At this current time, there are no restrictions when it comes to buying property in Albania. Anyone from the UK or from the United States can simply go there, find a property and purchase it. However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be careful when you are searching for a property.  There are a variety of issues when it comes to buying property in Albania and if you don’t make sure to do everything that you really need to do, you will end up losing a lot of money.

One of the biggest issues when buying property in Albania is that you need to make sure that the title deeds of the property that you are going to buy are checked over by an independent lawyer. This is because in Albania, around 15% of the property there is not legitimate and the property does not belong to the true owners. If you buy a property and the title deeds did not state the true owners name before you bought the property, then the property can be taken off you and you will lose all of the money you paid for the property. Currently, this is especially important in places such as Tirana and the coastal towns as this is where most of the property that is not legit is located.

Another thing to be careful of when buying property in the country is that you need to check that the building you are looking to buy is legal. There is a history in Albania of building being built without permission and are therefore illegal. Buying one of these properties could see you lose a lot of money so make sure to check with the state that the property you wish to buy is all above board.

One other thing to be careful of in Albania is the fact that the country has a high corruption rate. Although this is being combated by the new government that came into power in 2004, it is still a big issue in the country and something to be careful of.

There has been a guest post on the blog of the real estate company called Property Frontiers that says that the Albanian property market has actually fared a lot better than in most countries during the recent economic downturn.

The post was by an Albania based estate agent and it explained that in particular, Tirana had actually done the best with a growth of 5% on prices during the year 2009 and it explained that this is expected to grow even further during 2010.

The rentals market was mentioned in the post too, and the firm explained that Tirana has some of the best yields with more than 10% being achieved. In most of the coastal towns the normal yield is around 7% meaning that Tirana is already achieving yields far higher than average and with the holiday season now in full swing, this is expected to get even higher.

It was also said on the post that the rental management sector is extremely new to the Albanian country and that only new commercial projects in the country are providing management.

The post also commented on the security of the market saying that there is no longer the problem of illegal buildings being built in the country. It said that government authorities are putting more and more effort into making sure that these illegal buildings do not get built and that they will penalise the people building them rather heavily if they find them. It was also said that because this has been an issue in the past, people are being much more careful and not taking risks when it comes to buying property so there is less chance of people buying these illegal buildings.

Lastly, the post commented on the new developments that are being built this year. There are many new developments that are currently being built in the country with many more proposed for the future. Some of these have being held back due to a lack of funding, however, these are only the larger developments.