Itineraries of Capital: Investments in holiday homes

  • Online marketplace Traum-Ferienwohnungen analyses investment flows in holiday properties and ownership structure in Europe’s most popular holiday destinations
  • Netherlands popular with German holidaymakers and investors
  • The largest market share in foreign hands is held by German owners in Spain

When it comes to buying a holiday property, the vast majority of Europeans prefer investment in their own country. On average in Europe, around 92% of investments in holiday properties remain in the home country. With a rate of over 97%, this share is above average in Denmark, France, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Spain and Sweden.
The Dutch and Belgians are particularly mobile when it comes to choosing their investment location. The Netherlands is the leader in foreign investment with 26.4%, closely followed by Belgium with 24.2%. With a share of 10.5%, the Germans, who in the past have often appeared as travel world champions, also express their willingness to travel when it comes to investments.

The Netherlands has been a consistently popular travel destination for many years, and not just for holidaymakers. With a 20.7% share of foreign investments, the Netherlands is the most popular destination for Germans. Spain follows in second place with 15.2%, ahead of Italy with 12% and Austria with 10.5%. France, which receives the most European foreign investments at 20.02%, accounts for only 9.7% of German foreign investments.

When considering ownership, France and Spain, in particular, stand out with a high share of holiday properties in foreign hands. The domestic ownership rate is 72.2% in Spain and 75.6% in France.
The largest group of foreign owners in Spain are Germans (15.2%), followed by Dutch (5.3%) and Belgians (3.8%). In France, the Dutch make up the largest share of foreign investors with 7.7%, followed by Belgium, Germany (5% each) and Switzerland (4.8%). In Austria, 85.2% of owners live in Austria, while 7% live in the Netherlands and 6.5% in Germany.
In the most popular destination for German investment, the Netherlands, the proportion of German owners is 12.3%, while 86.7% is Dutch-owned. In Belgium (90.2%), Croatia (94%), Denmark (96.8%), Germany (98.4%) and Sweden (91.5%), holiday properties are almost exclusively in domestic ownership. In Italy, which has a high domestic ownership rate at 91.8%, German owners have a significant share of holiday properties at 5.3%.


About the research:
60,297 holiday homes of private owners in Europe were examined. The basis is a joint internal data collection by Belvilla by OYO, Dancenter and Traum-Ferienwohnungen. Date of data collection 01.04.2022.