Taking a chance in Belarus’s real estate market
Belarus is the last Stalinist-era, centrally planned economy in Europe but a small and hearty group of Western investors are starting to probe the former Soviet Republic, seeing it as the last all-but-untouched real estate market in Europe.
Yet, even as outside investor interest is swelling, there continue to be solid obstacles to buying properties in the 207,600-square-kilometer, or 80,155-square-mile, country.
All land in Belarus is publicly owned – even Belarusians who buy homes or commercial buildings usually receive only a 50-year lease on the land. And all transactions involving state property valued at more than the equivalent of $150,000 must be approved personally by President Alexander Lukashenko.
(Sale prices are expressed in U.S. dollars but paid in Belarusian rubles; rents usually are expressed in euros.)