Last May, Eric Schmidt, the US billionaire who formerly headed Google, bought a house in west London’s Holland Park for £42mn. The price he paid may not be typical, but the purchase is. American interest in a home on the other side of the Atlantic has grown in recent months, and according to estate agents Knight Frank, the US accounted for 6.9 per cent of all prime central London buyers in the first quarter of the year.
Schmidt probably has no intention of relocating to live in his new mansion. Like many international buyers, he no doubt views it as a safe-haven purchase, part of an investment portfolio, which a spokesperson confirms “includes high-end real estate around the world”. Elsewhere in Europe, resorts such as Andermatt in Switzerland are seeing a similar upside to financial turbulence in the US.
There has been much hype, however, about the potential swath of Americans eyeing up the relatively soothing waters of life across the pond with more long-term intentions. “We’ve seen a 250 per cent increase in inquiries from US clients looking to relocate to the UK and Europe since the beginning of 2025 [compared with last year],” says Artur Saraiva, global residency strategy director and co-founder of investment migration consultancy Global Citizens Solutions. “It’s not a new trend, but it has significantly accelerated.” Estate agents Hamptons reports that nearly three-quarters of North Americans house hunting in Britain in the first quarter of 2025 (the largest group in the international category, at 16 per cent) were looking to make a permanent move.
But how many will — and can — follow through? The Great Escape is not generally as straightforward as some might hope, particularly as property purchase-related residency schemes and other legal routes to migration are being tightened up — often prompted by resistance from locals.
The UK, for instance, abandoned its investor visas in 2022 over fears of money laundering. At the beginning of April, the Spanish government conceded to the demand to prioritise local housing needs by terminating its golden visa scheme, which granted residence permits to non-EU nationals who bought property worth €500,000 or more. And earlier this week the European Court of Justice ruled that Malta’s golden passport scheme violates EU law.
Those looking to make a longer-term stay are having to plan carefully to navigate the matrix of visas, tax and local property landscapes — and longer-term lifestyle expectations.
While politics are a relocation driver, and Trump’s second term has been a catalyst, Saraiva has “seen demand from both sides of the political spectrum”, and his client consultations indicate other important motives. “Security is a big factor, rising healthcare costs, the quality and affordability of education, as well as the desire for international experience.”
Lindsay Cuthill, co-founder of Blue Book Agency, a specialist in the English country-house market, mentions a further dimension: “I vividly remember a conversation with a Californian client who was moving because of ‘Trump, fires and guns’.’’
Notably, however, wealthy Americans don’t necessarily feel the pull of the continent’s low-tax jurisdictions, such as Monaco and Switzerland, or schemes such as Italy’s flat tax, given that US citizens are required to pay income tax on their worldwide income. The push factor is often more keenly felt, from wealth taxes levied in countries including Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. In Britain, there is a growing suspicion that an extreme wealth tax may be on the horizon. Some prudent Americans are also selling their US homes before moving to Europe to avoid incurring capital gains tax in their new country of residence.
Visas, both gateways and barriers to entry routes, are a shape-shifting landscape. Some of those currently on the table include: “entrepreneur” visas, “digital nomad” visas, “passive income” visas, “talent” visas and investment-based residency programmes (often known as golden visas), which are still available in countries including Greece and Cyprus.
“I’d done all the background research and had so many spreadsheets,” says Angela Wiggins, who moved to Lisbon from Nashville, Tennessee, in December and works remotely, “but I didn’t speak the language and needed assistance on the hoops we needed to jump through.”
Her move only came after investigating a number of alternatives. “Initially, I explored several countries — Canada, New Zealand, Norway — but didn’t meet the residency criteria. That led me to broaden the search to places I hadn’t thought of as a possibility. I had never visited Portugal, but I was drawn to its sense of safety, stable banking system, efficient healthcare, beautiful landscapes, cosmopolitan culture and more relaxed pace of life.”
According to Global Citizens Solutions, the most popular destinations for Americans are Portugal, Spain and Greece, which all offer a number of routes to residency, with the possibility of gaining a passport. The Greek residency by investment visa, for example, has an entry point of €250,000 for those prepared to convert a commercial property for residential use, but the government here has recently raised the ante to €800,000 to buy in fashionable areas including Mykonos and Attica (which includes parts of Athens). Not a difficult spend on the Athenian Riviera, where the $8bn Ellinikon, created from the old airport, has produced a much talked-about new residential destination. Those hoping to gain a passport — after seven years — will also need to learn to speak Greek; native English speakers may find it simpler to consider gaining residence by property purchase in Cyprus (minimum investment €300,000).
But as the situation in the US continues to change, more countries are introducing options: in the wake of President Trump’s attack on academic freedom in the US, last week the French ministry of education launched “Choose France for Science”, allowing French universities and research institutes to “submit projects for hosting international researchers ready to come and settle in Europe”. The University of Aix-Marseille announced it had received 300 applications for the 15 American academics it intends to sponsor through its “Safe Place for Science” project.
Terms and conditions for visas can be volatile, but those able to prove that they won’t be a burden on the state are at an advantage. Pachy Sarmiento, a graphic designer, animator and women’s rights activist currently living in Atlanta, Georgia, is about to sign a rental agreement on an apartment in Barcelona she has only viewed online. Able to benefit from Spain’s passive income visa, she already knew the city well and considers it a safe place to raise her five-year-old daughter as well as offering a better work-life balance. “The Americans live to work, the Europeans work to live, and this is what I want.”
