March saw the coming of spring and the latest A Place in the Sun Live! exhibition in Manchester – the UK’s largest overseas property show and home to dozens of industry professionals from around the world.
The euro spells good news for overseas property buyers
Appetite for snapping up property overseas appears even greater this year – with over 6,000 potential buyers visiting the many exhibitors. Around half of these came on the Saturday alone – a record-breaking number for the show. The atmosphere across the weekend was buoyant, with many visitors reporting that the strong GBP/EUR rate was a key decision maker for them to bring forward their purchase of an overseas property. It’s no surprise when, that week, the rate had hit 1.40 for the first time since late 2007, meaning a €300,000 property would cost a British buyer £214,285. This was saving of almost £19,000 compared to the £232,991 that the same property would have cost at the beginning of 2015, when the GBP/EUR rate was 1.2876.
Appetite for snapping up property overseas appears even greater
this year
With these promising numbers, we can expect even more visitors to attend the next event, taking place at Olympia, London, from May 8 – 10 2015.
Challenging times for currency markets – but good news for British citizens
March was also a very busy month for the currency markets. With this in mind, we have been speaking to our partners at currency specialists, SmartCurrencyExchange.com, about the recent Budget and the effects that some of the announcements are likely to have on overseas property buyers, and sterling in particular. Chancellor George Osborne announced that the country was “walking tall again” and growing “faster than any other major advanced economy in the world” – highlighting the positive effects that the coalition government has had on Britain over the last five years, in preparation for the upcoming election. This boosted economic environment has led to a strong sterling, meaning that anyone sending money overseas from the UK has benefitted from these generous exchange rates (since the end of 2014, in particular).
There were also a number of proposals announced in this year’s Budget that will have a significant effect on the personal finance of the average UK citizen. The personal tax allowance will rise to £11,000 by the 2017/18 tax year, and the higher tax rate will be pegged above inflation for the first time – rising to £43,300 by 2017.
A new Personal Savings Allowance was also introduced, meaning that the first £1,000 of interest received is now tax free.
To receive free information on buying property overseas, contact the OverseasGuidesCompany.com Resource Centre on +44 (0)20 7898 0549
To find out more about how the latest economic changes affect currency exchange rates, contact the team at SmartCurrencyExchange.com on +44 (0)20 3582 7768
