BRITISH homebuyers in Spain outstripped Spaniards in 2014, and the trend looks set to continue this year, according to new development promoters.
And in fact, more buyers from the UK beat every other nationality for some estate agencies, but northern Europeans in general continue to be the most prolific purchasers.
This is largely helped by the fact Spain is now in the top 10 in the developing world for the cheapest homes, according to figures from the OECD.
Outside the Eurozone, exchange rates pay a major role in decisions to buy property in Spain, and with the pound sterling being at its strongest in nearly a decade - sitting at around €1.32 to the pound - British holiday home owners seeking to buy now are getting more for their money whilst expatriates living off retirement pensions paid in Britain are enjoying a better standard of living than in 2009, when the pound and the euro were nearly equal.
Figures from one leading property developer which is British-run but based in Spain, specialising in new builds on urbanisations - self-contained residential complexes - made up of everything from small flats to luxury villas says 14% of its buyers are Spanish, compared to 15% from the Scandinavian countries and 18% from the UK.
This does in fact suggest that, despite widespread belief, the national homebuying market is not dead yet, as Spaniards made up the third-largest national group in 2014.
Belgians, Germans and Russians followed at 12%, 11% and 9% respectively, the developers reveal, with Dutch buyers making up 6% of the total.
Buyers from the Middle East represented 4% aand from Austria, 3%.
The fastest-growing groups were Dutch and Belgian, say the promoters.
Official figures from Spain's National Statistics Institute (INE) largely mirrored the sales breakdown supplied by the developer in question - Brits came out top at 18.06%, Germans at 6.45%, Belgians at 6.19% - but differed markedly in terms of French purchasers who, according to the INE, made up 10.5% of the homebuying market in Spain in 2014.
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