The magazine

Every European market, read honestly

Where the money is actually moving — the verdict, the numbers and the catch, market by market. Several markets are live with real monthly data across Europe; the rest are rolling out.

The market that split in two

Portugal repriced at the top. The returns moved down the list.

Great yields, a gorgeous life, and a market that quietly split in two. Here is where the money still works.

The Airbnb door is closing

Spain is deeper than Portugal, and in the loudest rule change in a decade.

Bigger, more liquid, and mid-way through a rewrite of its own rules. Here is where the returns still are, and where the tourist-flat door has already shut.

One flag, two markets

Italy finally moved. The trick is buying the right half of it.

Yields that beat most of Western Europe, a market that finally turned, and a €1-house dream that costs a great deal more than a euro.

Cheap, but the rules just tightened

Greece is the last cheap corner of the Med, and the licence window is closing.

The best raw yields left on the Mediterranean, priced years behind Spain and Italy. The catch is what you are now allowed to do with the flat.

Boring on purpose

France pays less and protects more. That is the whole pitch.

Thinner yields than the south, but the deepest tenant demand and the most reliable rule of law in Europe. A safe-harbour market, if you buy it as one.

Read the deed before the view

Cyprus just rewrote its tax code in the landlord’s favour. The 1974 line still decides everything.

The same island sells clean EU title and legally void title, sometimes in listings that sit side by side. Get that one call right and Cyprus is the lightest-touch landlord market in the EU.

The free ride ended in 2025

Croatia finally sent holiday homes a bill. The buyers it punishes are the ones on autopilot.

For decades the Adriatic was buy-and-forget, with no real cost to holding. Since January 2025, an empty coastal flat pays an annual tax that a long-let or a lived-in home does not.

The walls, yes. The ground, maybe.

Romania will sell anyone an apartment. The land under a house is another law entirely.

Non-EU money can own any flat in Bucharest outright, and cannot directly own a garden in Transylvania. Knowing why is the difference between a purchase and a company formation.

Euros without the union

Montenegro sells the Adriatic in euros, and hands foreigners the keys with almost no fuss.

A pocket-sized coast that trades in a currency it never officially joined, with a buyer-friendly rulebook — until the deal involves land rather than walls.

New currency, old prices

Bulgaria just became the eurozone’s cheapest member. Half its market was never built for tenants.

The EU’s lowest flat tax, its newest euro member, and prices repricing faster than almost anywhere in the bloc. The work is telling the twelve-month cities from the resorts that go dark in October.

The big market that kept its currency

Poland is central Europe's engine — and one of the last cheap ways into a market that still grows.

The largest economy in the region, a wall of year-round tenants, and prices that have run for a decade. The catch is the two things the brochures skip: you keep the currency risk, and the taxman stopped forgiving your costs.

The grown-up of the region

Czechia is the richest, most finished market in central Europe — which is exactly why the value has left the capital.

No purchase tax, clean title, a world-class capital. But Prague is priced like the world city it is, and the yield that used to live there has moved to Brno and Ostrava.

The eurozone's quiet workshop

Slovakia is a small market that pays in euros, taxes you lightly, and asks only that you respect its size.

No currency risk, no transfer tax, and a foreign buyer treated like a local. The discipline is the opposite of Poland's: this is a compact market where the capital runs expensive and the yield lives out east.

One city, and the rest is homework

Hungary is a bet on Budapest — cheap in forints, quick to appreciate, and wrapped in the region's most paperwork.

A capital that punches far above the country around it, at central-European prices. But you keep the currency, a non-EU buyer needs a permit, and the short-let money is being shown the door.

Small, green, and quietly getting cheaper to own

Slovenia is a euro-priced sliver of Alps-and-Adriatic that just cut its landlord tax — if your passport is on the right list.

No currency risk, a tidy capital, a coast and a ski season in the same small country. The surprises are who's allowed to buy and a 2026 tax cut most guides haven't caught up with.

The safe, expensive grown-up

Austria is where European money goes to be safe — priced accordingly, and gated by nine different rulebooks.

Vienna, routinely the world's most liveable city, at a yield to match its stability. The entry is the most complex in the region: a non-EU buyer needs provincial approval, and the Alps don't want your holiday home.

The ten-year clock

Germany taxes the impatient: hold a property for ten years and the entire capital gain is yours, tax-free

Germany rewards property investors for exactly one virtue: patience — hold a property privately for more than ten years and the entire capital gain is tax-free. In Europe's great nation of renters, the money is made by owners who never feel the urge to sell.

The landlord ban

The Dutch will sell you the house — but the city decides whether you're allowed to be its landlord

The Netherlands is the one major European market where a city can legally forbid you from becoming a landlord at all. Anyone may buy a Dutch home — but under opkoopbescherming, whether you may let it is decided by the municipality before you ever see a tenant.

Head to head

City comparisons

01Two darlings, one surpriseLisbon vs Barcelona: which city is the better property investment?

02The famous one, and the smart oneLisbon vs Valencia: the coast everyone bids on, and the one that actually pays

03Trophy vs momentumParis vs Athens: the trophy city, and the one still early

04The capital, and the discountMadrid vs Naples: the capital everyone knows, and the discount they don’t

Market vs market

Country comparisons

01The obvious pairPortugal vs Spain: the matured darling and the deeper market

02Deep vs the discountSpain vs Italy: liquidity, or the discount nobody bid on

03The renovation and the renovatedGreece vs Portugal: the last cheap corner vs the one that already ran

04The big threePortugal vs Spain vs Italy: where southern Europe actually pays

Coming to the magazine

Place stories, and plain-English answers on visas, tax and yield — published as each is fact-checked against live sources.

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