It has just got a whole lot easier to buy in Croatia, the country from the former Yugoslavia that inherited all the beautiful Adriatic coastline, and has been dubbed "the new Riviera". Croatia wants to join the European Union, and as part of the negotiation, it has dropped a major hurdle that hampered EU citizens wanting to buy property there.
It's been possible to buy in Croatia for the best part of a decade, but before you could do so, you had to obtain permission from the Ministry of Justice, a process that usually took up to six months and was enough to kill some deals. The permission was required to confirm that the buyer was from an approved country, and that the property itself was not of a restricted category. Until you had the certificate, you could not obtain title to your property.
Now, EU citizens can enjoy the same rights to buy property as Croatian nationals themselves, cutting out the red tape and putting the Croatian market on a par with other southern Mediterranean countries such as nearby Italy and Greece. According to the German press agency DPA, before the rules were eased in February, only 11,517 foreign citizens or firms had bought property in Croatia. The vast majority of those were Germans, Slovenians and Austrians, leaving the British market virtually untapped.
But any fears among the locals that their best houses are about to be snapped up en masse are likely to prove unfounded due to the current state of the market. Dubravko Ranilovic, head of Croatia's Real-Estate Association, said that sales were down by 70 to 80% in January and many estate agencies might close if the decline continued, according to Croatian news website Javno.com.
Nevertheless, Croatia has enormous potential for Europeans seeking a holiday home in the sun, and the attraction will become even stronger if the country succeeds in joining the EU in 2010 or 2011 as planned. It has more than 5,800 km of Adriatic coastline, including 1,185 islands, of which only 67 are believed to be inhabited.
The most expensive properties by far are to be found in the ancient walled city of Dubrovnik, on the Dalmatian coast, where Savills is currently selling a former nobleman's villa at the western gate of the Old Town, for £2.7m. Property on the Istrian peninsula, close to Croatia's border with Slovenia, and on some of the less accessible islands is much cheaper. A stunningly restored 16th century farmhouse in Motovun, Istria, being sold by German developer Dussmann Homes, would cost you €395,000 plus VAT. Both are available on Primelocation.
Alexander Garrett is a freelance property writer who contributes regularly to The Observer and British Airways' Business Life.