Mistakes people make buying European property for a residence permit

A property bought to satisfy an immigration threshold is a purchase whose objective is not the property. Every recurring mistake follows from that inversion.

The mistakes

• Buying at exactly the threshold. Units priced precisely at a qualifying figure are priced for the programme, and the premium over local value is invisible until the sale.
• Buying without visiting. Common, and the district is what determines the value.
• Ignoring the letting restriction. Several programmes now restrict short-term letting of qualifying property, which removes the income the purchase was modelled on.
• Underestimating the annual cost. Property tax, community charges, utilities and management fall due whether the flat is used or not, and over a five-year holding period they are a substantial number.
• Not accounting for transaction costs. In parts of Europe the round trip in and out consumes a large fraction of the purchase price.
• Buying off-plan for a status, where the permit depends on completion and completion is a developer's promise.
• Assuming the threshold is fixed. Where a programme raises it, a property that qualified may not at renewal.
• Not checking title. The diligence that would be automatic in a normal purchase is skipped because the purchase feels like an application.

The check that prevents most of them

Ask a local agent who has no interest in the programme what the unit is worth to a domestic buyer, and what it would let for on a long tenancy. Two questions, one phone call, and the gap between those answers and the seller's numbers is the size of the mistake you are about to make.

The disciplined version

Choose the property first, on ordinary criteria — location, condition, rental market, exit — at a price a local would pay. Then check that it clears the threshold. Where it does not, buy a better property and use the contribution route for the status, rather than a worse property for both.