KEY POINTS:
Britons are flocking to buy overseas property they have seen on their favourite films and TV shows - including New Zealand, thanks to the dramatic scenery in Lord of the Rings.
A survey by a foreign exchange company, Foreign Currency Direct, shows they are among the one-fifth of Britons who have bought a foreign property after being influenced by a film or television series.
With the help of the polling company YouGov, the firm asked 2000 people what prompted their investment in property overseas.
After analysing their replies, it picked out the 10 films and television series that have tempted buyers to start a new life, or buy a second home, abroad.
Some film-goers have sought to emulate the fictional young hedonists in the 2000 thriller The Beach by seeking their own utopia in Thailand.
Others have followed the James Bond films, which have frequently featured the azure waters and lively nightlife of the Caribbean.
The cobbled streets, fishing boats and shimmering sea of The Talented Mr Ripley have strengthened the appeal of rural Italy, despite harbouring a celluloid psychopath played by Matt Damon.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin has, apparently, prompted an influx of romantic homebuyers to the Ionian island of Cephalonia.
An interest in moving to Argentina may have been aroused by the 2004 hit The Motorcycle Diaries, which depicted the journey of a young Ernesto "Che" Guevera and his friend Alberto Granado from Buenos Aires to Venezuela.
Television series credited with stirring people into action include A Year in Provence, based on Peter Mayle's diary of restoring a French farmhouse. About 13 per cent of buyers in the south of France aged over 45 said they had been "seduced" by the series.
Rural Ireland has become popular partly as a result of Ballykissangel, the BBC drama set in a village in County Kerry, but filmed in County Wicklow.
And the purchase of property in the Scottish highlands has been spurred by the panoramas of The Monarch of the Glen. Further afield, the soap operas Neighbours and Home and Away, set in Melbourne and Sydney, have tempted Brits to Australia with images of detached houses and unfeasibly large kitchens.
- INDEPENDENT
