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Egyptian Property Market Going Strong
By Adam Samuel

Thanks to a strong economy and a government sympathetic to foreign investors, experts are quietly getting very excited indeed about the long term prospects for investors in Egypt's growing property market. Recent property shows have indicated a massive 50 per cent growth in Egyptian house prices over the last two years, with another 20 per cent hike predicted for the coming year, trickling down from the country's ever-strengthening economy.

The country's shrewd government have noted the outside interest in the emerging property hotspot and have made several concessions to potential investors in the hope of promoting direct foreign investment, such as the streamlining of purchasing procedures and a de-complicated taxation system in which foreign investors can take advantage of no capital gains or inheritance taxes. Egypt has long been popular with tourists looking for that something special and an estimated 300,000 British tourists alone make their way to the land of the camel every year, often purchasing great value for money property as a way of taking timely advantage of the excellent rental yields.

New tourism figures released from the Egyptian Tourist Board make for extremely encouraging reading for property investors. Brand new statistics released by the Egyptian Tourist Authority (ETA) state that over one million Brits visited Egypt in 2006, a giant 23% increase over 2005. Brits make up the largest chunk of Egypt's overseas visitors and not only have they increased in number but also by the length of stay. British tourists stayed for a total of 9.1 million nights in 2006, that's 21% more nights than 2005. The ETA also confirmed that a record 9.81 million tourists in total had added 7.6 billion dollars to Egypt's economy in 2006.

Tourism Minister, Zoheir Garranah, has no plans to rest on his laurels and with the launch of a multi-million pound advertising campaign at the back end of 2006 entitled "The Gift of the Sun" he hopes to attract 16 million visitors annually by 2014. Egypt also has a brand new tourism logo and official website http://www.egypt.travel/ in six different languages. Garranah vows to improve service and educate bazaar merchants in being 'less pushy' via a Tourism Awareness Project for the Egyptian people beginning with print and TV advertising campaigns bearing the slogan "Tourism Benefits Everyone".

There are new projects being released a plenty in 2008 including the Desert Pearl, Hurghada, a collection of outstanding studio apartments, 1 bedroom professional or deluxe apartments, and 2 or 3 bedroom apartments. There will be on-site facilities available with swimming pools and tropical gardens. Desert Pearl can be located on the shores of the Red Sea, to the north east of Egypt. The bustling town of Hurghada is a firm favorite within the so-called Red Sea Riviera and can be easily reached from most European capitals.

Adam Samuel is a former property agent and the owner of Nubricks.com an overseas property news blog where you can find more articles about Egypt property including a guide to Egypt property investment.