mexico real estate”, and “houses for sale in Panama”, totaling 1,290 country-specific keywords that show a high intent to buy a home.
See the full research methodology at the end of this report.
Additionally, to identify the countries where real estate is rising in popularity the most, we also looked at the highest increases in the monthly number of searches compared to one year ago. These are trending homebuying destinations to keep an eye on, if you’re considering a move abroad in the future.
Jump to the top trending homebuying destinations ranking.
1. Italy real estate
Homes in Italy are more sought-after than real estate in any other country. There were close to 800,000 searches from the United States for Italian real estate in the past 12 months, with an average of 66,000 queries per month. Moreover, the number of searches increased by 21% since last year.
A lifestyle change, safety, warm weather, and affordability are the most common reasons for U.S. nationals who consider moving to other countries, and Italy checks all the boxes. Many Americans find the Italian culture and lifestyle fascinating. Additionally, buying property in Italy has been widely popularized by celebrities like Rachael Ray and Giada de Laurentiis, making the move look that much more appealing.
The top 5 most searched regions to buy a house in Italy are:
- Tuscany , 212,620 searches, up 19%
- Sicily, 102,470 searches, up 47%
- Sardinia, 55,960 searches, up 57%
- Piedmont, 54,720 searches, up 9%
- Puglia, 31,380 searches, up 66%
What makes Italy particularly attractive for foreign homebuyers is that prices have managed to remain stable and affordable compared to other top-tier countries where Golden Visa Programs have pushed house prices upwards.
With virtually no residency incentive programs for foreign real estate investors, the Italian housing market has been very stable and predictable in recent years, registering a modest annual price increase of less than 2%.
2. Costa Rica real estate
Second ranking Costa Rica has long been a popular destination for Americans looking to buy a second home abroad, facilitated by friendly residency and taxation laws. Over the past year, Americans searched online for real estate in Costa Rica over 700,000 times, or 59,000 times per month, on average.
Moreover, seeing that there was an increase of 13% in searches since last year, interest in Costa Rican property is growing. Costa Rica's housing market is attractive for those looking for more affordable homes, but also for wealthy investors who are buying luxurious vacation homes in paradise-like settings.
3. Mexico real estate
Mexico is the third favorite country for homebuying abroad. America's attraction to the Mexican lifestyle is nothing new and no secret. The United State's neighbor to the south has been a long-time top vacation and second home destination for U.S. nationals.
There were 580,000 searches for real estate in Mexico in the past year, according to the Google data analyzed, a strong favorite for Americans. However, monthly searches are slightly down by 9% year over year as Mexico's attraction is dwindling as of late in favor of safer countries in Europe, such as no. 4 ranking Portugal.
Incredibly beautiful places like Puerto Vallarta, Tulum, or San Miguel de Allende, great weather, as well as its convenient proximity to the States make Mexico a perennial favorite.
4. Portugal real estate
The second European country in the top five favorites for buying real estate is Portugal, having attracted as many as 430,000 online searches for homes in the past 12 months. On average, 36,000 Google searches are done online from the U.S., as the interest to buy houses in the Western European country has been growing significantly in recent years. Just in the last 12 months, Google searches rose by 32%.
Portugal's Golden Visa Program has been largely fueling the demand for Portuguese property in the last few years. Through the initiative, the country has managed to attract almost 7.5 billion dollars in foreign investment in Portuguese real estate in the past ten years.
The program has become particularly popular among Americans, who represented the number one source nation for real estate investments in Portugal in 2022. However, this has also had a negative effect on the affordability of homes for the Portuguese people, thus prompting the government to put a stop to the program this year. It will be interesting to see how this will impact Americans' interest in relocating to this beautiful country in the years ahead.
5. Jamaica real estate
Jamaica has that vacation vibe that's certainly working in its favor. A total of 414,500 online searches for Jamaican property from the U.S. places this Caribbean island country in fifth place in our ranking, the equivalent of roughly 34,000 average searches per month.
Many U.S. retirees, snowbirds and others find Jamaica an affordable paradise. Buying a home in Jamaica means living in a lush landscape, with the blue waters and white beaches of the Caribbean virtually on your doorstep.
What are the up and coming destinations for buying property abroad?
If you're looking for that (still) underrated, next big destination to invest in property abroad, look towards Europe once again. In this category, Croatia steals the spotlight, with the sharpest rise in real estate-related searches among the countries analyzed.
The average monthly searches for Croatian homes from the U.S. more than doubled since last year, from 4,840 to 10,700 per month in one year, a percentage increase of 121%. Croatia recently joined the Schengen Area and the Euro zone, which makes it a great location for easy traveling throughout Europe.
Here are the top 10 countries with the highest increases in online searches for real estate:
- Croatia
- Finland
- El Salvador
- Norway
- Ireland
- Iceland
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
- Argentina
- Portugal
Research methodology
- To compile the ranking, My Dolce Casa’s research team analyzed the number of Google searches from the United States for real estate abroad.
- The report is based on Google keyword volumes for the time period April 2022 to April 2023.
- The total number of searches for each country is the sum of the search volumes for 15 different real estate term combinations such as: buy real estate in [country], houses in [country], [country] homes for sale, property in [country], [country] villas for sale and more.
- City, region and province-specific searches were not included.
- Google search volumes were extracted and analyzed for 86 countries in Europe and the Americas, for a total of 1,290 search term combinations.
- Searches for the U.S. and U.S. territories were excluded from the rankings.
- Countries with an average monthly search volume under 1,000 searches were excluded from the rankings.
- After exclusions were applied, a final list of 59 countries was used to create the final rankings.
- The final ranking of the top 30 homebuying destination countries is based on the total number of Google searches for each country in the 12 months period May 2022 through April 2023.
- The ranking of the top 30 trending homebuying destination countries is based on the highest percentage increase in searches in each country in April 2023 compared to April 2022.
- When using this research and data, please give credit to MyDolceCasa.com by linking back to this report.
