Cash in on a home away from home: promising property hotspots for 2008

My hot tip for 2008 is Panama, one of the best places in the world to retire with or without a canoe.

On the outskirts of Delhi, Hamptons International is marketing a scheme of luxury three-bedroom apartments priced from £109,000. Facilities include swimming pools, a health spa, tennis courts and a restaurant. Four-bedroom villas start at £375,000. New two-bedroom flats in Chandigarth, in the Mohali Hills, close to the foothills of the Himalayas, fetch from £55,000; detached villas from £125,000.

Non-resident Indians and people of Indian origin are allowed to invest in freehold property in India. The British can buy buildings, but not land, and even this is subject to an array of restrictions. Some of these can be circumvented by buying through a company with the approval of the Reserve Bank of India.

There are grey areas: British retirees who spent 182 days of the previous year in India and intend to live there, are allowed to buy freehold homes. The government is expected to make foreign property purchase easier, because it needs to attract investment to furnish badly needed infrastructure development. Buying costs vary according to state; capital gains tax is 20% for non-residents.

Ukraine

The Ukraine has one of the world’s fastest growing property markets. Both Western and Russian investors are mopping up residential property in the country’s capital, Kiev, the fashionable Crimean coast and the fast- growing ski resorts of the Carpathian Mountains.

The bargains in Kiev have gone, prices having soared into the stratosphere over the past two years, but other areas still offer huge scope for capital appreciation. The Ukraine’s south Crimean coast, centred on the seaside resort of Yalta is a favoured hideaway for fashionable Muscovites. This stretch of the Black Sea shore, with its historic towns, stunning scenery and Mediterranean microclimate, is also becoming popular with Westerners.

Yalta itself is expensive, with swanky villas fetching millions of dollars, but prices are more reasonable in the cities of Sevastopol and Odessa where a new two-bedroom flat can be had from £60,000. By contrast, on the Russian side of the Crimean peninsula, bordering the Sea of Azov, a beachfront house is available at just over £30,00 (UA Properties).

One of the best places to buy is the ski resort of Slavsk, in the Carpathian Mountains, an hour’s drive from the airport at Lviv, which has fine runs with a good snow record, and is undergoing redevelopment. Popular with Russians, Ukrainians and Poles, Slavsk’s hotels are packed out in peak season. A 1,100m2 building plot, 400 metres from the ski lift, is available for just £18,244.

Other ski resorts worth a look include the new resort of Bukovel, which has been modelled on Austrian resorts, and the postcard-pretty town of Tysovets, which has some serious ski slopes, earning the name “Little Switzerland” of the Carpathians. A 2,350m2 building plot on the ski slopes near Bukovel is for sale at £28,660. Elsewhere in the Carpathians, village houses can be had from £8,000.

The Ukraine has introduced a 5% capital gains tax on property. Buying costs are around 3%-4% of the purchase price, plus local notary, legal and estate agency fees.