"There are islands of stability even in Europe" - leading expert of IPC Russia, Olga Wolf, gives her peer review:

- What can you say about the Moscow International Investment Show?
- In my opinion, this show is a success already because it attracts participants and this means its ends have been reached. I must say there are almost no idle onlookers here. Visitors to the show pursue some concrete interests and do not come simply to have a look. And one more conclusion: the Russian market is ready to accept investments and our businessmen and private investors are willing to invest their money.

- What investments are you talking about?
- I think those who want to preserve and multiply their financial resources roughly accounted for 80% of all visitors. They are interested to obtain competent information at the show. In other words, people have considerable amount of money and want to invest it with understandable caution.

- In other words, the property purchase is the trend of the day, is it?
- By and large, this is a long-term strategy: they willingly buy off-plan projects, running a certain risk but striking good deals.

- What do experts have to say about promising destinations?
- Companies present information on the markets that are least impacted by the crisis. From this perspective Portugal can be seen as a promising destination, given that the Portuguese market grew 24% last year. Surely some people are interested in gaining extra rental income and hire property management companies to take care of their homes or apartments. Owners should certainly notify the managers in advance when they are going to come and spend their vacation time at their property. The rest of the time their properties could be let out.

- Why Portugal?
- Europe is engulfed in the economic crisis, but there are islands of stability such as Portugal. True, everybody knows Spain but property prices are rather high there and this market will hardly see any further growth in the foreseeable future. And in Portugal the prices on one-bedroom apartments (living room plus bedroom) start from 130,000 EUR. When a person buys apartments in Portugal he or she will be able to stay there occasionally and rent it out for the rest of the time. Winter is the gold season here so there's no "dead season" problem. I'd mention one more figure: 23 billion EUR will be invested in Portuguese properties in the years to come.

- What markets are promising in Eastern Europe?
- Romania is perhaps the most interesting destination, given that the foreign capital import tax is as low as 0.15% there and so the inflow of capital is remarkable. The demand for real estate is high in Romania. It pays to participate in the projects developed in the Bucharest area.

- Are there any other destinations worth mentioning?
- I won't tell you anything new. I believe the most attractive destinations for those who want to invest in real estate are Cyprus and Turkey. It's not difficult to get a residential permit there and you may easily get to these countries by chartered flights. Traveling to Turkey in summer is like driving to your summer home near Moscow: in the first instance you fly three hours by plane and in the second instance you waste three hours in a traffic jam.

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