Still looking to do what we did and buy an Abruzzo property ? Despite the current economic situation, the Abruzzo property market is holding up and there are still buyers

All you have to do is look at the check-in queues for Ryanair flights to the UK from Pescara Airport to accept that this is still a hotspot destination.

And those queues grow every time Abruzzo's mentioned on one of those relocation programmes on TV in the UK,  or in the property section of one of the Sunday papers.

Of course not every person on every UK flight is on an Abruzzo property hunt – but the fact that there are now four real-estate agency offices within Pescara Airport – compared to just one when we started our own Abruzzo house hunting in the autumn of 2006 – shows that a lot of Brits still want to move here.

But there's one telling and subtle change in the Abruzzo real-estate market. Previously, all the agencies at Pescara Airport listed their property details in English only. Now, they're starting to provide those same details in Russian and Bulgarian too. Eastern Europe is the source of some of the serious new money that's now arriving in Abruzzo.

But in the main, potential buyers from Eastern Europe and from the UK – still the leaders in Abruzzo real-estate deals – are looking for very different types of property.

The majority of East European buyers want ready-for-occupation holiday homes near the coast – big villas, or an apartment in one of the developments along the Adriatic, mainly north of Pescara, where a modern beach-front condo facing the sea costs €500,000+  And there are plenty of takers…

The Brits still hanker over restoring and modernising an old stone-built house in the hills or mountains. (Or in our case, knocking them down and starting again).

Abruzzo house prices in our area have remained reasonably stable since we arrived, but the pound's nosedive means that a property here now effectively costs 30% more than it would've done a year ago. That's the bad news.

The good news is that despite this, Abruzzo house prices still represent an astonishing bargain. Again, in terms of our local area, there's a decent supply of properties in need of varying degrees of restoration starting at well below €100,000.

Abruzzo's popularity hasn't just become apparent in the increasing number of real-estate agents at Pescara Airport. The number of online agencies has mushroomed too.

And that's meant a corresponding rise in the number of companies and individuals who are – shall we say – less than scrupulous in their dealings with buyers and sellers alike.

Property-buying in Italy is tricky and time-consuming. Don't for a second believe otherwise. It could save you an awful lot of money and heartache if you take independent, English-speaking advice before committing yourself to anything in writing.

Check out a previous post on the perils of Abruzzo house hunting – plus one or two estate agency recommendations.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 4:16 am and is filed under About Abruzzo, Property. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.