Top Homebuying Destinations Abroad for Britons in 2023: Spanish property four times as popular as Italian real estate

With rising prices, increasing mortgage rates, uncertainty in the British housing market and the popularity of remote work, interest in purchasing property abroad is higher than ever. Real estate in other countries attracts many U.K. buyers, according to the latest Google search data.

But where in the world are Britons looking to buy homes?

According to My Dolce Casa‘s analysis of Google searches for homes abroad in the past 12 months, Spain is the Brits’ clear favourite place to buy a home, out of the 86 countries in Europe and the Americas analyzed. There were a whopping 1.1 million online searches for homes in Spain in the last year from the U.K.

Although its popularity as a homebuying destination is not surprising, Spain overwhelmingly outshines all other countries. The British people prefer Spain real estate 60% more than French property, twice as much as Portuguese homes, and almost four times as much as they like property in Italy.

Homes in France, the second most popular destination, were searched about 700,000 times by British nationals in the last 12 months. In third place were properties in Portugal, which attracted around 530,000 Google searches from the United Kingdom.

By contrast, in a similar study recently released we found that Americans’ top choice for buying homes abroad is Italy. Moreover, searches for property in the no. 1 British favourite, Spain, greatly outnumbers searches for property in the no. 1 American favourite, Italy, which attracted just under 800,000 online searches during the same time period.

Here are the top 10 most searched countries for buying real estate abroad: 

1. Spain
2. France
3. Portugal
4. Greece
5. Italy
6. Canada
7. Ireland
8. Croatia
9. Malta
10. Bulgaria

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.K. between April 2022 and April 2023, for 86 countries in Europe and the Americas. The Google search data analyzed included high-intent keywords such as “property in Portugal”, “Panama real estate”, and “houses for sale in Croatia”, totaling 1,290 country-specific keywords.

See the full research methodology at the end of this report.

Additionally, to see what countries are rising in popularity for buying property abroad, we looked at the highest increases in monthly searches from the U.K. compared to one year prior. These are trending homebuying destinations to keep an eye on for the future.

Jump to the top trending homebuying destinations ranking.

European countries are predominantly preferred by the Brits over countries located in the Americas. Nine out of the top 10 homebuying destinations are in Europe, the only non-European country to make the top 10 was Canada. By comparison, Americans' location preferences are equally split between Europe and the Americas.

As expected, Mediterranean countries with warm sunny weather, beaches and coastal living dominate the top 5. However, one surprising country made the top ten. Bulgaria attracted close to 100,000 online searches in the past year, particularly wanted for its beautiful Black Sea shore.

What are the trending destinations for buying property abroad?

Interestingly, a Central American country tops the list of up and coming destinations for Britons to buy a house. Belize real estate saw the highest year over year increase in Google searches from the U.K., 52%. A long-time favorite for American homebuyers, Belize is slowly being discovered by the British as well. It is a beautiful country to own a second home that also makes it easy for non-citizens to buy property and it is considered a tax-haven.

In second and third place, Albania and Montenegro are two other emerging locations for purchasing holiday homes, as affordability and underrated, beautiful coastlines work to their advantage.

Here are the top 10 trending homebuying destinations in 2023: 

1. Belize
2. Albania
3. Montenegro
4. Denmark
5. Finland
6. Norway
7. Switzerland
8. Belgium
9. Poland
10. Canada

Research methodology

• To compile the ranking, My Dolce Casa’s research team analyzed the number of Google searches from the United Kingdom 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.
• 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 10 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 10 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.