Property overseas - how (and where) to live like 007
14-Apr-2008 • Bond News
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The name's Bond, James Bond, and the business is profit. Big profit. This year is the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, which is seeing the 007 industry - not one known for understatement - go into overdrive. There is the usual flurry of cars, watches and vodka that will be sold on the back of the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace, out in November; the Imperial War Museum London's Fleming-themed For Your Eyes Only exhibition, which opens next Thursday; and the new Bond novel, Devil May Care, by Sebastian Faulks, to be published on May 28, Fleming's birthday.
A lookalike car is all very well, but what about buying a glamorous home in one of 007's most unforgettable settings? Locations that were considered exotically remote while Bond was causing mayhem in them - Albania in For Your Eyes Only, East Berlin in Octopussy or Zagreb in From Russia with Love, for instance - now read like a list of emerging overseas hotspots.
Here is the pick of the properties for sale near the most famous Bond locations.
Jamaica - Dr No
Ian Fleming's Goldeneye estate in Oracabessa, Jamaica, where he wrote all 13 of his Bond books until his death in 1964, offers new beachfront cottages. Prices start at £365,000 through Pure International (www.pureintl.com, 0203 031 2860) - a chance for owners to re-enact Ursula Andress's infamous emergence from the waves in Dr No. Building work has also started on a massive new development that will include 83 luxury homes, starting at £375,000 for a one-bedroom studio, rising to £1.59 million for a four-bedroom villa; they are all set around Fleming's old house and four other existing villas on the site, all of which are available for rent. The project is due to be completed in November.
The Bahamas - Casino Royale, Thunderball, Never Say Never
Film fame isn't all good news for some locations, says Carly Barnes, MD of Worldpropertypages.com, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Bond locations. "The Bahamas are classic Bond territory, but some key locations there are being decimated," she says. "Café Martinique, where Bond danced in Thunderball, has been bulldozed to make way for a new hotel development. The Never Say Never bar at the British Colonial Hotel, where Connery had a watery encounter with Barbara Carrera, was blown away by a hurricane, and the Straw Market, which doubled as the British secret service radio headquarters in Thunderball, fell victim to a fire.
"The beachside woodland at Coral Harbour was strewn with rubbish to mock up the slums of Madagascar. But luckily most people simply remember the crystalclear waters and white sandy beaches, and we have had clients buy in Nassau as a result of seeing Casino Royale."
Thunderball firmly established the Bahamas as the destination for the jet-set, and Lyford Cay is still popular (Sean Connery owns a home there). But the weak dollar and wobbly US market means there are still some Bond-themed bargains in Grand Bahamas, where you can buy studio apartments from £25,000.
"The island is not as fashionable as it used to be, but it is being completely redeveloped with an Atlantis-style resort, marina and championship golf courses. John Travolta has already bought there, so the celebrity-endorsement has started," says Barnes. "This will become a very good investment in the next few years."
Italian Lakes - Casino Royale; Quantum of Solace
The lakes may have lost out on some of the glory by being mistaken for Montenegro in Casino Royale, but now they have a second chance with the largest of the Italian lakes, Garda, the setting for scenes in Quantum of Solace. Filming starts this month, with Daniel Craig set to stage a high-speed car chase through Limone sul Garda, a holiday hotspot, and around Malcesine, Tempesta and Navene on the eastern shore.
"Garda already has a solid property market, with high demand for second homes from city-dwelling Italians, which is always a good sign, but being in the opening shot of a Bond film will be a great advert for the lake," says Sarah Ferrara from Garda Homes (www.gardahomes.co.uk, 00 39 334 397 3375). One-bedroom apartments start at £115,000, two-bedroom apartments in the historic centres of the lakeside towns from £150,000 and villas from £380,000 in the hills or from £2 million by the lake.
"The wider part of the lake in the South is very 007, suited to wakeboarding and jetskiing. Campione, near Limone, is gaining a reputation as a premier spot for kitesurfing and Malcesine for windsurfing," says Ferrara.
The most expensive area is around the walled town of Sirmione, nearest to Verona and motorway links to Milan and Venice. "The stretch from Malcesine up to Navene, to the top of the lake, has a wild beauty that is particularly striking," says Ferrara.
