Snow fails to dampen enthusiasm for overseas property in December

Highlights

• 59% of indexed locations saw increases in searches, 41% decreases, 0.2% no changes
• Start of the Ski season meant 2 of the top 3 destinations come from the French Alps
• Australia continued to increase its market share for the fourth consecutive month by 11% and is now ranking 4th in our country chart (up 2 places), pushing out Portugal and Italy
• Visit California TV ads contributed to 12% rise in searches for the region

Commentary

Unlike the British transport network, search activity for property overseas in December proved surprisingly resilient to the poor weather and anticipated seasonal decline, ending up only slightly down on November. We expect January figures to bounce back strongly in response to Rightmove’s TV advertising campaign and people returning from the holidays.

Commenting on the climbers and fallers in this month’s search chart Robin Wilson, Head of Overseas at Rightmove said:

“Despite temperatures dropping and snow falling in all the wrong places, appetite amongst overseas buyers remained strong in December. Australia’s strong performance, muscling into 4^th place in our country chart, pushing out Portugal and Italy, bodes well for emigration markets in the New Year. Australia’s combination of the exotic and familiar make it an enticing destination for those who dream of starting a new life.

The start of the Ski season helped the Alps regions become two of the top three highest climbers this month, with the Rhone-Alpes up 13.6% and Alps up 15.8%. Further down the table, the Pyrenees climbed 9.5% in December Austria also climbed 8.6%.

Star power seems to have had an effect on searches for California in the USA with the recent visit California TV campaign starring Jay Leno, Rob Lowe Arnold Schwarzenegger and David Beckham helping to push searches up 12% on Rightmove. Los Angeles attracts the lion’s share of searches, but it’s the smaller counties like Santa Clara, home of Silicon Valley on the South side of San Fransico bay that have best potential and may see bigger changes in months to come.”

Search Data Highlights (download full PDF report)

Top 10 Climbers and Fallers this month (areas with > 100 searches a day)

Top 10 Trending^* Searches this month (areas with > 100 searches a day)

These are the locations showing the most consistent positive performance in searches on Rightmove Overseas.

*Chart Trend is a rolling average of the three previous monthly changes in chart position

You can download the full Rightmoveoverseas Search Report from our blog including Top 40 locations, Top 20 countries and detailed regional breakdowns for the Top 5; Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and the USA.

Editors Notes

This data is complied from searches made by users of www.rightmoveoverseas.co.uk during the period 1^st November to 30^th November 2009. Our website records explicit searches that users make for locations chosen from our map based search, or that are entered into search fields and includes tourist regions we have defined for ease of recognition.

• % Change Searches is the % change in searches on the previous month
• Chart position is absolute and determined by aggregate search volume for that location i.e. all the explicit searches for the location plus any explicit searches for sub-regions of the location e.g. Searches for ‘France’ include searches for ‘Paris’.
• Monthly Chart Change is the difference in chart position on the previous month.
• Quarterly Chart Change is the difference in chart position from 3 months ago.
• Yearly Chart Change is the difference in chart position from 12 months ago.
• Chart Trend is a rolling average of the three previous monthly changes in chart position.

The data in this report does not constitute specific advice, forecast or recommendation and is for general interest only. Readers must perform their own research and seek independent professional advice before making any decision to purchase or invest in property abroad.

About Rightmove Overseas

Rightmove Overseas is part of Rightmove.co.uk, the UK’s number one property website and advertises properties for sale in over 90 countries around the globe from agents, developers and owners. On average, Rightmove Overseas receives 80,000 unique visitors a week and generates over 1,000,000 overseas property searches a month for advertisers. Visit us at www.rightmoveoverseas.co.uk.