First-time buyers looking to Spain for their property ladder leg-up

More young Brits are looking to Spain for their first property purchase

Priced out of an increasingly exclusive property-owning club in the UK, more and more Britons aged under 40 are looking abroad for their first property – with Spain topping the list of chosen destinations, according to recent research by foreign exchange experts, Moneycorp.

As house prices continue to rise across the UK – buoyed by government-backed initiatives to help keep prices artificially high in order to secure the homeowner vote for the next election – those at the bottom rung of the so-called property ladder are finding it increasingly tough to raise the funds required to take out a mortgage on a home…

But the appetite to own a property remains strong in the UK. So much so that the number of 19 to 28-year-olds looking to buy a property overseas has increased four-fold since last year according to Moneycorp, who suggest that this increase illustrates a growing interest in overseas property among Brits of that age group.

Moneycorp’s research also revealed that the number of Brits buying an overseas property in their 30s has also increased by 25 per cent since 2012. But interestingly, the number of people of retirement age using the foreign exchange service actually fell by 79 per cent between 2007 and 2012 – a period that saw Spain’s property market suffer. Only now is this age group beginning to look again at Spanish property.

“Younger buyers are not letting the domestic housing market price them out of purchasing property altogether,” said David Kerns, personal client dealing manager at Moneycorp. “More and more young buyers are going abroad to get themselves on the housing ladder.

“With the UK’s shortage of affordable properties, large deposits required and challenging mortgage applications, for the first time it makes sense for younger buyers to simply look overseas for affordable alternatives.”

Property prices in Spain have recently stabilised and are beginning to show signs of recovery, particularly in the popular investment destinations such as the Costa del Sol and the Balearics. However, prices are often 50 per cent below what they were in 2007 in some areas, meaning that for lifestyle buyers, there has never been a better time to search for that dream Spanish property.