What €150,000 Buys on the European Coast in 2026

Set €150,000 against every coastal listing on Costaia and the map splits in two. On Bulgaria's Burgas coast and in Batumi, most apartments on offer cost less than that. On the Spanish coast, almost none do. Croatia and Cyprus fall in between, and in each case the cheaper homes come with a condition attached.

The table compares apartments only. Plots, villas and houses are left out, so the medians compare like with like. The figures are asking prices, not the prices homes eventually sell for, and they update as listings are added and withdrawn. Each country name links to the matching search.

When this piece was written, the median Bulgarian apartment on Costaia was priced at about a fifth of the median Spanish one. At each market's median asking price per square metre, €150,000 equates to roughly 100 m² in Bulgaria and 30 m² in Croatia. Croatia was the surprise: per square metre, its apartments were the dearest of the four, ahead of Spain. The Cypriot row is an average of two different legal systems, which the section on Cyprus below explains.

Bulgaria: the budget buys a choice

Bulgaria is the one market where €150,000 sits above the typical asking price rather than below it. Almost all of Costaia's Bulgarian stock is in the Burgas region: Sunny Beach, Sveti Vlas, Ravda, Pomorie and Burgas itself. Most of it fits the budget.

The typical result is a flat of about 60 m² in a purpose-built complex. The medians hide where those flats are. Nearly three in four of the Bulgarian apartments at or under €150,000 are in Sunny Beach or Sveti Vlas, two resorts built around the summer letting season. Buyers who want a place that is still lived in during February will find a thinner choice in Pomorie and in Burgas itself.

A two-bedroom apartment of 84 m² at Sunset Resort in Pomorie, listed at €99,500 when this piece was written, shows what the budget buys at its better end: a balcony over a working beach, with rented loungers and a breakwater rather than a private cove. At this price that is the norm.

Two figures in Bulgarian listings deserve a second look. The first is floor area. Sales often quote a total that includes a share of the building's common parts, so the usable space is smaller and the real price per usable square metre is higher. One Sunny Beach listing on Costaia gives 83.7 m² total and 70 m² net, a difference of about a sixth.

The second is the annual maintenance fee charged by most complexes. Of 1,821 Bulgarian listings at or under €150,000, 927 mention one. The 418 that quote a rate per square metre have a median of €12 a year, and the middle half fall between €10 and €14.50. On a 60 m² flat that comes to roughly €700 a year before utilities, property tax or letting costs. These figures come from listing descriptions as of 26 September 2026 and do not update automatically.

Buying costs are modest. Burgas, Nesebar and Pomorie all charge the maximum 3% municipal acquisition tax, and registration adds 0.1%. A notarial deed is compulsory. For a new or recent building, ask for its Act 16, the certificate that allows the building to be used; 298 of those listings mention it. Since Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026, prices, fees and the mortgage, if there is one, are all in the same currency.

Batumi: smaller flats, not cheaper ones

Georgia's coast is often bracketed with Bulgaria's as the cheap end of the Black Sea. On Costaia's listings, that is only half right. The typical Batumi-area flat costs less than a Bulgarian one because it is smaller. Per square metre it costs more.

Of the 62 apartments in Adjara listed at or under €150,000, about five in six have one bedroom and the typical size is about 45 m². Almost all are in Batumi itself, with a couple in Chakvi, a few kilometres up the coast. The cheapest include studios of under 30 m² in newer towers.

Condition matters more here than in Bulgaria. New Batumi towers are often sold unfinished: "black frame" means bare concrete, while "white frame" adds plastered walls, screed and basic fittings. Two flats of the same size can differ in price because one has a kitchen and the other has only cabling. Check which state a price refers to before comparing it with a finished flat in Sunny Beach.

Georgia charges buyers no transfer tax. Registration with the National Agency of Public Registry is a flat fee of between 50 and 200 lari, depending on how quickly it is processed. Foreigners can buy apartments without restriction; Georgia's limits on foreign ownership apply to agricultural land. One caution: the partner agency quotes these prices in euros, but much of Batumi's new-build market prices in US dollars, so the euro figure can move with the exchange rate before completion. See apartments in Georgia up to €150,000.

