In the United Kingdom, the housing market ground to a halt in March due to COVID-19, but since then buying activity has picked up, says Bankrate, a U.K. mortgage information portal. It reports that according to Google trends, “relocation” searches have spiked by more than 500 per cent in the last 90 days.
Using search volume data from keyword research tool SEMrush, Bankrate determined the 20 countries that Brits are most interested in moving to, with Canada emerging as the No. 1 choice.
An average of 26,720 people have searched this on Google in the last 30 days, followed by the U.S.A. (25,780 monthly searches) and Australia (25,660 monthly searches).
After analyzing search volumes, Bankrate calculated the average price of a two-bed apartment in the city centre of each of the 10 most-searched locations. It chose a two-bedroom apartment, it says, because “generally speaking, apartments are more likely to be found in city centre regions, if you are moving for work, it makes sense to be near amenities – even if you’re working remotely.”
The research shows Japan is the most expensive country to move to, with the average price of two-bedroom city centre apartment being £601,020 (about $1.05 million Cdn), followed by France (£515,088) and Germany (£395,304). A two-bed city centre apartment in the USA is the cheapest, at an average £211,764, it says.
“Fortunately for those seeking a new life abroad, the results showed that the two most sought-after locations, Canada and the U.S.A., are less expensive than the U.K. for a city-based apartment.
In fact, four out of the top five most popular countries hosted cheaper city-based apartments than the U.K., with the exception of Australia where it costs roughly £25,000 more to purchase an apartment,” says Bankrate.
The average cost of a two-bedroom city centre apartment in the U.K. is £362,208, it says.
