Celebrities, sun-seekers fuel Montenegro property boom

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2007

KOTOR, Montenegro (AFP) — Celebrities and sun-seekers from the East and West are fuelling a property boom in Montenegro that has seen prices surge two-fold in the year since the tiny Balkan state won independence.

Investment speculators led the influx, snapping up houses, apartments and plots of land wedged between Montenegro's craggy mountains and its glimmering Adriatic coastline.

But, with the speculators having moved on to Albania after arriving from Croatia, the buyers today are a mixture of foreigners -- mainly Russians, Britons and Irish citizens -- looking for a place in the sun.

"When my son decided to buy a flat in Montenegro, I didn't even know where it was, but it sounded exotic," said Margaret Hodgson, who moved with her husband to the Bay of...