Insurance News Archive

New Europe's cities 'good property investments'

Cities in some of Europe's new member states have been highlighted as some of the "best gambles" for property investors in a recent survey.

Studies by estate agent Knight Frank on behalf of the The Daily Telegraph revealed that new arrival Romania as well as 2004 entries Latvia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia lead the top spots for lasting investments.

And with fears that the UK property bubble could be bursting, PURE international estate agents has suggested that more than half of the City's bonuses this year could be spent on overseas properties.

Instead of looking at areas where there are holiday homes, the focus of the study was cities where growth would reward property investment.

Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank said: "These are the locations which are seeing employment levels, incomes and productivity rise rapidly from low levels to meet the EU average."

Based on that principle, which saw property markets in Ireland and Portugal grow rapidly to catch up, Mr Bailey put Romania's capital, Bucharest as the top investment spot because its prices are so slow and it has the most catching up to do.

The capitals of Latvia (Riga), Estonia (Tallinn), Lithuania (Vilnius) and Poland (Warsaw) rounded off the top five cities recommended for EU property investment.

29 Oct 2007