The changes, which either abolish or reduce property transfer fees (depending on whether you are paying VAT on your purchase) came into effect on December 2, 2011 and will remain in force for a period of six months.

To benefit, the property must be new and the contract must be dated and concluded before June 2012.

Essentially, if you pay VAT on your house purchase, you’ll pay no transfer fee at all and if you are eligible to pay VAT on your purchase, your property transfer fee will will be reduced by 50 per cent.

Richard Way, of the Overseas Guides Company says it’s hoped the Cypriot tax initiative will kick start the property market in the face of growing financial uncertainty across Europe.

“Now that a favourable decision over transfer tax has been announced, buyers who had been waiting in the wings for confirmation will now be happy to commit to a purchase, thereby injecting some life into the depressed Cyprus property market,” Way says.

Whether things run as smoothly as that remains to be seen, but this does seem to be a step in the right direction for a property market that’s had its fair share of struggles over the past years.

Take Johnny Depp. There’s the people who live underneath his flat in the Paris suburbs, his neighbours over the way at his South of France bolthole and, more recently, new locals to get to know at the Norfolk mansion he bought near Burnham Market.

But neighbours of a very different kind are to be found near his home in the Bahamas. And that’s because they need a boat to pop over for a drink – Depp and long term partner Vanessa Paradis own one of the area’s many islands, Little Hall’s Pond Cay, and the neighbouring cay is currently for sale.

It’s in the central Bahamas and on the market for $75 million – although smaller and less developed cays are currently for sale at around £10 million but often with strange names.

For example, some rather alarming monikers recently on the market have included Cockroach, Bottle and Goat Cay ranging from £1.1m to £25 million in price.

But the buyer of this private island gets more than just a patch of beach and a few palm trees. Its 38 acres include a large plantation-style manor house, separate fitness centre, infinity pool, a working lighthouse and a staff village for 29 people.

There’s also a heliport, deep-draft docks, freshwater treatment plant, beach cottage, harbourmaster’s house and twin guest cottages – all accommodating 22 people in fairly lavish luxury.

And if you’re wondering how you get there – the nearest main island, Exuma (after which the group is named) is some 60 miles away. The answer is, this island comes with its own seaplane.

But get bidding fast. Depp and Paradis are said to be having relationship troubles and so you neighbours may soon drop down to one, rather than a couple.

For more information, contact agent Sotheby’s International.

This estate in the Cap D'Antibes, French Riviera is for sale through Home Hunts for 52 million euros. It includes a main house, two guest cottages and an office building.

The eurozone crisis, recession, and job uncertainty have heaped on the pressure for house hunters, especially those eyeing property abroad. The idea of course, is to buy something somewhere you want to live (or go on holiday), at a good price in an area where demand is steady, which should reassure you when it’s time to sell up and move on.

According to those at the coal face of international property, one of the keys is to look out for proven, not promised areas. For instance, the traditional and popular holiday destinations such as Barbados, the French Riviera and Marbella in Spain have stayed popular despite the difficult economic climate.

Property in France
“The economic slowdown has certainly not dampened the enthusiasm of the very wealthy buyers,” says Tim Swannie, director of France-based property buying agents Home Hunts. “In fact it seems to have spurred many on into investing in properties in the right location.” 

For instance, Swannie nominates properties in the French Riviera (particularly St. Jean Cap Ferrat, Cap d`Antibes and Cannes), Provence (the Luberon and Saint Remy de Provence), the Dordogne, parts of the Alps (Chamonix particularly but also the French side of Lake Geneva) and Paris as in very high demand.

Property in Spain
Marbella is also vastly outperforming the rest of Spain’s troubled market, says Fine & Country Spain director Martyn Ball.

Five bedroom home in Marbella for sale for 3.9 million euros through Fine & Country

“It seems, whether cyclical or due to economic and political unrest in numerous global destinations, the British Market is returning to areas much closer to home and to trusted areas to buy property, Marbella being one of them,” says Ball, adding the British are  “benefiting from the current availability of luxury mansions at 2004 and 2005 prices”.

