Western Europe

For those looking for a “safe” investment, Western Europe is often the most obvious choice. But safe certainly does not mean dull: starting in the mid-1990s, the Spanish property market has gone through one of the longest and most sustained booms ever seen, with year after year of double digit growth. Ireland has performed even better over the past decade, although the rate of increase began to slow after the turn of millennium; in France, by contrast, growth rates, still moderate in the mid to late 1990s, have accelerated sharply in recent years. Several of the other Western European markets such as Belgium and Denmark have put in impressive, if less spectacular, performances, providing solid returns to anyone who invested there. At the other end of the scale, the German property market has been one of the worst performing in the world, with stagnant or falling prices during the same period, but yields can be extremely good, especially in Berlin, where there is a strong tradition of letting. Many also feel the market could be poised to take off, meaning substantial capital gains for anyone investing now.
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