First-time buyers look to cheap property in US and Spain The US is followed by Spain, Australia, France and New Zealand. The boom in property tourism is not reflected across the board as purchases by the over 69s, who have traditionally dominated the international property scene, fell 79pc between 2007 and 2012. David Kerns, personal client dealing manager at Moneycorp, said: "Younger buyers are not letting the domestic housing market price them out of purchasing property altogether. More and more young buyers are going abroad to get themselves on the housing ladder. With the UK's shortage of affordable properties, large deposits required and challenging mortgage applications, for the first time it makes sense for younger buyers to simply look overseas for affordable alternatives. Don't miss: 70pc price falls in Spain draw in British buyers Newsletter: Read more on bargain properties abroad Why we sold up our £1.2m Tuscan villa How cheap is property abroad? A study by the OECD in May compared prices with local wages and rents and plotted this against historical norms. It found that Belgium, Norway and Canada were the most expensive markets, followed by New Zealand, France and Australia. It also compared prices with incomes, and again measured this with long-term patterns. British house prices were estimated as 31pc too high compared to rents and 21pc over-priced against incomes. For cheap property, the research pointed to Portugal, Ireland, Germany and Japan. The former two saw huge price falls during the financial crisis. The excesses of the property bubble that burst in late 2007 largely passed over Germany, and Japan's market has been in an on-off slide since a banking crisis in Tokyo in 1990. Spain was found to be over-valued despite several years of falling prices and the US, which has seen a recovery in prices in the past 18 months, was found to still be cheap. The detail is in the OECD chart below.