Property in the Barbados
Caribbean property specialist Andrew W. Mallalieu of estate agency Terra Caribbean says property in Barbados will be in great demand in 2012.

This seven bedroom home in Barbados comes with a guest cottage, pool, sea view and access to a championship golf course. It's for sale for US $6.5 m through Royal Westmoreland Barbados

“The Barbados brand is very strong and has actually strengthened in the downturn,” he says. “The peripheral markets that were getting attention when the world economy was booming have all gone silent.

Barbados also feeds into the back to basics approach that’s becoming increasingly improtant to those choosing an overseas holiday home. For instance, the fact Barbados is beautiful island, has no capital gains tax, gives equal treatment for non-nationals in taxation matters, has good infrastructure and is safe and secure is now exceedingly significant, says Mallalieu.

One of Spain's most expensive properties, La Casa Loriana, is in Marbella

Fine & Country’s Tony Instrall knows this better than most. Together with Martyn Ball, Instrall runs the estate agent’s Costa del Sol business, based in the uber posh Marbella Club.

“We don’t sell anything under a million euros, which keeps us to a very niche market,” Instrall explains. “We offer a full premium service to our clients and the results have been very good so far.”

Crucially, unlike in the rest of the Spanish market where the bubble has well and truly burst, the demand for high end and exclusive property in Marbella remains steady. Those on the hunt for a perfect piece of Spanish real estate tend to be a mix of retirees, holiday home hunters and investors who come for Marbella’s micro climate, coastline, golf courses, and, let’s face it, glitz.

And there’s strong interest from UK buyers, says Fine & Country Spain director Martyn Ball.

“The British market in Marbella is once again particularly strong, rivalling recent healthy markets of Russia and Scandinavia.

“During the last decade we experienced booming global markets and purchasers were prepared to travel further afield to buy property, with their curiosity for new horizons. It seems, whether cyclical or due to economic and political unrest in numerous global destinations, the British market is returning to areas much closer to home and to trusted areas to buy property, Marbella being one of them.

“One thing is for sure, the British buyer is a savvy purchaser and is seeing great value in the many opportunities in the upper quartile of the market. Consequently the British are active again and are benefiting from the current availability of luxury mansions at 2004 and 2005 prices.”

On their books at the moment is one of Spain’s most expensive homes, the incredibly grand La Casa Loriana (pictured above), which at 4,000 square metres can accommodate up to 20 people, has its own private lift, guest quarters, Turkish bath, gym, medical room and cinema and is on the market for 50 million euros.

This villa in Marbella is on the market for 5.9 million euros

Slightly more affordable at 5.9 million euros is a six bedroom new build (pictured above) with panoramic views of the Mediterranean Sea in one direction and the La Concha mountains in the other. The swimming pool, gym and home cinema are of course included.

British buyers are seeing the opportunity in Marbella's luxury mansions, says Fine & Country's Martyn Ball

The high end property business is going so well that Fine & Country are now looking to sell homes in Barcelona and property in Majorca. “Barcelona has strong international appeal, but there’s a domestic market there too,” Instrall explains. “It also has a strong appeal to Russians, but not necessarily the Oligarch billionaire market, it’s more wealthy people who want to bring up their families in an international setting, but within striking distance of home. While prices may have dropped a bit in Majorca, there are still lots of people buying there, including huge interest from the German market.”

Steve McQueen was the ‘King of Cool’ and remains one of the highest earning of Hollywood’s actors, even though he’s been dead for over 30 years.

But if you want to buy a piece of his home life then there are three former properties of his on the market in and around Los Angeles. First up is a childhood home for sale at $599,900 (£379,320) in the Echo Park district between central Los Angeles and the Hollywood Hills.

Childhood home: the house he called home during his mid teens in Echo Park, Los Angeles.

The building is where McQueen lived with his mother and stepfather when aged 13 and is a two-storey Spanish-style block containing three one-bedroom apartments.

But it wasn’t a happy time – after moving there McQueen began quarrelling with his stepfather, who was his mother’s third husband, and the two fought including one incident when his stepfather threw him down the property’s stairwell.

