The Telegraph's property correspondent perhaps needs to do more homework on Central European market prospects.......

by Rosie Murray-West on the ups and downs of the property world " It's terribly confusing, this property business."

Rosie Murray-West was apparently first appointed as the Telegraph's Property correspondent in September 2004, this much may be surmised from one of her initial articles where she commented " It's terribly confusing, this property business."

it is apparent that Ms. Rosie Murray-West (RMW) has wider journalistic experience than the property market but this writer believes that RMW should do more than trawl the Internet, if her Property column is going to command respect of those "in the know"..........

I do not know RMWs property background, but am quite certain that it is different from my own................... starting at one of UKs respected colleges for Chartered Surveyors, a period as site manager on a residential development project, as a consultant for the Canary Wharf project, as a management consultant for Price Waterhouse where assignments included strategy development for the property industry, as the owner of a development project in the SE England, and finally as an analyst of the Property market in Central Europe.

Do I know more than RMW.......... I doubt it........ The Property markets of the world are a mystery to most of us, perhaps all that we can claim is a little knowledge of a few parts of the world where we have continuous "on the ground" experience.

Property markets of Bulgaria (& Romania) are a subject that RMW has recently seen fit to trivialise in her column... headlined "Beware the cheap and nasty Bulgarian dream".

In the same style as RMW used in her column - click here - let me pose a question "Where would you find an Investment Property - valued at EUR 100m, with a yield of 16.7%, comprising strong 7 year leases and with a tenant base that includes:- Nestle, Orange, Procter&Gamble, Wella, Equant, GE and shortly Siemens, IBM & Motorola" ................. Of course you knew the answer is Bucharest.... where.. in Romania. This particular development was snapped up by an Austrian institutional investor nearly 12 months ago.

Having quoted an example of a good Investment property in Central & SE Europe, this type of development opportunity is not available in indefinite numbers - but it does indicate what is taking place on these little known markets. As every Multi-national closes its doors in UK, France, Germany, Italy & Spain, they are simply responding to economic forces by moving down the road to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic & Slovakia.

Did you know that Romania is now in 2nd place to Latvia as the fastest growing economy in Central Europe, (& if the Black economy was included, it would far away lead the league table), Did you know that a little workshop in Bulgaria (not so little actually) produces the advanced technology production machinery that supports much of the world's autoparts production 95% of Alloy wheel production to be specific. Manupet of France has just moved here - much to the chagrin of Chirac & Villepin.

How does economic growth affect the property markets.............. My thirteen your old son could provide this answer.

Whilst responding to RMWs, poorly researched article on the property investment opportunities in Bulgaria & Romania in particular......... All foreign investment helps the wealth creation of these now rapidly developing countries. Investors from UK in particular, are probably far-sighted enough to realise there are no longer expectations for double digit annual growth on their properties in UK or France or Germany (or anywhere else in Western Europe).

The countries of Western Europe are reduced to "Service economies" - It should be a wake-up call that Production & Manufacturing has moved down the road to Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia etc.

It is the world's multi-national giants that have taken the considered decisions to relocate key production operations to regions of Europe where the workforce is both well educated & skilled, and more to the point where the workforce is hungry for success and well motivated.

The EU economic programme is currently not working, and is repeatedly making the region less and less competitive, so that shortly the ONLY remaining industries will be in the services sector... This applies to "new accession" countries such as Hungary where Foreign Direct Investment has dramatically fallen away since the bullish 90's.

The answer - of course is to emigrate.... where else, but to Bulgaria & Romania - where the economic engines are fully fuelled and are accelerating hard..... and the property markets are both liquid and strongly developing..