According to Tranio statistics, the number of applications for the purchase of real estate abroad from residents of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region in 2020 increased by 47% compared to 2019.
In 2019, Spain, the USA and Italy entered the top 3 most popular countries. A year later, the three desirable countries for St. Petersburg residents to buy real estate remained the same, but interest in Italy, Greece, Germany and Portugal.
According to the results of 4 months of 2021, residential real estate in Spain accounts for 31% of all applications from St. Petersburg, Greece is in second place — 17.5% of applications, Italy is in third place.
Spain has always been popular among Russians. In 2020, Russians ranked 11th among the most active foreigners in the Spanish real estate market, although according to the Spanish registry, the number of Russian real estate transactions in Spain decreased by 41% in 2020 compared to 2019.
The increased interest in Greece can be explained by the fact that despite the fact that housing prices increased by 3.7% last year, Greek real estate remains affordable. Moreover, the prospects of reselling this property and earning income in the future are growing, given that in Greece has resumed issuing mortgages that have been frozen since 2008, significant deferred demand has formed during the quarantine, and the European Union predicts GDP growth in Greece in 2021. All this can boost the prices of Greek real estate.
The increase in applications for Portugal is due to the fact that in 2021 the opportunity to obtain a residence permit for investments in real estate in Lisbon and Porto under the Golden Visa program: from 2022, the choice of investors will be limited to territories within the country.
Conversely, due to the cancellation of the Cyprus program for issuing “golden passports”, interest in this country began to decline.
Also at the beginning of this year, we conducted a customer survey, which showed that the pandemic affected the desire of 26% of our customers to obtain a European residence permit.
24% want to get a residence permit in Europe for the sake of traveling without borders, half of the respondents are ready to buy real estate in Europe for this. At the same time, it is interesting that most of those who wish have unrealistic expectations about the amount of necessary investments for this: 64% are ready to invest up to 150 thousand euros, while the minimum cost of obtaining a residence permit is 250 thousand euros, for example, for investments in Greece. Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.
English 
Russian 
German 
Polish