Puglia area has suffered during the last year not the real crisis but the weekness of the British Pound and US dollar against the Euro. UK Clients have continued to aks information about the properties for sale in Puglia but most of them decided to wait for a better exchange rate before to make an offer to buy. Now most of them are used to that exchange trend and from a couple of months are starting again to buy Puglia properties, which are more affordable than other well-known regions of Italy. Of course, the trends of the sales are lower than the latest 3 years but it is a fair and positive signal for us. In my opinion the crisis in this area have stopped the quick-raise of the prices and now most of the vendors decided to reduce their asking prices to the markets trends. 

The number of Swedish buyers come after the British ones. They haven’t been effected by the global crisis and their exchange rate is still good against the strongness of the Euro. Swedish people prefere brand-new property or taking a better advantage and choosing off-plan solutions which give them the opportunity to buy with a 20% discount of the final price. 

As for the rest of Europe, last winter we had a good new! Ryanair and other low cost airlines, start new direct flights from most of the Europe’s airports to Puglia and opened new markets for us, especially to Brindisi the nearest international airport to the south-western part of Puglia. Those new flights brought to us a good number of clients from Belgium first, followed by Norway, Netherlands and Denmark.

We are proud to offer character properties in a nice area, where buyers can enjoy history, food and beaches. There are also undiscovered Baroque towns down here, in the countryside or by the sea, with low-priced properties. I think that the South-Italy is a safe bet and the property market in Salento area continues its slow upward trend for a simple reason: the area is desirable to locals and non-residents, who both want a holiday home in a place unaffected by mass tourism and where there’s a safe and healthy property market. The hot spot for our clients is Puglia’s south-western coast and particularly the coastline between Gallipoli, Santa Maria al Bagno and Santa Caterina di Nardò passing by the next-door towns Galatone, Nardò, Maglie and Galatina.