McQueen was soon packed off to his great uncle’s farm in Missouri (where he had more or less brought up after his mother left him there when still a toddler) but after a spell working for a travelling circus, he drifted back to Los Angeles, where he was involved in petty street crime and eventually ended up in a school for wayward teenagers.

After leaving this school he spent time at his mother’s new home in Greenwich Village, New York but soon left and travelled across the US before joining the US Marine Corps in 1947.

In 1952 he left military service and returned to Los Angeles where he began to train as an actor, moving (during 1954) into a house also in Echo Park, just a few blocks from his mother’s former address.

It took McQueen four years to find regular acting work and in 1958 he was cast in the TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive but it wasn’t until 1960 that he got his big break in The Magnificent Seven.

After this wealth followed and he bought a house at 27 Oakmont Drive, known locally as ‘The Castle’, the entrance to which even today is hidden behind a large wooden gate.

But Steve McQueen in addition had an ‘out-of-town’ home in Palm Springs, which is also for sale at the moment. No. 2203 Southridge Drive is on a hillside overlooking Palm Springs and is an achingly fashionable 1960s modernist house with a swimming pool and five bedrooms on the market for $3.47m (£2.19m).

But there’s one more home for sale nearby that also used to belong to Steve McQueen – his last. In the late 1970s, and now approaching is third marriage, McQueen shunned Hollywood to concentrate on motorbike racing – and bought a fairly modest ranch house with outbuildings, plenty of land (most of which is now a vineyard).

This is currently for sale and has been on the market since February 2010 when it was offered for $1.95m was then reduced to $1.05m and is currently on the market at $678,400 (£428,962).

The latest PrimeLocation.com International Search Index, which is published quarterly, reveals that the number of people house hunting on our site increased overall by 14% during the third quarter of 2011 and by 17% for the top ten most popular destinations (see list below).

At the top of the table, the United States is the most popular attracting 31% more searches than in the previous three months and overall it remains the third most popular destination for property hunters.

France: one of the European countries that an increasing number of British buyers searched for last quarter.

Switzerland was another big winner within the top ten – the number of searches for its Alpine homes increased by 30%, helped by the thousands of wealthy Brits moving money into its safe haven property markets at the moment.

But what, you may ask, is stirring people to buy overseas when several of the countries popular with British buyers are facing financial meltdown – i.e. Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal?

The answer is that searches are beginning to increase again in the better known destinations despite the financial problems besetting them as many British retirees decide it’s time to emigrate to Europe and beyond for a better quality of life despite the recession.

PrimeLocation.com index also recorded more interest in Germany; searches there rose by 28% compared to the previous quarter driven by its status as the darling of international investor set as its economy shrugs off the recession.

So are there any losers? Only two countries within the top ten saw a decline. Searches for Cyprus property fell by one per cent, and the United Arab Emirates by five per cent, which dropped one place as a result within the Top Ten.

For a full list of the most popular countries by volume of searchs, go to www.primelocation.com.

The subtle difference between the two is about to be put to the test in coming months if you own a holiday home in the UK or overseas. Because HMRC has set up a 200-strong task force to catch holiday home ‘tax cheats’ who rent out their properties but fail to declare the income in full – or at all – on their annual tax return.

A Grade II listed cottage in Devon typical of the kind rented out as holiday homes.

The important bit is that David Gauke, the austere looking Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and Conservative MP for South West Hertfordshire, says he is after both those who ‘avoid’ and ‘evade’ tax – remember that when the economy was booming HMRC turned a blind eye to ‘avoidance’ and a small industry sprung up to help wealthy clients achieve it.

To put the frighteners on HMRC now says it has an array of sophisticated techniques to track income down including ‘data mining’ and ‘risk assessment’ which it will use to work out who appears ‘not to be able to afford a property’ or who are ‘not declaring the correct income from it’.

And income there is aplenty particularly if you rent out your UK holiday home. The number of tourists visiting our shores has risen year on year from 7.4 to 7.9 million a year and while they are spending less on each visit, many are switching from hotel to private holiday home renting which is often a third cheaper on average, according to research by website wheretosleep.co.uk.

