Albania is earlier on the curve: Alan Talib on property, EU accession and Gulf capital
Published 18 June 2026 · 4 min read
Who was there
| Met | Developers building Albania's property sector and decision-makers in government |
| NordGulf Alliance | Alan Talib, CEO and Founder |
| Where and when | Albania, June 2026 |
| Discussed | International investment in property, EU accession, what makes a project investable |
In June I was in Albania, meeting people across the property sector, from the developers building it to the decision-makers in government shaping how it gets built.
Dubai, 2002
What I saw there took me straight back to Dubai. I was there around 2002, when Dubai first opened its property market to international investors. I remember the conversations well. People worried about sovereignty. About what it meant to let foreigners own a piece of the country. About whether something was quietly being given away. And it was not only the public, business people felt it too.
It passed. Once people saw that no one could lift an island, or a tower, and ship it to another country, that every building stayed exactly where it was built, employing local people and lifting the streets around it, the worry faded and the capital poured in. Look at Dubai now.
I am not comparing the two countries. They could not be more different, and Albania does not need to be anyone's copy. What resonates is the hesitation. It is the same reaction almost every country has the first time it opens to international capital, and in Albania today I am watching that exact moment play out.
The accession pattern
There is a second pattern, and it is even clearer. Look at what happened to property across Eastern Europe after EU accession.
Estonia joined in 2004. Tallinn prices rose roughly 80% in three years. Poland joined the same year. Warsaw rose about 50% in a single year, and today it is more expensive than Rome. Romania joined in 2007. Prices jumped around 20% on accession, and even after the 2008 crash the market recovered and now yields 7 to 8%. Croatia joined in 2013. After a slow couple of years it climbed roughly 70%, and adopting the euro accelerated it again.
The path was never a straight line, 2008 hurt all of them, but the decade after joining told the same story almost every time: a re-rating. The chart below shows it.
Albania is earlier on that same curve. A candidate, targeting 2030, already up around 150% in ten years while still yielding 5 to 8%, before a single accession catalyst has arrived.
What is missing is readiness
And here is what changed for me since the trip. Back in the Gulf, I mentioned Albania to investors I work with, and the interest was immediate. The capital is ready to look.
What is missing is not money, and it is not potential. It is readiness. Albania's developers build genuinely impressive things, but most are still presented for a local bank, not an institution. Clean structures, independent valuations, real diligence, honesty about the numbers. That is what turns a strong project into an investable one, and it is the work we came to do.
For Gulf investors, the questions are the ones they ask everywhere: who owns the land, who values it independently, and how they exit. A developer who can answer those in the form an investment committee expects moves to the front of the queue.
The hesitation is not the end of this story. Across every market I have watched, it has been the beginning of it.
Albania is the last untapped market in Europe, and most of the potential is still ahead.