Sea-view apartments for sale in Himarë, Albania

Apartments advertised with a sea view in Himarë ask a median of €356,000, or €2,970 per square metre; half of them sit between €250,000 and €434,000, and the cheapest realistic entry is around €125,700. Across the Albanian coast a listed sea view adds roughly 30% per square metre over a comparable flat at the same distance from the water, so compare the price per metre with the ordinary apartments for sale in Himarë before you pay for the view.

53% of these apartments are still under construction, which on the coast is the normal way to buy: a notarised pre-sale contract, staged payments and the final deed after the building gets its use certificate. Our guide to buying off-plan in Albania explains how to protect the deposit.

Himarë is the main town of the Riviera, a bowl of hillside above a pebble bay with the new developments at Potam and Livadhi on either side. Nearly every apartment sold here is listed with a sea view, because the whole town faces the water; the price per metre is among the highest in Albania and almost all of the stock is sold from plans by a few developers.

The flag is set by the seller and describes one orientation of one floor, not the building. On the Durrës, Golem and Shëngjin beachfront the blocks are deep, so only the flats on the sea side of the upper floors see water, and a flat thirty metres further back on the fourth floor often has a better view than the first line on the first floor. In the hill towns, Sarandë, Vlorë above Uji i Ftohtë and the Riviera villages, most of the town faces the sea and the view depends on the floor and on what can still be built in front. Check it from the balcony, in daylight, and ask what is planned on the plots between the building and the water.

Yes, directly and in your own name: the restriction that people have heard about, the 200-metre coastal rule, applies to bare and agricultural land, not to apartments. Closing costs are about 4 to 7% of the price and the annual property tax is about 0.05% of value. Our guide to buying property in Albania as a foreigner sets out the rules, and our guide to property by the sea in Albania compares every stretch of coast by distance from the beach.