Croatia: the budget buys a project

In Croatia, the €150,000 line cuts deepest. Costaia lists more than a thousand Croatian properties. About one in eight is priced at or under €150,000, but most of those are building plots, not homes. Among apartments the budget almost disappears: a handful out of 170, several of them under 45 m².

What the budget does reach is old stone houses, most of them on the Dalmatian islands and the Pelješac peninsula, and most of them in need of full renovation. A 76 m² house on the south side of Vis, built around 1900, is listed at €89,000. It has no mains electricity, so power would come from solar panels, and a car cannot reach the last 250 metres. In Lastovo town, €130,000 buys 159 m² over a basement, ground floor and attic, also as a renovation project. On Brač, €138,000 buys a four-bedroom stone house from 1890 in a conservation-protected village, with a ruined barn whose walls the permit allows to be rebuilt.

For these houses, the asking price is often the smaller part of the bill. Building on an island costs more than on the mainland because materials and trades arrive by ferry. In protected villages, conservation rules decide what the windows, the roof and the stonework look like. Get a builder's estimate before making an offer, not after.

The tax side is simple. Croatia charges a flat 3% transfer tax on resale property, paid by the buyer; new builds carry 25% VAT instead. Citizens of the EU, the EEA and Switzerland buy on the same terms as Croatians. Most other buyers need approval from the Ministry of Justice, which depends on whether their own country allows Croatians to buy there. See all Croatian houses up to €150,000.

• €89,000 · Vis · 76 m² · renovation project → View property

• €130,000 · Lastovo · 159 m² · renovation project → View property

• €138,000 · Brač · 166 m² · stone house → View property

Cyprus: check which side of the line

Cyprus looks within reach until you check where the listings are. Of the 44 Cypriot apartments on Costaia at or under €150,000, 39 are in the north, in Iskele, Boğaz, Tatlısu and Bafra: territory under Turkish Cypriot administration since 1974 and recognised as a state only by Turkey. Our country figures, including the table above, count both sides as Cyprus.

The median apartment in Ayia Napa, on the Republic's side of the same coast, was priced at more than twice as much when this piece was written. Most of that discount is the price of legal risk. Much of the land in the north was registered to Greek Cypriots who left in 1974, and the Republic treats its sale as unlawful; in the Orams case in 2009, the EU's Court of Justice allowed a Cypriot judgment against British buyers of such a plot to be enforced elsewhere in the EU. Before paying a deposit, a buyer needs independent legal advice on the title history of the specific property.

On the Republic's side, the budget reaches only a handful of one-bedroom flats, at Paralimni and at Deryneia, on the Green Line within sight of Varosha. Resale buyers pay Land Registry transfer fees in bands, 1% up to €85,000 and 3% on the part above that, up to €170,000. New builds carry VAT instead, at 19%, or 5% for a qualifying main residence, and are often handed over before their individual title deed exists.

Spain: a deposit, not a price

Spain is the counterexample. Of 624 Spanish properties on Costaia when this piece was written, one was priced at or under €150,000.

That says as much about Costaia's Spanish inventory as about Spain. Our Spanish listings come from a single partner agency and lean towards new developments on the Costa Blanca, the Costa Cálida and the Costa del Sol. Older resale flats a few streets back from the beach, in towns such as Torrevieja, do sell for less than €150,000, but they are not yet well represented here. The fair reading is narrower: on the stretches of Spanish coast where new building is concentrated, €150,000 covers a deposit and taxes, not the flat.

Purchase taxes on resale homes are heavier too. New builds on the mainland carry 10% VAT plus a regional stamp duty. Resale homes pay a regional transfer tax instead, set by each autonomous community and generally well above the 3% charged in Croatia or on Bulgaria's Burgas coast. For how Spain ranks on price per square metre against the other markets, see Costaia's ranking of coastal markets by median €/m².

What the money actually buys

Taken together, the listings point to a simple test. If the home is finished, the question at €150,000 is what it costs to run: maintenance fees on the Bulgarian coast, the exchange rate in Batumi. If it is not, as with a Dalmatian ruin or a Batumi shell, the asking price is only the first payment on a project. In Cyprus, the first question is not the price at all but which side of the Green Line the title is on.

The same budget tracked across every coastal market, with the listings that currently fit it, is on Costaia's live €150,000 page.