Hi Everyone,

Here is what the Russian real estate portal Prian with the most traffic of visitors who are looking at 5,000,000 pages a month reports on the topic.

The first place as always goes to Bulgaria as 20% of visitors of the portal stopped by properties in this country. The reasons for this never ending love are simple and clear: affordable prices, warm climate, and similar culture. But if in the past Bulgaria was leading up with a huge distance to the following nearest country, now it is not the case anymore.

Spain was almost the same popular as Bulgaria in 2013. This is just the case when crisis helped uncover new opportunities. The real estate prices in Spain went down, that is why the interest from Russian Buyers went up.

Germany steadily holds the third place. The most powerful economy in Europe has the lowest level of prices for entering the real estate market. A rental apartment that would bring some profit can cost as little as 15,000 to 20,000 Euros.

The rest of the countries in the top 10 desirable by Russian Buyers (see the full list below) were moving up and down more or less by a couple of positions during the year. Italy, Montenegro, Latvia, Finland, France and Czech Republic are there all year round, and Greece made a jump up to the top 10 in comparison with the last year when it was not there...

At the top of the second 10 we see Turkey. This sunny country with its economy on the rise was always among the countries that Russian Buyers loved.

Russian Buyers often go against analytical predictions. When Cyprus banking crisis started, many analysts said that there would be no interest for the real estate on the island. But nothing like that happened – see the full list below.

There are a couple of words about the countries that are not in the top 20, but are very close to it – Switzerland and Great Britain. The Russian Buyers interest to these countries has always been steady, but by definition it can't be high as prices are not for everybody, although Russians are among the most famous international buyers of palaces in London and chalets in Switzerland.

The most popular among Russian Buyers is of course Europe – all top 10 countries are in Europe. The most popular Asian country is Thailand. In Americas the US is far on top of any other countries. In Africa it is Egypt, in the Caribbean's it is Dominican Republic, in Persian Gulf it is UAE.

At the end of the rating are rather exotic for Russian Buyers countries: Cabo Verde, Belize, Mauritius, and Iceland.

At the same time the far away Caribbean's and "the last puzzle of Europe" Albania became not so exotic, but more real places of interest for Russian Buyers of international real estate.

So, here is the top 30 list of countries where Russian Buyers were interested in real estate during 2013:

1. Bulgaria

2. Spain

3. Germany

4. Italy

5. Montenegro

6. Latvia

7. Greece

8. Finland

9. Czech Republic

10. France

11. Turkey

12. USA

13. Cyprus

14. Croatia

15. Thailand

16. Estonia

17. Dominican Republic

18. Hungary

19. Slovenia

20. Portugal

21. Switzerland

22. Great Britain

23. Austria

24. UAE

25. Lithuania

26. Netherland

27. Israel

28. Belgium

29. Monaco

30. Australia

We can see that the geography of Russian Buyers acquiring properties internationally is getting wider and wider with time. If you don't see your country on the list above, it only means that the demand for your country is just not that high as for those top 30 countries, but by no means you should think that it is non-existing...

Whether your country is in high demand by Russian Buyers or still considered too "exotic" by them, each way has its pros and cons: for highly demanded countries there are very many properties on the market of course, so you have to compete against all of them to get ahead of others to sell your property in this situation; for exotic destinations your property may be one of the very few on the market, but still you have to do a lot of marketing to make your property visible and attractive to Russian Buyers inclined to adventures of the sort.

Proper marketing is the key to successful sales in any circumstances.

To your best business success,

Sincerely,