HITWISE UK PROPERTY UPDATE

24% increase in UK Internet searches for property abroad; Interest in house prices increases 56% year-on-year

London, Thursday 23^rd August

A recent comprehensive study by Hitwise UK, the leading online competitive intelligence service, comparing UK Internet searches for overseas property and estate agents for the four weeks ending 4^th August 2007 to the same period in 2006, has revealed searches for property to buy overseas have increased by 24% from the same period in 2006. This follows on from data released earlier this week by the Office of National Statistics showing that 385,000 people left the UK for the long term in the year to mid-2006. 

France and Spain are still the top destinations for Brits looking to buy property abroad, however this year Hitwise has also seen interest returning in other Mediterranean countries, with searches for Italy, Portugal and Cyprus significantly increasing.

• France remains the strong favourite overseas location for Brits seeking to move abroad or buy a second home.  Of the top five regional searches within France, four are related to Brittany, making this the most popular French region followed by Normandy.
• Cyprus saw the largest increase within the top 10 overseas locations searched for by UK Internet users, with searches more than doubling year-on-year.
• Searches for the Republic of Ireland have increased by 33% year-on-year, with the region entering the top 10 overseas destinations at #10, pushing out Australia which saw searches decrease by 43%.
• Searches for the less mainstream locations of Bulgaria and Turkey fell by 9% and 1.5% respectively this year.

New Zealand is the top non-European destination this year above Australia, the USA and Dubai.  This has been driven by extensive marketing campaigns from Air New Zealand and New Zealand Tourism.  The profile of the country has also been raised through the popularity of films such as Lord of the Rings and The Last Samurai.

A possible driver in the increased interest in overseas property has been the steady increase in prices for UK property.  As speculation continues on the future of the UK property market, buyers are keeping an eye on rising prices with UK Internet searches for “house prices” increasing by 56% year-on-year.  The highest volume generic, or non-branded, search term sending visits to Property websites was “house prices” during the four weeks ending 4^th August. 

UK Internet visits to house price website www.nethouseprices.com were up 10% year-on-year from July 2006 to July 2007, and up 28% for www.houseprices.co.uk over the same period. Both websites ranked within the Top 20 visited Property websites during July.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com/ and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.

For Media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill

Jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Tel: 020 7378 3619