Hi Everyone,

The major Russian international real estate portal Prian has summarized the results of its visitors’ searches by countries of interest for 2015. Every month 350 000 online visitors from Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia and other Russian-speaking countries come to the portal to search for properties abroad in Russian, and over the year they look at more than 40 000 000 pages showcasing homes and apartments for sale in more than 50 countries.

Here are the champion countries of interest for the Russian buyers of international real estate:

Bronze: from 3 000 to 30 000 views a month

Traditionally Switzerland, Austria, Monaco and Great Britain keep the affluent Russian buyers interested.

Estonia has lost its call in comparison with a couple of years ago when it was fashionable in Russia to buy an apartment in Tallinn.

Dominican Republic stays strong with its charm for the Russian lovers of the Caribbean beaches.

Silver: from 30 000 to 100 000 views a month

Portugal climbs higher and closer to the first top 10 countries with confidence due mostly to the following three factors: its “Golden Visa” program has lowered the entry property price, the country’s economy has improved allowing investment opportunities and the tourist potential of the country has its appeal for the Russians that can be compared with Spain more and more.

Latvia, on the other hand, is losing its popularity after putting the entry property purchasing price for getting the residency rights higher than before.

Cyprus has moved a bit higher in the rating with its low real estate prices, thus more buyers can afford a compact apartment on the island; also the banking crisis is over, the economy is recovering; and the last but not the least - the “Golden Visa” program is still working.

Croatia seems to miss the opportunity it could get with the new law that allows a foreigner to buy properties as a physical person without starting a local company which keeps the costs and bureaucratic actions down. Probably the neighboring country of Montenegro has taken more Russian buyers with its even more attractive new law for the foreign real estate buyers?

Gold: from 100 000 to 1 000 000 views a month

Montenegro announced its new government program that would allow any foreign real estate buyer to obtain the residency in the country at the beginning of 2015, but in reality the program started working in November, so it has not affected the year results yet, but it is very promising for 2016.

Turkey, on the other hand, is expected to go down in popularity because of the conflict with Russia, but at the same time the Russians are not the only buyers over there, there are also active buyers from the Muslim Russian-speaking former Soviet countries, such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan, also the Ukrainians are more active than earlier, and these buyers can help to some extent to keep the country’s position up.

Greece deserves some special attention. During the summer when the world discussed the Greek economic problems, the Russian interest in the Greek homes for lowering prices started to grow and eventually Greece has climbed to being one of the top countries of interest for the Russian buyers.

Italy and Germany are on the top as always. Both real estate markets offer properties in various price ranges and of course, both countries have their solid reputation: Italy is fashion and food, Germany is law and order.

And now: what country was the winner of the rating in 2015? As usual Bulgaria is very popular: 7 500 000 views of the portal's visitors were eyeing the Bulgarian properties over the year, while 6 500 000 looked at the Spanish homes. But paying attention to details, Spain is probably the winner as it has been getting very quickly more and more viewers starting from the beginning of 2015 and by December Spain was having 25% more views than Bulgaria. Quite possible that in 2016 the leading country of interest will be Spain as it is getting ahead of Bulgaria for the first time since such ratings had been compiled.

Some countries that haven't got just a little bit to come to the top 30:

Egypt was doing quite well and going up till the deadly accident when the Russian plane went down, and then the country went down a lot in the eyes of the Russians.

Malta is a small, but very attractive country because its real estate prices are growing 4% to 6% a year, and its immigration program offers a passport (not just residency!). 56% of applicants are from the former Soviet Union countries by the way.

The top countries interesting for the Russian buyers of international real estate in 2015:

1. Bulgaria

2. Spain

3. Germany

4. Greece

5. Italy

6. Turkey

7. Montenegro

8. Czech Republic

9. U.S.A.

10. France

11. Finland

12. Cyprus

13. Latvia

14. Portugal

15. Slovenia

16. Thailand

17. Hungary

18. Croatia

19. U.K.

20. U.A.E.

21. Dominican Republic

22. Switzerland

23. Estonia

24. Austria

25. Israel

26. Monaco

27. Lithuania

28. Netherlands

29. Belgium

30. Belorussia

Hope this knowledge can help you in your marketing. I realize that the list goes only till the number 30 while there are 200+ countries in the world. If your country is not on this list and you are interested in your position with the potential Russian buyers, please let me know and we will see how we can address the issue together.

To your best business success,

Sincerely,