With George Clooney as a local homeowner, Lake Como scarcely needs Bond to raise its profile, but the lake's cameo in Casino Royale, filmed in the small town of Lenno, didn't hurt. Linda Travella from Casa Travella (www.casatravella.com, 01322 660988), the first English agent to sell properties on Lake Como 20 years ago, has newbuild apartments in Lenno from £140,000. "Lake Como's beauty is such that it has been used for many films since the 1950s, so it's almost par for the course to see a film crew there," says Travella. "But a Bond film - the glamour of the brand more than the individual actors, I think - always brings excitement. Boat tours now point out the locations used for filming."
Bratislava - The Living Daylights
The Slovakian capital was scarcely on anyone's investment map when Timothy Dalton was gatecrashing concerts at the Conservatory and seducing female KGB agents. Now - though too late to capitalise on its Bond stardom - it is one of Eastern Europe's emerging hotspots, its proximity to Vienna making it an appealing prospect for investors who have spotted the disparity in prices between the two sides of the Danube. If EU member Slovakia adopts the euro next year as planned, investors will see a further boost to property prices.
There are still opportunities to get in cheap though, with prices at Central 22 - a development of two- to four-bedroom houses in landscaped grounds overlooking a man-made lake, 8km from the city centre - starting at £30,000 through Obelisk International (www.obeliskinternational.com, 0808 160 0670), which guarantees two years' rental on completion.
The Right Move Abroad (www.therightmoveabroad.com, tel 01606 888 886) is selling city-centre apartments in Retro, a mixed-use scheme in a residential area near the old town, from £73,000.
Montenegro - Casino Royale
Casino Royale came at the perfect time for newly independent Montenegro, just as the first wave of international investors were realising its potential.
"Pre-Bond, it was Monty where? Post- Bond people were saying âI want to go there'," says Daniel Walker from Monteverdi (www.monteverdi-estates.com, 020 7661 9342), which is developing projects in the country's most prestigious locations around Kotor Bay, with apartments starting at about £100,000. "It was a new destination that was given instant glamour and cachet by being in a Bond film and it benefited in a way that established destinations such as Italy wouldn't any more."
Prices have soared in the past two years, doubling in Sveti Stefan or Kotor Bay, where Hollingworth and Associates (www.hollingworthandassociates.com, 0845 456 7737) is selling a villa for £513,000 in the village of Rose.
Liam Bailey from David Stanley Redfern (www.davidstanleyredfern.com, 0800 634 2377), which is selling lakeside log chalets near Niksic from £63,000, thinks that Montenegro had enough merits of its own to make it big, "but the Bond movie certainly drew attention to the country," he says. "Besides its coastline, the cost of buying and selling property there (about 5 per cent) is low and there are no restrictions on foreign ownership of property, so Montenegro has a lot to offer investors. We expect capital appreciation over the next three to five years to be 15-25 per cent a year."
Costa de la Luz, Spain - Die Another Day
When Halle Berry re-created Ursula Andress's bikini-clad emergence from the waves, she substituted Cadiz for Jamaica, bringing new-found glamour to this wonderful city - the oldest in Europe - that is overlooked by most British buyers on southern Spain's Costa de la Luz.
The town's Playa la Caleta was the setting, a stone's throw from Cadiz's old town, which has a faded, Havana-like charm to its seafront and Barcelona-like backstreets, which all lead back to its vast gold-domed cathedral. While Spanish buyers flock to the modern beachfront apartments on the town's outskirts, Brits tend to prefer nearby Chiclana, a small, coastal town with good value-for-money properties. Propertyshowrooms.com (0800 047 0597) is selling three-bedroom villas with private pools there for about £170,000.
Puerto de Santa Maria is also a popular holiday spot among landlocked Spaniards. Few UK agents have properties for sale there, but Property Finders (www.propertyfinders.com, 020 7518 0335) can track down the odd bodega that is ripe for conversion, or Thinkspain.com has small townhouses from £115,000.
Istanbul, Turkey - From Russia with Love; The World is Not Enough
Istanbul has all the Bond credentials - the East/West divide as it straddles two continents and 100km, the Bosphorus with its Golden Gate-style bridge and multimillion pound villas along the shoreline.
"Istanbul is one of the most vivid locations in Fleming's books. Bond's first night in Istanbul is spent is a âdingy room at the Kristal Palace on the heights of Pera', says ex-Istanbul resident Kate Pernacchio from Paris-based investment property specialist Imoinvest. "He is chauffeured in a Rolls-Royce through Taksim square and down the crowded Istiklal and out of Asia across the Galata Bridge. It's a place full of mystery and incredible attractions."
This vast city has a booming economy, strong local demand for property and budget airline routes from the UK. Big Dubai developers, such as Emaar, have entered the market, and there are all the signs of prosperity, such as an Ikea and Harvey Nichols.
