Real Estate Abroad 2026: What to Check Before You Buy

The market is no longer cheap or unregulated – it is more expensive, more closely supervised, and far less forgiving of mistakes.

Fine promises are no longer enough – what matters is the full picture of the costs.

More regulation does protect you, but it also adds costs you do not always see in advance.

And anyone who fails to see the full picture before buying discovers it too late.

Anyone who thought Romania or Greece were the Wild West of real estate is discovering that a new sheriff has come to town – and his name is strict regulation.

Israelis keep searching for property opportunities overseas. That is nothing new. What is new is that abroad, too, conditions are becoming far more complex than they used to be. In Greece, prices are rising, taxes on short-term rentals have soared, and new regulations are restricting activity. In Cyprus, the central bank is reporting accelerating housing prices. And in Romania, the Nordis Law has fundamentally changed the rules of the game.

The question is no longer "Where is it cheapest to buy?" but a far more important one: what is the real cost of the property after all the taxes, costs and safeguards?

The era of "hot air" is over

Investing in real estate abroad is undergoing a revolution. Not a revolution in prices, but in mindset.

In the past, an Israeli investor who wanted to invest in Romania, Greece or Cyprus entered a market largely built on blind trust. A developer promised an apartment, collected a large deposit, and did whatever he wanted with the money. The client received a promise – and did not always receive an apartment.

The Nordis affair in Romania exposed this failure dramatically. According to the investigation by DIICOT (the Romanian prosecutor's office for combating organised crime), the Nordis group collected around €195 million from buyers between 2019 and 2024, using a scheme prosecutors described as a "three-tier pyramid". Apartments were sold several times to different buyers, deposit money was used for the personal needs of the company's owners, and the projects were never built. More than 850 victims filed complaints.

The regulatory response was immediate. In November 2025, the Romanian Parliament unanimously passed Law 207/2025, the "Nordis Law", which came into force in December 2025 and sets an entirely new standard for buyer protection.

Three countries, three stories – one trend

Romania: the strictest reform

The Nordis Law establishes three principles that completely change the game:

A deposit of just 5% – the reservation fee is capped at 5% of the property's value, for a period of up to 60 days. If the developer fails to meet its obligations, it must refund the full amount within 30 days.

Funds locked in a dedicated account – all buyer payments are paid into a bank account dedicated to the project and released only to pay for actual construction, according to milestones: up to 25% on completion of the structure, up to 20% on completion of the building systems, and the balance towards completion. Breaches carry fines of up to 1% of the developer's turnover.

Land-registry entry and a buyer's caveat as early as the preliminary contract – every residential unit must be registered as a separate unit in the land register before the preliminary contract is signed, and a caveat is registered in the buyer's favour. This prevents the same property from being sold twice.

The direct consequence? Developers who relied on clients' money as their main source of financing can no longer do so. According to an analysis by North Bucharest Investments (Romania Insider), the Romanian banking system requires developers to put up equity in the range of 30%–40% as a condition for project financing. Combined with the restrictions of the Nordis Law, small companies and developers without financial strength are simply being pushed out of the market. The Nordis Law is, in effect, the death certificate of the fly-by-night operators who were active in the market – only the truly strong players survive.

Greece: tightening regulation, rising costs

In Greece, property prices kept rising to mid-2025, with particularly strong demand in Athens and Thessaloniki. At the same time, however, the state is tightening oversight of short-term rentals:

The daily accommodation levy on short-term rentals jumped from €1.50 to €10 during the tourist season (April–October), and from €0.50 to €2 in winter. New regulations that took effect in October 2025 require every short-term rental property to have liability insurance, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, a certificate from a licensed electrician and more. In central Athens, including sought-after neighbourhoods such as Koukaki, Kolonaki and Pangrati, a freeze on registering new short-term rental apartments has been in place since January 2025, with fines of €50,000 for violators.

In addition, properties bought under the Golden Visa programme after September 2024 may not be operated as short-term rentals at all, which forces investors to focus on long-term rentals only.

Cyprus: accelerating prices, local and foreign demand

The Central Bank of Cyprus has reported a sustained acceleration in housing prices in the fourth quarter of 2025. Sales to foreign buyers jumped by 18.7% in the fourth quarter. Demand is being driven by falling interest rates (the mortgage rate fell to 3.12% in December 2025), as well as by tourism activity and the housing needs of foreign students.

What does this mean? In Cyprus, too, the cost of entry is rising, and anyone hunting for a "bargain" may find themselves buying at the peak, with maintenance and tax costs they did not factor in up front.

Security costs money. Investing abroad is far safer than it used to be, but it requires more capital, more judgement and a deeper understanding of what happens after you sign.

The questions every Israeli investor must ask

Question 1: What are you really buying abroad today?

Today you are buying security first: not a "bargain", but a lower risk of losing your capital.

In economic terms, the "risk premium" falls as a market becomes more regulated. When Romania requires a caveat to be registered as early as the preliminary contract, with funds locked in a dedicated bank account and released only for construction, double sales are prevented and catastrophic risk is reduced. Regulatory costs make entry slightly more expensive, but the market is far more stable and attracts institutional investors who would not have come near this market a few years ago.

The bottom line: Better a safe property with the title deed in hand than a promise on paper in a project that may collapse. The behavioural angle shows that a sense of invulnerability led investors in the past to ignore red flags because of tempting promises. The pain of a loss is twice as strong as the pleasure of a potential gain – which is why investors today are willing to pay a higher "price of security".

Pipera Tech Park, Romania

Question 2: Which cost do Israeli investors tend to miss?