The average UK holiday room rent is now £55 a night compared to a hotel room, which averages £83 a night, inspectors at the HMRC are no doubt quietly noting down.

Edole Castle in Latvia is said to be haunted by a "Green Lady"

Parts of the ten-bedroom castle, on the market with a guide price of £3 million through Baltic Sotheby’s International Realty, date back to 1264. It’s a stunning setting too – the ancient town of Kuldiga – 150 kilometres from Riga – is a well preserved medieval town with bags of ancient atmosphere.

Spooky: the basement tunnels of Edole Castle

The castle, a fixer upper by all accounts which also includes a museum, is said to be haunted by the Green Lady who, according to the property details, is fond of walking up and down the stairways and opening and closing doors.

She’s said to be the ghost of Sibylla Maidel – who lived in the castle and married Johann von Behr in about 1623. There’s a grisly magical legend too, including a love triangle, a duel, a reappearing blood stain on a wall, someone getting buried underneath some church stairs, a gnome king and a supernatural golden spindle.

Looking at the property photographs, there’s no doubt Edole Castle exudes a spooky atmosphere, although whether it’s very own Green Lady myth attracts more interest than a non haunted castle in Latvia remains to be seen.

But nothing comes near the price of a house being built in the Swiss mountains and claimed by its designer to be worth £7.5 billion and no, we don’t mean £75 or £750 million. It’s not location or size that cranks up the value of this mountain hideaway, said to be in the near the Italian border, but rather its fixtures and fittings designed by Liverpool-based gold plating specialists Stuart Hughes.

He was asked by Swiss luxury home firm exklusivHAUS to create the “world’s most expensive and most unique house ever built”  featuring 200,000 kilograms of solid gold and platinum fixtures and fittings – although it’s not clear where so much gold came from.

Nevertheless, given that gold currently costs £1,150 an ounce it’s not difficult to see how a valuation of £7.5 billion has been achieved.

Mr Hughes is known for coating almost anything in gold from fish tanks to cars – as well as a custom-made 24ct gold iPhone owned by Victoria Beckham. He also recently claimed to have built a £2.8 billion yacht covered in gold for an anonymous Malaysian businessman.

But his most ambitious creation could set the record for most expensive real property. The Swiss chalet is an eight-bedroom home featuring a terrace, large garden, stone wine cellar and a four super-car garage.

And for an added historical interest it features flooring made from meteoric stone with shavings of an original 65 million-year-old T-Rex dinosaur bone embedded in each tile.

All pictures copyright: Stuart Hughes/Rex Features

Could this NYC pad be Kim Kardashian's new NYC home?

The happy couple are now off on a quick European mini-moon before they settle back into their celebrity, reality TV life. 

But the big question is: after spending a rumoured £6 million on their wedding, where will the cashed up couple call home in the USA when they return?

Humphries is East Coast-based, currently in Hoboken New Jersey, which is just across the water from Manhattan, New York; while Kardashian, usually an LA dweller, is currently filming her sisterly fly-on-the-wall programme Kourtney and Kim Take New York – in New York City.

It’s no wonder then, that the rumour mill is going into over drive with speculation the newlyweds will be setting up married life together in the Big Apple.

Given the cost of their wedding and the rumoured £10.8 million they made from selling it to magazines and other media, money isn’t likely be an issue for these two. But in case they need any help, we’ve found some luxury New York pads that would be just perfect for this glitzy couple.

1) Kim and Kris will be neighbours with Robert Di Niro in the spectacular 1797-built  George Ireland House  in the heart of trendy TriBeCa. This four bedroom, four bathroom pad also has 20 ft ceilings – perfect for a 6′9 basketball player - as well as a gym, spa and wine vault across six floors. It’s on the market for £13.6m.

2) The newlyweds will be in the heart of arty Manhattan in this Chelsea Condo on West 22nd St. The light and airy boutique two bedroom, two bathroom duplex penthouse is on the market for £9.2m.

3) Kim and Kris can go all Sex and The City in this prewar Park Avenue coop with wraparound terraces, five bedrooms and five bathrooms, all on the market for £15.1m.