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The current climate is having an impact upon expats' investing habits

Expats have responded to global economic woes by altering their saving and investment patterns, according to the findings of this years' survey, with a heightened preference for longer term investments.

The trend is most pronounced in the shift from cash to property investments. Nearly a quarter (22%) of expats said the highest proportion of their investments are now held in real estate, compared to only 16% who held investments in this form when they first became expats.

The pattern is accentuated in countries most affected by the Eurozone crisis such as France (37% now compared to just 29% when they first relocated) and the UK (18% up from 10%). While less pronounced, the trend is also mirrored in Italy (28% up from 23%), Germany (18% up from 14%) and Spain (39% up from 35%).

But the shift to real estate investment comes at the expense of cash savings. For European countries such as Spain and the UK, the drop in proportion of cash savings has been as much as 8% during the course of living in the country. (In Spain 25% of expats held the majority of their investments in cash compared to 17% now and in the UK the proportion of cash savings has dropped from 38% to 30%).

The most notable drop in proportion of cash investments comes from expats living in Australia, where 42% of expats held the highest proportion of their investments in cash when they first moved. That figure has since dropped to just under a third (29%). A similar story prevails in New Zealand (34% upon relocation compared to 18% now). Given the high proportion of retirees and expat lifers within these countries, this move could be as the result of expats setting up long term commitments in the country.

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