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My favorite Greek Island. Dazzlingly white-stucco villas & all those pretty traditional village houses with their sapphire-blue shutters are an indelible image of the Greek islands. It's no wonder that visitors dream of living here. Yet the Greek islands aren't at all overrun with foreign buyers. Why? There are 2 reasons: The first is the climate. Despite all those enticing picture-postcard images, the Aegean doesn't enjoy endless summer. Come mid-November, many islanders set sail for the mainland. Those who haven't left are battening down the hatches & preparing for 4 months of storms, rain & disrupted ferry schedules. Entertainment is almost non-existent & there's very little to do except develop an Ouzo habit. The second deterrent is the cost. Unless you delight in restoration projects, the house of your dreams is going to cost a lot of Drachmas. And while it's possible to find “bargain” properties, these tumbledown dwellings usually require lots of work as well as an additional $25,000 to $35,000 to make them habitable. No electricity, no running water, no access road. But the dollar is so strong right now that you can find the occasional good buy. Keep in mind that apart from the actual cost of the property, you'll have to budget an additional 15 to 17 percent for associated purchase costs such as taxes and fees for the notary and lawyer. The high prices came as a shock to me when I was there a few months ago. A half-acre plot on the party island of Mykonos? If it's in a desirable waterfront location, yours for $450,000. Due to its international profile, Mykonos is the most expensive of the Cyclades group. A villa at ritzy Paradise Beach goes for as much as $700,000. And should you want to emulate Athenian buyers and seek something nearer the mainland in the north Aegean, be warned: homes sell for shipping magnate prices. The simplest traditional properties there start at $300,000. A luxurious 6-bedroom villa on the wooded islands of Hydra or Spetses trades hands for US$1 million and more. If you want a place in the Cyclades, I recommend Naxos (my favorite Island) and Tinos. Naxos is a lot greener and more fertile than its neighbors, and it's big enough to escape the summer crowds. The west-coast beaches are among the best in the Cyclades, and the walking and wildflowers are wonderful. Away from the bustle of Naxos town, village life goes on pretty much as it has for centuries. However, traditional village properties seem fairly hard to come by here, most stay in the family or are sold privately, and you would probably need to be in the right place at the right time to find anything. I was able to track down one option: Waterfront apartments, 9 kilometers from Naxos Town in a complex that has tennis courts and a communal swimming pool, prices from 35.5 million to 51 million drachmas (US$114,166-US$164,013) A sacred isle
to Greeks, Tinos is a good bet for traditionalists and icon-painters who
hanker for seclusion. It's not really the place to open an “Irish Pub”
or an American-style burger bar as mass tourism is still unknown and the
island only gets busy on Orthodox religious holidays. The port and hub
of island activity is Tinos town where you'll find scores of good-value
tavernas in the ribbon-thin back streets.
Contact Hellenic
Realty, Rue de la Vigne au Chat, 01220 Sauverny, France; tel. (33)4-5042-7198,
E-mail:
Country estate in Costa Rica. A secluded country estate, Cascaja de Coronado, sits on 7 acres. The three-bedroom, 3-bath, 4,000 sq. ft. house has a gated entrance, a guard house, a two-car garage, two phone lines, and looks out over the Central Valley. It's located 12 miles from San Jose and the airport. The owner needs to sell soon, and is asking $150,000. Call (506)236-2293, E-mail: clayco@sol.racsa.co.cr A home overlooking
the Indian Ocean: $90,000.
The South African rand is so undervalued in exchange terms (at R6.5 to US$1) that it's now possible to buy a four-bedroom house with fabulous sea and mountain views for about $140,000, three times less than it would cost in California. And you can get properties for much less than this if you go just outside of Cape Town to Plettenburg Bay and Hermanus, for example. Here you can still buy a pleasant three-bedroom seaside house for under $90,000. Or if you want to build your own house, there is plenty of outlying undeveloped land starting at around $10,000 an acre. Building costs are in the $350-a-square-meter range, so a spacious 150-square-meter three-bedroom house with two bathrooms will cost about $52,500. In these coastal regions, between 60 and 300 miles from Cape Town, properties are, on average, 50% cheaper than on the Cape peninsula. The warm Indian Ocean washes onto beautiful beaches that remain empty except for holiday seasons (such as Christmas and Easter). You can rent a place here on the beach for $300 to $400 a month…and roughly double that in the holiday seasons. Rents in Cape Town are about $600 a month for an average middle-income area and go up to more than $1,500 a month for seaside houses and apartments, again increasing sharply come vacation time. South African property ownership laws also make it an extremely simple matter for non-residents or immigrants to buy and own their own land and dwellings. Look for my full report on South Africa next month. —Tom Nevin, Cape Town, South Africa For sale in County Waterford, Ireland. Georgian manor home, built of stone in the mid-19th century, situated today on 6 acres along with tumble-down stone outbuildings, including former stables. Charmingly renovated and completely updated with custom kitchen, five bedrooms, and 3 1/2 baths. Wood plank floors, high ceilings, French doors off the living room, and a Georgian-style fireplace. There aren't many such period properties in this part of the country, so this one is a find. Plus, County Waterford is on the coast, in the sunny Southwest, where there is less rain than anywhere else in the Emerald Isle. IR£350,000. Call 353-51-304-625 or E-mail: 75052.2500@compuserve.com. |
