Egypt property

Egyptian Property Information

Egypt and Tourism Egypt is part of the Mediterranean basin, the world’s top destination area, which attracts one out of every three tourists traveling the World. Egypt is a country that is singularly endowed for cultural tourism and offers a highly diverse set of destinations in this segment. It also has a variety of offers in other segments such as urban tourism, business tourism, meetings, cruises, as well as nature and sports tourism, to name but a few. For many years now, it has also consolidated a series of proposals aimed at the water sports and "sun and sea" markets, based on its rich and diverse natural heritage, which is ideal for such kind of products. Egypt, as most emerging destinations in the Middle East, has experienced strong growth over the past years. In 1995, it received slightly more than 2.9 million tourist arrivals. Since that time, various events have threatened to derail its tourism development. However, they have not done so, causing only temporary slowdowns with recovery coming immediately after. In 2004 Egypt registered over 8.1 million visitor arrivals, nearly 8 million of which corresponded to tourist arrivals. The annual growth rate over this period, 11 per cent, speaks for itself. The first four months of previous year. Reasons to buy property in Egypt Property prices in Egypt are much better value than in the UK and Europe in general. If you are considering buying property as an investment for holiday rentals, Egypt should be considered. Prices are already increasing in this emerging market. The cost of living is much lower than that of the UK - nearly everything in Egypt is cheaper.

Egypt provides an opportunity to invest in property at the start of a regional development plan as the government introduces new legislation to make it easier for foreigners to own property.

Egypt is less than 5 hours flying time from England and most other European cities.

The number of people visiting Egypt doubled between 1999 and 2005 showing the rate of growth of Egypt as a tourist destination. Your property could be the perfect holiday base, providing rental income for many years.

The climate in Egypt is warm and sunny with extremely low rainfall. The landscape is stunning, with many world famous tourist destinations such as the Pyramids and Sphinx.

The potential for rental income from your investment is huge as there is an ever growing number of tourists travelling to Egypt from Northern Europe, the Mediterranean countries and from cruise ships.

There are lots of interesting places to visit and explore and things to do. If you already have a house in a leafy suburb, it would be nice to buy in an exotic location with marinas and beaches which are the envy of other countries.

Location information

The Ministry of Tourism reported that foreign tourists totalled around 12.8 million in 2008, up a strong 15% year-on-year. It is forecast that Egypt will receive over 17 million visitors per year by 2020. The Sinai peninsula is particularly popular with tourists from across Europe, the Middle East and the US and nowhere in the world are there coral walls and gardens more brilliantly abundant, waters more crystalline or underwater life more varied and plentiful.

Infrastructure

Egypt’s infrastructure is currently undergoing massive investment with several large projects under construction including the upgrading of Cairo International airport and a number of local airports, major road routes and bridges and the railway system. Sharm El Sheikh airport has been upgraded and plans are going ahead for further expansion next year.

Property Market

For the past few years, Egypt’s property market has been very buoyant although it is still regarded as an emerging market with lower entry prices compared to European countries. One of the major factors behind the rising property market is the country’s increased consumer spending. This growing purchasing power and a demand for housing within the domestic market has lead to a strong resale market potential. High demand for buy-to-let properties, both for long term investment and holiday lets, in popular tourist areas such as Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada will ensure there is a constant demand for rentals particularly with easy accessibility provided by direct fl ights.

Climate and Weather

Sunny all year round! Egypt is situated in a subtropical region with a dry climate, hot summers and mild winters. Winter begins in November and starts to taper off by March with warmer days, but cooler nights. Temperatures rarely fall below 40F or exceed 75F. Summer begins in April / May with low humidity and temperatures in the 70sF. From June through September temperatures in the high 80s to low 100sF can be expected.

Tourism to Sharm El Sheikh

With its unique location in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, Sharm El Sheikh is considered as the meeting point between Asia and Africa and the cradle of great civilizations. With its diverse features of environment that combine together history, industry and agriculture, Sharm El Sheikh has become a huge attraction for tourists and businessmen. Sharm El Sheikh, the biggest and most important city of Sinai, lies at the southern fl ank of the Peninsula where the gulfs of Aqaba and Suez meet with the Red Sea. Sharm El Sheikh, with its dramatic mountain landscape, offers a huge variety of tourist attractions including warm deep-blue seas and world-class diving, excellent beaches, golf, quad biking in the desert, an equestrian centre, ice skating and a national park. The resort also gives a real taste of Egyptian life and culture and serves as a base to visit some of the many historic sites that surround it. Mount Sinai is close by and according to Christian belief, this is where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Mount Sinai is more than 2,200 metres high and from the peak, where the Chapel of the Holy Trinity is sited, the views of the Sinai desert are breathtaking.

Travelling to Sharm El Sheikh

With Sharm El Sheikh being such a popular year round tourist and conference destination, there are scheduled and charter fl ights operating from all major UK and European airports. UK’s fl agship carrier British Airways are now operating three direct services a week from London Gatwick. Other airlines regularly fl ying direct to Sharm El Sheikh are Easy Jet, Air France, Alitalia, BMI, Eurofl y, KLM, Lufthansa, Jet2, Swiss, Egypt Air, Royal Jordanian, Thomson and other charter and scheduled airlines. The airport is located approximately 18km northeast of Sharm El Sheikh, near Ras Nasrani. The airport is situated just off a major road which follows the coast directly into Sharm El Sheikh and the journey time is around 20 minutes.