Former Houston resident Amber Woods and her husband Alex also considered Spain, but have ultimately moved elsewhere. “My husband and I are both Spanish speaking, but we found the visa opportunity was nowhere near as competitive as Portugal’s.” Here, proposed changes to the country’s golden visa to exclude real estate purchases meant they decided to fast-forward their move, investing in an apartment hotel and arriving in Lisbon last June with their two children, aged eight and nine. “We’ve always liked European culture and liked the idea of a European passport. We also wanted our children to experience living abroad and Portugal is more family oriented, with a slower pace of life.”
In the UK, the 2016 Immigration Act, revised in 2023, was primarily a response to public fears about illegal immigration, but it has also made it significantly more difficult for those hoping to come here legally. Though the UK offers visas for “innovator founders”, “global talent” and “high potential individuals”, all have complex requirements and significant fees. “Essentially, the only realistic route to relocate to Britain long term at the moment is if you have a job offer,” says Saraiva.
Many European countries also grant “citizenship by descent”, with Ireland, Italy and Germany allowing claimants to unearth antecedents going back several generations, and Portugal and Spain offering a streamlined process of citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews as part of historical reparation initiatives.
“Italy is a particular favourite with Americans,” says Jelena Cvjetkovic, director of global residential at Savills. “Those of Italian descent often look to have a foothold in the land of their forefathers.”
For families, location choice is, unsurprisingly, often driven by education. “We always say, start with the school,” says Saraiva.
American relocators often lean towards international schools. These are on the rise in Europe, and together with a constantly shifting population means places more often become available. But school places in London have historically been notoriously hard to come by. In the UK, children, too, must have their own visa to attend school.
Those with special visas, such as “global talent”, must also secure visas for their dependants. “I’ve been working with an American family, where only one parent has the right of residence,” says Dr Lisa Martin, a London-based education consultant, “and found it virtually impossible to find places in independent day schools for their children. This is only going to get worse when the government tightens up the regulation on Child Student Visas (CAS) this month.”
In England, “it’s usual to see families head first into London for the business community, then settle round the international schools in Surrey”, says Becky Fatemi, executive partner at Sotheby’s International Realty in London, who has recently received “a flood of inquiries, especially from Los Angeles and New York”. “They can find houses more like those they might buy back home in the private gated estates like St George’s Hill and Wentworth.”
In the capital, the American School in London has long influenced the decision to purchase nearby in St John’s Wood, Hampstead and Notting Hill. “St John’s Wood has a thriving US community, largely thanks to ASL,” says Marc Schneiderman, director of north London agency Arlington Residential. “US buyers love the area’s low-built houses in roads such as Carlton Hill, Clifton Hill and Hamilton Terrace — substantial family houses with large gardens.”
But those rangy homes that Americans are generally accustomed to can be difficult to find in tightly packed European cities. This has helped boost the interest in locations such as Quinta do Lago in southern Portugal’s Algarve, according to Knight Frank, a resort that offers both substantial villas and the security of gated communities. For younger buyers, Comporta on Portugal’s west coast is, according to Savills’ Cvjetkovic, “the new kid on the block”. Cheaper than prime Algarve, it offers a similar relaxed, beach culture, new-built housing of scale and easy access to Lisbon’s international airport.
And while many Americans are drawn to Europe for its historic charms, they generally prefer their property to come with air conditioning and underfloor heating. “US buyers in London know exactly what they want,” says Fatemi. “The priority is turnkey and a seamless transition with as little upheaval as possible.”
A good example is the recently completed The Whiteley in west London’s Bayswater, the sleek reinvention of a celebrated art deco department store. “Of the 100 [of 139] units sold so far, around 17 per cent have gone to buyers from the US,” says sales director Charles Leigh. It hits a sweet spot, he says: “a blend of heritage architecture with modern construction”. At the OWO residences, created in the former War Office building in Whitehall, the 85 apartments are accompanied by the five-star benefits of the adjoining Raffles Hotel. American buyers reportedly include Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, and Todd Leland, the president of Goldman Sachs.
London is particularly well endowed with lavish new developments, and in this respect outshines other key European financial centres such as Paris and Milan. The latter has attempted to rectify the deficiency in a recent building boom, but that seems to have come to something of a full stop — stalled due to investigations into the city authorities’ approval processes. Meanwhile, in Paris, the arrival later this year of the art deco-inspired Signature (from £2.45mn, through Knight Frank) in the 16th arrondissement, with a 24-hour concierge service, gym, air conditioning and underground parking, is attempting to steal some limelight.
Over the past few years, with Europe’s relatively flat property market (Knight Frank’s reported growth for the prime global housing market in the last quarter of 2024 stood at 2.6 per cent), the flurry of American buyers in the UK and Europe has largely been driven by a strong dollar and lifestyle considerations rather than by investment. Given the volatility in the US, that’s now changing.
According to research carried out by Knight Frank, the top end of the London market is currently looking good value, with average prices 18 per cent lower than the last peak in 2015, providing opportunities for Schmidt and other shoppers.
“I’m currently working with an American businessman from the West Coast, exploring multiple properties in London, the Swiss Alps and Vienna,” says James Davies, partner in the International super-prime sales team at Knight Frank. “He owns homes in the Hamptons, Florida, and a ski place in the US, but he has $100mn of real estate all in the same country and same currency. He said to me, ‘If the US economy stumbles, all my tangible assets will fall at the same time. I need to practise what I preach, and diversify.’”
But investment is one thing, moving another. “It’s not always easy being an expat,” concludes Saraiva. “You have to be realistic about all you are leaving behind.” Amber Woods, however, has no regrets: “When I visit the US, I don’t feel I’m going home. I miss being in Portugal.”
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