The sea reigns supreme in Brittany. The rugged coastline stretches for more than 1,700 miles, a third of France’s total, offering sandy beaches, hidden coves and turquoise waters. In ancient villages, half-timbered houses overlook brightly coloured fishing boats, while wild Atlantic waves prove irresistible to surfers.
The north-western region, also known for its dense forests and Celtic culture, has long seduced buyers of holiday homes. Yet, while Teresa Grasset, her husband and their eight-year-old son love living close to the sea, their permanent move from the UK had a more pragmatic motivation: schooling.
“I grew up between the UK and Australia. I was educated privately and always hoped to offer my son the same,” says Grasset, a teacher at a private lycée (secondary school). “The school he attends is excellent. A lot of play and teaching is done outdoors and it’s close to the beach so many activities are oriented towards the water.”
Independent school fees in the UK are subject to 20 per cent VAT as of this month, with schools passing on some or all of the additional cost, and Grasset, who moved four years ago, says her family would have been priced out of private education if they still lived in the UK. “Some of our British friends with children at private schools are considering moving to other parts of Europe, where the schooling is more affordable and the taxes generally aren’t as steep,” she adds.
It’s yet another factor that is adding shine to international schools. The number has increased by 50 per cent over the past decade, from 9,615 in 2014 to 14,457 last year, according to the data company ISC Research. Pupil numbers have risen by 56 per cent in that time, to 7.3mn, while total fee income has soared by 76 per cent, from $36.5bn in 2014 to $64bn. And these schools are increasingly influencing the property markets around them. “The majority of international schools are day and it drives up the price of houses no question, especially if they’re good schools,” says Tess Wilkinson, director of education services at global citizenship and residency advisory firm Henley & Partners. Developers are also seizing the potential.
While tax and lifestyle factors have long been prompting families to reconsider where they live, especially in the wake of the pandemic, overseas relocation and education consultants have seen a spike in interest over the past year. Politics is a key driver for Americans, with Henley & Partners reporting a 400 per cent increase in inquiries from US clients about migration in the days following last November’s election; while for UK families, VAT on school fees is an exacerbating factor in an already febrile landscape, says Wilkinson.
$64bnTotal fee income of international schools, which has soared by 76 per cent in the past decade
Private school day fees in the UK averaged £18,000 a year before the addition of VAT, according to the Independent Schools Council, with some top boarding schools charging more than £50,000. “Parents are now looking at international schools overseas which . . . offer the same curriculum and are getting students into the same top universities,” says Charles Bonas, founder of education adviser Bonas MacFarlane.
And more schools are being established to cater for them. “The opening of private international schools is always going to be linked to demand from aspirational families, be that from a burgeoning domestic middle class or families moving around the world to cities where international business is prevalent,” says Selina Boyd, international editor of The Good Schools Guide. “Families are, without doubt, prioritising education as a key factor alongside the pull of business, tax and lifestyle.”
Marbella, in southern Spain, is setting the bar. Now home to more than 150 nationalities, its international schools offer a wide choice of curricula. “Whether you’re Swedish, French, German, American or British, there’s a school for you,” says Julian Walker, director at Spot Blue International Property.
It was education — as well as the lifestyle and weather — that prompted Dagmara Mosinska and her husband to move recently with their four-year-old daughter from Edinburgh to the outskirts of Marbella.
“In Scotland, we were paying over £1,000 a month for three days of childcare a week but our daughter is now at a fantastic international pre-school with a British curriculum that costs €600 a month full-time, Monday to Friday,” says Mosinska, 36, who works in real estate. In September, her daughter will move to a bilingual school that goes to age 18 and offers the International Baccalaureate (IB).
According to Nicola Christinger, associate at Knight Frank estate agency, the schools most sought after by British expats include Aloha College in Nueva Andalucia, one of Marbella’s largest neighbourhoods, and the Swans primary and secondary schools within Marbella’s Golden Mile, the beachfront strip running 5km from Puerto Banús.
“Proximity to top-tier schools can affect property values,” says Christinger, increasing the premium of the already sought-after residential areas. In Nueva Andalucia, prices for a four-bedroom villa go from about €2.2mn up to €15mn, with a range of €2.5mn to €25mn on the Golden Mile. Christinger adds that options to add to the existing housing stock are limited by the shortage of land in these prime locations, further driving up competition and prices.
Just as good schools attract families, so a growing number of year-round expat families attracts more international school brands. In Madrid, the American school Brewster Academy opened its first campus in 2023 and will open a second in the La Moraleja area in September. British school Runnymede College in La Moraleja has just opened a new prep school building.
“La Moraleja has one of the biggest concentrations of private schools per sq km in Europe and this certainly affects the housing market and property prices in both rentals and sales,” says Alejandro Zafra, director of Lucas Fox estate agency’s Madrid-La Moraleja office. He estimates this to be as much as 10 per cent.
The trend is particularly marked in Portugal. While the country has ended its “non-habitual residents” regime, under which high-net-worth individuals could enjoy tax benefits for 10 years, this doesn’t appear to be putting off families. The Good Schools Guide reports a recent increase in parents seeking its help to find schools in the country.
Jamie Robinson, sales director at QP Savills in the Algarve, says that a decade ago 90 per cent of his sales to British buyers were holiday homes. “Now that has shifted, with about 35 per cent main homes,” he says. Schools have been responding, expanding their campuses, with more looking to open. Robinson says he is working with two international school chains to find new sites in the Algarve.
