A new analysis suggests that North Americans form the fastest\u2011growing international buyer group in Britain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the first quarter of this year, they accounted for a record 19% of all overseas-based applicants looking for a property in Britain, says Hamptons, using Connells Group data.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s up four percentage points on last year and eleven points higher than a decade ago.<\/p>\n
There were 13% more North Americans registering to buy property in Britain in Q1 2026 than in the same period last year, despite a 10% overall decline in international registrations.<\/p>\n
European buyers, when aggregated, account for 54% of international applicants.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
While their share is broadly unchanged year-on-year, European applicants now stand eight percentage points lower than a decade ago \u2013 Hamptons says this is \u201cin part a lasting legacy of Brexit.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Much of this longer\u2011term decline has been driven by reduced demand from French and Spanish buyers, who made up a far larger share of international applicants a decade ago.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
So far, there are no signs of an uplift in demand from Middle Eastern buyers looking to buy into Britain\u2019s housing market, following the outbreak of hostilities.<\/p>\n
Applicants from the Middle East accounted for just 5% of all overseas\u2011based house hunters in Q1 2026, the lowest share recorded since 2013 and down 1% year-on-year.<\/p>\n
Registrations from the region fell sharply following the outbreak of war, declining 27% month\u2011on\u2011month and standing 58% lower than in March last year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The agency says this appears to reflect caution around new purchases, with many Middle Eastern households retaining existing UK homes, opting to rent as a stop\u2011gap, or choosing to base themselves in other countries.<\/p>\n
While international demand declined across most of Great Britain, the same cannot be said for London.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
London was the only region to see growth in overseas buyer interest in Q1 2026, with international registrations rising 8% year\u2011on\u2011year.<\/p>\n
As a result, a quarter (25%) of all international enquiries were focused on the capital, up from 21% a year ago and marking the largest annual increase of any UK region.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamptons says this probably reflects London\u2019s struggling housing market, which in recent years has made it look better value than in the past.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The average property in the capital is now 3% (or \u00a318,000) cheaper than in 2022, while values in Inner London are down 7%, or around \u00a350,300, over the same period.<\/p>\n
Outside the capital, international demand fell across every region with the steepest falls seen in Scotland (-26%), Wales (-27%) and the South West (-20%), where appetite from overseas buyers remains limited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new analysis suggests that North Americans form the fastest\u2011growing international buyer group in Britain.\u00a0\u00a0 In the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,117200,393,4884,73298,1144,712,16,40170,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-938133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-buyers","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-london-property","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-uk-property-market-analysis","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116519020020779099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}