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More and more Brits are buying overseas properties, the Office for National Statistics has reported.

By the end of 2003/2004 some 69,000 owned homes in Spain, 51,000 in France, 5,000 in Portugal, and 3,000 in Italy. In total overseas property investment totalled £23.2bn, some £183.3bn of which was in Europe. The figure has more than doubled in the last five years.

Spanish property investment accounted for nearly a third, both in terms of numbers and value. Nearly two thirds of Brit-owned overseas properties were in Europe, 6 per cent in the USA and 29 per cent outside Europe and the USA, in countries such Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean islands.

Almost £70m of the £190m rental income from foreign property now earned each year comes from Spanish investments, close to £50m from French and just over £40m from the rest of Europe put together.

Meanwhile, a separate study on Spanish property investment by Grupo i’ in collaboration with ‘Live in Spain’ and sponsored by Banco Santander Central Hispano found that Britons headed the list of foreign property buyers, followed by Germans. It also suggested the Costa del Sol was by far the most popular area for foreign property investment.

The study put the demand for second Spanish homes 117,000 this year, a figure that will increase to 150,000 by 2010 with more sales in the other ‘Costas’.