Although only a couple of months old, 2008 looks like being the best year yet for buying property in Morocco. A combination of low interest rates, a new raft of high quality projects, the impending arrival of more low cost air routes and a growing consumer awareness of the benefits of investing in this exotic kingdom mean that investors looking for the best returns are focusing their attention on Morocco.

This message already seems to be getting through to the overseas property market. The UK’s major property portal, rightmoveoverseas.co.uk, has reported a year-on-year 212% increase in enquiries concerning property in Morocco. Tom Browning of the agent network www.moroccoproperties.com added “Since launching the website in January we’ve been inundated by request from agents around the world looking to join our agency network. They realise the conditions in Morocco right now offer a never to be repeated opportunity for property investors.”

It was also recently reported that the numbers of visitors to the country continues to grow, outpacing growth in the global market and performing above expectations due to the implementation of the Vision 2010 programme. The number of foreign tourists visiting Morocco last year rose by 13% (the global rise was only 6.2%) to 7.4 million in total. This leaves the country on target to reach its target of 10 million visitors annually by 2010.

Michael Kent of Moroccan property specialists Moroccan Sands commented, “The growth in tourism figures mirrors the growth in enquires we’ve seen in the last year. Many buyers are looking at other destinations such as Bulgaria and Egypt and seeing very shallow investment returns in often saturated markets – yet when they look at Morocco they see a highly sophisticated market with excellent capital growth rates and realistic exit strategies.”

“The great thing about Morocco is that it offers distinctly different markets for property investors. The Marrakech market is very much driven by rental returns, there’s a strong all year round demand and several new projects and the new airports will only reinforce this. Alternatively, Tangier offers property buyers the chance to buy in a fast developing region where capital growth on prime projects is running at 25-30% per annum - with the extra bonus of a strong local rental market due to the opening of the $2billion Tangier Med Port.”