Albania had been on my property radar for a while.
It’s easy to understand why.
Prices can still look attractive compared with many established Mediterranean markets, tourism has grown enormously and the coastline is genuinely beautiful. So rather than just looking at property listings online, I went to see it for myself.
And I came away thinking something I have thought more than once during my property searches:
Beautiful place. Interesting market. Not for me.
Tirana: I liked it—but I didn’t want to buy there
I actually liked Tirana.
It’s lively, developing quickly and, from an investment point of view, probably the part of Albania that made the most immediate sense to me.
There is a real city around the investment. People live there. People work there. There are restaurants, businesses, universities and everyday demand that doesn’t disappear when summer ends.
But I wasn’t looking simply for somewhere that made sense on a spreadsheet.
I asked myself the question I always eventually come back to:
Would I actually want to own something here?
For Tirana, my answer was no.
Nothing was particularly wrong with it. It simply wasn’t what I was looking for.
So I headed south.
Sarandë: when the realtor doesn’t turn up
Sarandë interested me much more.
Sea views, tourism, relatively affordable property and proximity to Corfu make the investment story very easy to understand.
Before arriving, I had been speaking extensively with a realtor by email and on WhatsApp. We discussed properties. We exchanged messages. There was plenty of communication.
Then came the day we were supposed to meet.
The realtor didn’t show up.
After all those conversations, I found myself in Sarandë without the property viewings I had travelled there expecting to do.
Perhaps there was a reasonable explanation. But property buying is also about confidence.
If communication becomes unreliable before I have handed over any money, I’m not particularly interested in discovering what happens afterwards.
It didn’t make Sarandë a bad place to invest. It added another question mark for me.
Then I saw Ksamil
Ksamil was beautiful to me.
The colour of the water, the little islands and the beaches explain immediately why photographs of Ksamil appear everywhere on social media.
This was the Albania I had imagined.
But then I started looking at it through property-buyer eyes rather than tourist eyes.
And I became much less certain.
Development seemed incredibly close to the sea. Beach clubs, restaurants and other structures appeared to occupy stretches of coastline where I would normally expect a clearer separation between development and the beach.
And I kept wondering:
Where is the public beach?
There were public areas, but walking around Ksamil, that wasn’t necessarily how it felt.
In August 2026, an Albanian fact-checking organisation visited Ksamil and reported finding a free municipal beach squeezed between much larger privately managed beach areas.
Where was the line between public beach and private use?
The distinction between public coastline, privately operated beach areas and nearby development was much less obvious to me than I expected.
That matters because two separate questions can easily become mixed together:
- Where does publicly accessible beach end and a privately operated beach area begin?
- What planning and coastal-building rules apply to permanent development near the water?
I found myself looking at buildings extremely close to the sea and asking:
How are they allowed to build that close?
That question does not prove that a particular building is illegal or that Albania has no coastal regulations. It means that, as a foreign buyer, I would need clear answers about public access, beach concessions, planning permissions and what could legally be built around any property I was considering.
A beautiful sea view is wonderful.
Clear property rights, planning rules and confidence about what can happen around my property are more important.
The very thing attracting investors worried me
Albania’s rapid development is part of its appeal.
You can look at places like Sarandë and Ksamil and think:
Imagine what this could be worth in ten years.
But I found myself asking the opposite question:
What will this coastline look like in ten years?
Will another building appear between a property and the sea?
Will access change?
Will the area become even more densely developed?
Those questions were part of why I wasn’t comfortable investing.
I would absolutely go back
I didn’t leave disliking Albania. Quite the opposite.
I’d happily return to Ksamil. I’d swim there again. I’d eat by the water and probably complain that my photos don’t capture how beautiful the sea actually is.
I would also happily spend more time exploring Albania.
But travelling somewhere and buying property there are two completely different decisions.
A place can be fantastic for a holiday without being somewhere I want to put a significant amount of my money.
Walking away is also a property decision
There wasn’t one catastrophic problem or dramatic moment when I said, “Absolutely not.” It was a collection of smaller things.
Tirana made sense, but didn’t excite me as somewhere to own.
Sarandë interested me, but the failed viewing did not inspire confidence.
Ksamil was the most beautiful of the three, but the intensity of development and the unclear relationship between public beach, private beach operations and nearby buildings made me uncomfortable as a potential buyer.
Another person could examine the same places and reach a completely different decision. Mine was simply that Albania was beautiful to visit, but not somewhere I wanted to own property.
Sometimes travelling there is exactly what saves you from buying something that isn’t right for you.
I went to Albania thinking I might buy a property.
I came home wanting to visit again—but not wanting to own one.
The rules change from one country to another, but the habit does not: verify ownership, planning, access, total costs and the eventual exit before committing. The Spain Property Buyer Toolkit was created for Spain, while its viewing questions, checklists and decision process can also help organise a property search elsewhere.
This is my personal experience and the reasoning behind my own property decision. It isn’t legal, financial or investment advice. Property, planning and coastal regulations can change, so anyone considering buying in Albania should independently verify ownership, planning permissions, beach-access arrangements, coastal restrictions and applicable local regulations before committing.
— Gene | Clueless Gene