A 9 Percent Yield in Saranda. Here Is What Actually Reaches You.

The number that gets people on the plane

Saranda is quoted at 8 to 10 percent short let yields. Vlore is quoted at 8 to 11 percent. Those numbers are real and they are published. They are also gross.

Every market looks like the right one when someone is selling it to you. The Albanian coast is genuinely growing. Foreign buyers are genuinely active. Neither fact tells you what lands in your account at the end of the year.

So we ran one. Below is a worked example on a real market price, with every deduction named. The figures are illustrative and the inputs are sourced at the end.

The property we modelled

A 70 square metre sea view apartment in central Saranda. Sea view stock in Saranda runs 2,200 to 3,000 euros per square metre, so we took 2,400.

• Purchase price of 168,000 euros.
• Closing costs at 5.5 percent, which is mid range for Albania, adding 9,240 euros.
• Total capital deployed of 177,240 euros.

What comes off the top

We applied the headline yield at 9 percent, the middle of the quoted Saranda range, to the purchase price. That is 15,120 euros of gross income. Here is what sits between that figure and the owner.

• Letting and management at 20 percent of gross, which is 3,024 euros.
• Albanian tax on gross short let rental at a flat 15 percent, which is 2,268 euros.
• Service charge and maintenance, taken at 1,200 euros.
• Annual property tax, roughly 120 euros on a standard apartment.
• Net income reaching the owner of 8,508 euros, which is 4.8 percent on total capital deployed.

Now assume the season is weaker

Saranda is a summer market. Occupancy is not evenly spread and the quoted yields assume the season performs.

Take 25 percent off the gross income and it falls to 11,340 euros. Management and tax fall with it. Service charges and property tax do not. Net income lands near 5,900 euros, which is roughly 3.3 percent on capital deployed.

That is the number worth stress testing before you buy, not the 9 percent on the brochure.

What this model still does not include

Four of these are cost lines. The fifth is the one that can take the asset rather than the income.

• Furnishing and set up for a short let property, which is a real first year cost.
• Currency movement between the euro and your home currency.
• Tax in your country of residence on foreign rental income, and whether a double taxation treaty applies.
• Void periods beyond normal seasonality, and the cost of a bad letting agent.
• Title risk. Albania’s land restitution history means a sale contract is not proof of ownership. Verification at the State Cadastre by an independent lawyer comes before any deposit moves.

The question worth asking

Not whether Albania is a good market. Growth on that coast is real and the entry price is a fraction of comparable coastline in Spain or Portugal.

The question is whether a 4.8 percent net yield, falling toward 3.3 percent in a weak season, meets the target you set before you started looking. If it does, Albania deserves a serious look. If your target was the 9 percent on the listing, the listing was never offering it.

We do not sell property and we take no developer commission. We check the deal before you commit to it.

Independent advice. Clear numbers. No pressure to buy.