IT'S THE most popular thing that Dorset's house hunters will be searching for if they're looking for their dream property over the Easter weekend.

And it isn't mansion, garden or balcony.

Data from house website Rightmove.com shows that thing we most hope to find in a new home is... a garage.

Nearly as many househunters, however, looked for homes with an annexe.

Scrutiny of the the keywords people search for on the Rightmove site has shown that we’re a nation of car lovers, who also crave extra space either in the form of a building out the back or an acre of land.

After garage and annexe, the most searched-for word was acre, then garden and detached.

Cottage was the sixth most popular searchword, followed by character, bungalow and freehold. Rural was the tenth most popular word.

Properties with annexes, self-contained units that are generally a building or part of a building used as separate living space, account for just two per cent of resale properties on Rightmove. But they have been searched for over 100,000 times using Keyword Sort since May last year, said the website.

The survey of keywords also showed the more unusual things homebuyers were hoping to find.

Rightmove said people also searched for castle, chapel or coach house, and a few were looking for a library, thatched roof, tree house or sauna.