Cyprus has been having an eventful year so far, with New Year's Day bringing the adoption of the euro as its official currency, the election of a new president, Dimitris Christofias and with him the tantalising prospect of better relations with northern Cyprus, perhaps even leading to a permanent solution to the division of the island into Greek and Turkish segments that has remained intractably in place since 1974.

However, the south is where it is at in the here and now and those crossing the border into the south may be doing exactly what investors should.

This is certainly what the facts suggest, Forbes has stated. In an article on Europe's best and worst property markets, based on data from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, it noted that Cyprus property saw the second highest rate of Cyprus property price inflation last year behind Poland. Unlike its east European counterpart, however, the Mediterranean island has subsequently gained the advantage of being part of the single European currency, which may inspire greater confidence among investors than the zloty.

Despite the rate of house price inflation rising from 7.6 per cent to 15 per cent, Cyprus still has plenty of highly affordable property. The Daily Telegraph said as much this week when it pointed out that a two-bedroom apartment in Paphos with access to a swimming poll and views of the deep blue sea could still be bought for only £136,000. Such an investment in a tourist area could have buy-to-let potential, not least if the current advertising campaign fronted by Cypriot tennis star Marcos Baghdatis is successful. UK viewers may have seen some of the adverts on television already.

Buy-to-let for UK tourists may be a major area of growth for investors in the market, as in many respects the country is perfectly suited for Britons. As the Galway advertiser has pointed out in an article on investment in property there, the road signs are mostly in English and the language is widely spoken. While the historical and colonial links with Britain may be of less interest to Irish visitors, the paper points out that it is a country popular with tourism from the Emerald Isle partly for these linguistic reasons.