Your silent "partners": the state, through taxes, and the bank, through supervision fees.

Investors tend to look at the entry price – how much the apartment costs – and forget everything else. But in the reality of 2026, that "everything else" is significant:

Currency exposure – if the local currency (the Romanian leu, the euro) weakens against the shekel, the value of the property in shekels can erode. Remote management – the costs of managing a property from another country, including maintenance, finding tenants and dealing with faults, add up to sums that must be factored in. Local taxation – in Greece, tax on rental income reaches 15% on the first €12,000, 25% on the next bracket (up to €24,000), and 35% above that (from 2026). Rising regulation – insurance, safety certificates, accommodation levies: all of these add to the running costs. And when the developer is required to bring significant equity, he will pass part of these costs on to the price of the apartment.

A classic behavioural bias: "confirmation bias" – we look only for the data that supports the deal and ignore the "small" expenses that add up. Short-sightedness makes it hard for us to picture maintenance costs five years from now.

From the field: “Just go over the contract and tell me it’s fine”

Attorney Ilan Leibovitch recalls:

A client contacted me after a series of Facebook ads and a webinar by a company operating in Bucharest, and asked whether a certain project was a good one. I explained that the answer depended on the purpose of the purchase. He had already bought a plane ticket and was due to sign in a week. I told him a week was not enough for due diligence and for negotiating the agreement, and that our recommendation might be not to buy. He replied: “Just go over the contract and tell me it’s fine.”

It later turned out that even before our meeting he had paid the marketing company a €5,000 deposit. He chose Bucharest “because that’s what everyone is doing now”. He did not know which parts of the city interested him, had not checked price differences between neighbourhoods, and had not checked the legal implications of foreign ownership.

In the end he bought an apartment in the project recommended in the webinar. A year later it emerged that the building company was in financial difficulty and construction was delayed, and if he tried to sell before completion, he would lose part of his investment.

The questions above are not meant to slow down a good deal. They are there to make sure that what you are buying is a deal, not a feeling that “everyone is doing it”.

Question 3: Why must you look at the day you sell, not just the day you buy?

An apartment abroad is not just an asset – it is an "exit ticket" that must be liquid and safe to sell.

"Liquidity risk" is one of the biggest risks in foreign real estate. If, on the day you sell, it turns out the property is not properly registered, or the regulations have changed, or there is no demand – you are stuck. Laws such as the Nordis Law, which require land-registry entry as a future unit as early as the preliminary contract, ensure that on the day you sell you will hold a legally "clean" asset that is easy to transfer.

The behavioural angle: "home bias" – we feel safe in Israel because of the Sale (Apartments) Law, but abroad we have to create that same level of security for ourselves. The "endowment effect" makes us fall in love with a property and stop assessing it with a cool head. Thinking about the day you sell, even before the day you buy, neutralises this effect.

Who wins and who loses?

Winners: The small investor, who now enjoys legal and banking protection that did not exist before. His deposit money is protected, the property is registered, and the developer is supervised.

Losers: Small and medium-sized developers without financial backing. The new capital requirements are filtering them out of the market – and that is exactly the point.

Affected, but rarely discussed: The banks in the destination countries, which are becoming the "police" of construction sites. They carry heavy responsibility for supervising the release of funds and the pace of progress.

Frequently asked questions

What changed for buyers in Romania with the Nordis Law?

Law 207/2025 caps the reservation fee at 5% of the property's value for up to 60 days, and the developer must refund the full amount within 30 days if it fails to meet its obligations. Buyers' payments go into a dedicated bank account and are released by milestones, and the unit is entered in the land register with a caveat before the preliminary contract is signed.

What was the Nordis affair?

According to the DIICOT investigation, the Nordis group collected around €195 million from buyers between 2019 and 2024, using a scheme prosecutors called a "three-tier pyramid". Apartments were sold several times to different buyers, the projects were never built, and more than 850 victims filed complaints.

Which costs do investors buying abroad tend to miss?

Currency exposure, remote management costs, local taxation and regulation that adds insurance, safety certificates and levies. In Romania, for example, tax on rental income is about 8% of gross rent, and the tax on a sale is 3% or 1% depending on how long you held the property.

Why think about the day you sell on the day you buy?

If, on the day you sell, the property turns out not to be properly registered, the rules have changed or there is no demand, you are stuck. Land-registry entry as early as the preliminary contract, as the Nordis Law requires, means you will hold a legally clean asset that is easy to transfer.

What is happening in Greece and Cyprus?

In Greece, the daily accommodation levy on short-term rentals jumped from €1.50 to €10 in the tourist season, and central Athens has frozen new short-term rental registrations since January 2025. In Cyprus, the central bank reports accelerating housing prices and a jump in sales to foreign buyers, so the cost of entry is rising there too.

The end of the "hot air" era

All in all, the shift from a "cheap and risky market" to an "expensive and safe market" is irreversible. It is happening in Romania with the Nordis Law, in Greece with short-term rental regulation, and in Cyprus with demand-driven price rises.

The Israeli investor abroad is going through a process of "forced maturity". Where in the past we looked only for a low price and big promises, today we understand that strong regulation is the "bulletproof vest" for our money. This understanding obliges us to look at the full picture of taxes, regulations and banking safeguards – not just at the entry price.

Security costs money. Today, investing abroad is far safer than it used to be – but it also requires much more capital, much more judgement, and a much deeper understanding of what happens after you sign.

This article is intended for general information purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal or financial advice.

Before entering into any transaction, we recommend consulting local experts.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult local professionals before any transaction.

After all the taxes and costs, is buying abroad still worth it?