Buying property in the former communist states such as Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria used to be fraught with risk - nobody could be quite certain who owned the land, the market was largely unregulated and the economies were often in pretty parlous states.

Regulation now abounds

In the last 10 - 15 years all this has changed markedly for the better in most of these markets.  In Poland, for example, a law was passed in 1995 protecting investors in and purchasers of property.  All participants in the market - agents, property managers and developers - now need to be licensed and it is much easire to spot the unscrupulous.

I was recently at a seminar at the Polish Embassy in London and it is clear that the authorities in Poland want to welcome inward investment by property developers and investors.  New eco-friendly developments are springing up, city centres are becoming hives of activity and mortgage availability has expanded enormously.

Take a look, for example, at how the €67bn of EU funds allocated to Poland are going to be spent.  Roads, railways and social infrastructure are all receiving significant amounts of money.  New motorways are being built linking Gdansk in the north to Krakow in the south and running East-West across the country too.  Indeed, the savvy investor should take a close look at Lodz right in the centre of Poland - all these road and rail routes will intersect here, making for a pretty vibrant place set to grow and attract a lot of corporate interest.

Safe, growing, economically sound - Poland is not the poor man of Europe by a long way and is enjoying the fruits of its recent entry to the EU already.