New-build apartments for sale in Albania

Apartments still under construction in Albania ask a median of €130,700, or €1,595 per square metre, with half of them between €91,300 and €226,000 and the cheapest units from €54,400. One-bedroom flats in this group have a median of €73,500, two-bedroom flats €110,100. Compare with the whole market of apartments for sale in Albania: in most Albanian towns a flat from plans costs about the same per square metre as a finished one, because developers price for the finished building and the discount for buying early sits in the payment schedule rather than in the price list.

Buying from plans is the normal purchase in Albania, not the exception: most new supply on the coast and in Tirana is sold before the building is finished. There is no escrow. Your protection is a notarised pre-sale contract that identifies the unit on the permit plans, registered at the State Cadastre under Article 50 of Law 111/2018, which marks the unit as taken and keeps it away from the developer's creditors; payments by bank transfer in stages you can see; and a large final tranche held until the use certificate and the final deed. Our guide to buying off-plan in Albania walks through every step.

Nine in ten new apartments on the Albanian coast are on the Durrës bay, in Golem, Mali i Robit, Qerret and the southern beach road of Durrës, where developers sell holiday complexes with pools from plans at the lowest prices per square metre on the coast. Tirana has the largest number of buildings under construction, from towers in the centre to blocks along the ring road and the Durrës highway. In the south, Vlorë's Lungomare, Orikum, Sarandë and the Riviera add new complexes at much higher prices, and Shëngjin in the north is almost entirely new build.

The building permit and the plans it was issued for; the land registered in the developer's name and free of mortgages older than your contract; the developer's finished buildings, visited, not photographed; a contract with the completion date, the delay penalty, an area tolerance and a no-changes clause, because a unit that no longer matches the permit plans cannot be registered. Do not negotiate the price list, which almost never moves; negotiate the schedule and the finish. Our due diligence guide lists the documents, and our guide to the cost of buying property in Albania covers the 4 to 7% closing costs, which apply to new build as to resale.