When most people think of the term ‘overseas property’, most will think of a villa overlooking a beach, or perhaps a petite maison in Provence or Tuscany. It’s a nice image; sipping glasses or local red wine on the balcony, watching the sun go down at the end of another perfect summer’s day. Prices are now such that properties in Provence, Tuscany or the Spanish Mediterranean coast are getting outside the reach of typical buyers and, after over a decade of strong growth, chances are that there aren’t going to be huge year-on-year price increases in the future. In the emerging markets of South-East Europe and North Africa though, it is still possible to find some affordable properties in resort locations. There has already been a lot of growth in prices of properties in prime, beachfront areas, but prices are still undervalued compared to comparative areas in Western Europe. A word of caution, however, before you leap into the market blindly. In most of the areas we will cover, the tourist infrastructure is far from developed yet. There aren’t as many flights out to the resorts as there are to Spain and not the same level of attractions to be found once the tourists get there. Ask yourself how many of your friends went to Romania or Bulgaria on their holidays last year? The downside to this, especially in such areas like the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast that has received a lot of publicity in recent years is that supply of rental property in resort areas could outstrip demand shortly, and that could result in your struggling to get rental income in during the summer months. Also the |  |
summer season in this area is not as long as in Spain, not to mention the Canary Islands which enjoy year-long sunshine. You need to bear these facts in mind when working out the annual income that can be expected from you property. On the following page we provide you with all of the essential data you will need in order to compare all of the emerging markets in Eastern Europe and North Africa side-by-side. At this point, it might be useful to explain which of the markets we cover on this site. In order to be covered on Propertastic!, countries need to achieve the following criteria: - They must be relatively new markets which have high growth potential. There is already plenty of information available on mature markets such as Spain, France, Greece and Cyprus, so no need to go through it again here.
- They must be within short-haul flying distance of Western Europe. While there are interesting property markets further away, you’re probably going to need to make several trips to the country or countries that are of interest to you in order to complete the property buying process from start to finish, and this is going to get rather expensive and tiresome if you need to make long-haul flights each time.
Before you click on the link to continue, we would advise you to pop the kettle on and make yourself a cuppa. We’re going to be doing some serious number crunching on the next page. OK, so are you nice and relaxed? Take some nice long deep breaths and continue … Show Me The Stats! >>> |