Spain records Europe's highest growth in property searches – May 2020

Nine weeks of lockdown, disappointment over cancelled holidays and a string of new Netflix releases filmed in dreamy overseas locations have triggered a dramatic surge in overseas home searches, according to property portal Rightmove.

Online searches by UK residents for properties for sale abroad hit their highest point so far this year in May – 33 per cent up on the same month last year, it reported.

Spain, France and Portugal have seen the greatest annual increases in popularity among Britons, the new Rightmove data shows, just as these European holiday favourites begin to navigate their way out of lockdown.

Spanish territories are now 50%, in phase II of lock down release, and it is widely expected that most if not all of the country will return to normality, within reason, by the 21^st of June, when inter province travel will be permitted and International borders open soon afterwards.

UK searches for homes in Spain were up 34 per cent last month compared to May 2019, while searches increased 33 per cent in France and 26 per cent in Portugal.