"Those who bought there in 2007 reaped returns of up to 75 per cent in one year and analysts are predicting gains of 110 per cent in the next year," says Pernacchio. "The residential and commercial markets are experiencing record growth and there is still massive room for expansion, especially with Istanbul becoming European Capital of Culture in 2010."
New developments include Atasehir Residence, with apartments from £102,000 through Imoinvest (www.imoinvest.com, 0207 845 0700) and Astrum Towers, where the first third of properties from £33,000 have been bought by locals, through Property Frontiers (www.propertyfrontiers.com, 01865 202 700). In the seaside suburb of Büyükçekmece, 30km from the centre, Spot Blue (www.spotblue.co.uk, 0208 339 6036) is selling one-bedroom apartments from £35,000.
The Alps - The World Is Not Enough, The Spy Who Loved Me, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, View to a Kill
Another case of mistaken identity, with Chamonix standing in for the Caucausus mountains, points out author Jonathan Trigell, whose latest novel Cham is set in the French ski resort and gives a vivid rundown of Bond ski scenes, such as Roger Moore plunging over a 4,000ft cliff in The Spy Who Loved Me.
"The camera floats over the sharp needles of the valley's Aiguilles peaks, then down the Argentière glacier past deadly seracs and crevasses - with a computergenerated pipeline running down the middle of it," says Trigell, who also works for Erna Low Property (www.ernalowproperty.com, 020 7590 1624) in Chamonix.
"Cham is a bit like Bond - elegant, enigmatic and often quite lethal. It's the death-sport capital of the world. But alongside the sheer peaks there are Michelin-starred restaurants and suave members-only lounge bars. Bond would feel at home here," he says.
Properties rarely come up for sale in carfree Chamonix, an hour from Geneva, and they bear hefty price tags when they do. Erna Low is selling one new development there, Les Chalets de la Tannerie, with views across Mont Blanc and the Aiguille de Midi in the hamlet of Les Tines. The traditional Alpine apartments cost from £694,000 and the chalet costs £2.78 million.
You can follow in Bond's footsteps more modestly in Alpe D'Huez, the central resort in the Grandes Rousses ski domain, which starred in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Erna Low is selling apartments at Le Jardin Alpin, an hour from Grenoble, from £86,200.
Thailand - Tomorrow Never Dies, The Man With the Golden Gun
Thailand is classic Bond territory, from the motorbike chase through Bangkok market (Tomorrow Never Dies) to the iconic mountainous islands off Phuket, one of which, since The Man with a Golden Gun, has become known as James Bond Island.
Mervyn Baines from Thailand-based Indigo estate agency (www.indigore.com) is not impressed with the Bond effect. "It's not an island, it's a rock, and it's nothing but a tourist trap. The tiny beach is packed with about 50 stalls selling everything from postcards to sea-shells and hundreds of boats drop off tourists daily."
With views of James Bond Island, Jumeirah Private Island (www.tgr-asia. com, 00 66 819 685 352), at the gateway to Phang Nga Bay, is set to house Phuket's most exclusive development, with a superyacht marina, helipad and large villas. Remaining plots cost from £1.7 million. "The Bond film started tourists coming here in 1974 and, slowly since then, Phuket has developed as a luxury property destination," says the TGR Group's MD, Anthony Franklin. Also overlooking Phang Nga Bay is The Village on Coconut Island, where waterside two-bedroom villas cost from £302,000 (www.thevillagecoconutisland.com, 00 66 878 888 082).
Tangier, Morocco - The Living Daylights
Tangier fulfils all requirements as a Bond set - great beaches, exotic/Arabic charm and narrow backstreets where you can wreak havoc on vehicles of various kinds.
The 10 miles that separate it from Europe have always kept Tangier out on a limb. But since King Mohammed decided to make it one of the main focuses of his plan for a 21st-century Morocco, with a new port opening up trade with the Mediterranean, and a new-look beachfront on its way, Tangier is attracting investors.
Playa Vista is a beach development 10 minutes from the city. Seaview apartments start at £64,000 through Experience International (www.experienceinternational.com, 0800 612 0901). On the Atlantic coast, 10 minutes outside Tangier, Tinja is the most upmarket project under way, with low-density buildings, souks and sports facilities set around lakes on a 750- acre woodland site that sits on a 30-mile empty beach. Apartments start at £68,000 through Hamptons International (www.hamptons-int.com, 020 7758 8447).
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