Many schools are in the so-called Golden Triangle between Vilamoura, Almancil and the resorts of Quinta do Lago and Vale do Lobo — pushing up prices in already prime areas. Savvy developers are targeting these families — take the new Arcaya project, set in a forest. Villas with landscaped gardens and private pools are available off-plan from £1.9mn through Savills.
Likewise, in the south of France, boutique developers are moving inland from Cannes to target the medieval villages of Mougins and Valbonne, says Jack Harris, partner at Knight Frank. Mougins British International School and Campus International de Valbonne are top choices for the children of the 43,000 employees of 80 nationalities that work at the vast Sophia Antipolis technology park, north of Cannes, many of whom live in Mougins and Valbonne.
In these picturesque spots, prime property prices range between €4,500 and €17,000 per sq metre, less than half the range of €11,000-€46,000 per sq metre in coastal areas such as Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and Saint-Tropez, according to Savills. While some families plump for a restored apartment or small house on the cobbled village streets, those with bigger budgets will look for a bastide house in Mougins with views of the countryside and sea, according to Tim Swannie, director of the buying agency Home Hunts.
Switzerland continues to draw the international elite — as much for its low taxes and security as for its education options. International parents certainly aren’t coming for the bargain fees, however; they can be as high as the mountains — Swiss boarding schools Institut Le Rosey and Institut auf dem Rosenberg are among the most expensive schools in the world, costing in the region of SFr150,000 ($165,000) a year.
Claire Whisker, founder of First in the Door, a platform that matches buyers in the UK and Europe with buying agents, reports an increasing number of inquiries from British families looking at the country. Beyond education, “Swiss schools offer unparalleled extracurricular opportunities such as skiing, alongside clean air and dual-season Alpine scenery,” she says.
While Switzerland has a complex set of rules governing property purchases, Verbier and other Alpine resorts are open to overseas buyers. Verbier is so popular that a second international school, Copperfield — the world’s only ski-in, ski-out international IB school — opened in 2021. Property prices in Verbier rose 2.3 per cent in the year to June, according to Knight Frank, with prime homes costing from €28,700 to €31,800 per sq metre, making it the fourth most expensive resort in the Alps. Most homes are apartments, although there’s a good number of chalets; those offering easy access to the slopes command the loftiest prices.
Over the border, Italy has been luring the wealthy and mobile with its flat tax on foreign income, although the annual levy has now been doubled to €200,000 for new applicants. While many financiers have moved to Milan or Lake Como, Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda is also seeing interest, and an international school is opening in Olbia in September. This will take children from kindergarten to age 14 and offer a bus service transporting them within a radius of 100km, a huge distance intended to scoop up a wide range of pupils, because it would be the first international school in the region.
“You need enough of a year-round population to build a school,” Bonas says of this first educational foray. “There’s clearly been sufficient interest in Sardinia from people who would like to live there but haven’t (yet moved) because of the schooling.”
While UK fees may be off-putting for some, the style of teaching is not, and this is leading to an increasing number of British public schools following its expats.
North London Collegiate School, Brighton College and Royal Grammar School Guildford (RGS) have all opened in Dubai in recent years, with Gordonstoun Abu Dhabi scheduled to open in 2026. Overseas campuses are an increasingly appealing way to diversify their income streams, says Richard Cairns, principal of Brighton College.
“Locations are chosen according to demand for a high-quality British education,” Cairns says. “This is strongest in those countries like the UAE or Singapore, with historic connections with the UK, and also where there are large British expat or English-speaking communities.”
Indeed, the biggest growth in international schools is outside Europe — since July 2022, 491 have opened, 69 per cent of which are in Asia, according to ISC Research.
The UAE comes next; it now has a total of 827 international schools, and Dubai — home to nearly half of them — is experiencing the strongest growth among expatriate families, especially from Europe, China and Britain. “The city is unique in its rapid expansion, with schools consistently reporting rising demand that shows no signs of slowing,” says Sami Yosef, head of global research at ISC Research. “Many schools are reaching capacity or have waiting lists across multiple grade levels.”
It’s well-known that Dubai has experienced huge house-price inflation, driven in part by the launch in 2019 of the golden visa scheme, whereby those who spend upwards of about $550,000 on property can gain a 10-year renewable residence visa. The prices of villas and town houses — families’ preferred options — have risen the most, compounded by a lack of supply because development over the past decade has largely focused on apartments, according to Alec Smith, head of sales and leasing at Savills Dubai.
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Schools set their sights on areas where affluent families already live. RGS opened in 2021 in Tilal Al Ghaf, a resort-style community centred round a 1.2km lagoon; Savills says prices here have surged by 83.5 per cent, from an average Dh10,107 ($2,750) to Dh18,546 per sq m, with recent mansion sales reaching more than Dh33,000 per sq m.
“New villa communities are being developed that are expected to help balance supply and demand over time,” Smith says. “However, these projects will take time to be fully up and running, leaving the market tight in the short term.” Rental prices have also risen significantly, adds Yosef. Anyone moving here must also be mindful of human rights concerns, with homosexuality, extramarital sex and sex under the age of 18 illegal and subject to harsh penalties.
Yet the combination of ritzy lifestyle, zero income tax and world-class schools is a continuing draw. Businessman Steven moved to Dubai two years ago for work. He and his wife recently had their first child and are now planning to remain and send him to school there. “I don’t love Dubai, yet having a child here has changed my perception,” says Steven, who preferred to speak under a pseudonym. “The hospitals are great and there are so many good schooling options that we have put our baby’s name down for one. The schools didn’t make me come here — but they are making me stay.”
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