Everywhere you look these days, it seems as if there’s something about buying property abroad in the media – there are magazines, newspaper supplements, TV shows, dedicated TV channels, radio shows and, of course, 1001 websites dedicated to the subject.

We’ve seen them all and read them all – ‘Bulgaria is hot right now!’, ‘Latvia is hot right now!’, ‘Slovenia is hot right now!’, ‘Morocco is hot right now!’  This is all good to know, of course.  But, this is not what we want to know – we wanted to know what is the hottest market right now.  Six months ago we spent days trying to find somewhere that lists key data about all of the developing markets to see where we wanted to buy property.  Much to our amazement (and frustration), we discovered that this information simply wasn’t available. With most websites, if cold hard facts weren’t available, they simply skirted over the issue, filling the gaps with information about the weather or slabs of general text lifted from the CIA World Factbook. Another problem we found that many sites were biased with their information because they exist solely to sell property in one particular country.  If there was a site called www.buyinbelarus.com, you can bet your bottom dollar that they would be claiming that Belarus is the best place in the World to be investing right now.

Surely, we thought, we can’t be the only ones who could really use some unbiased and comprehensive information.  What serious investor in emerging markets’ property wouldn’t benefit from it as well?  After all, the difference between buying a property in one developing market versus a different developing market can easily be the difference between a profit of tens of thousands of Euros versus a loss of tens of thousands of Euros. 

And so the idea for Propertastic! came about – an independent website that simply presents the facts from each of the markets side-by-side and allows potential investors to do what they wish with it without any hype or hidden agenda.  We also wanted to add a community feel to the site – a meeting point where members can exchange information on buying property with one another freely about their thoughts, opinions and experiences – both good and bad.

Oh, and having had to wade through hundreds of turgid sites with the wit and charisma of our least favourite teachers, we decided to write it in the kind of style that we like reading ourselves.  We don't do dull.

It was a hard slog to get all of the necessary information – a lot of research in countries that are notoriously difficult to get solid facts out of and much of it was contradictory, but we got there in the end – enough for us to figure out where we did and didn’t want to invest.  We hope that it answers all of our visitors’ questions as well and enables everyone to make a proper informed decision as to where to invest their hard-earned cash.