Where to find the perfect holiday home

When most of us dream of a holiday home, we want beautiful scenery, year-round activities and a retreat from the lousy British weather. And there's a place where you can find this combination - at a good price too.

When most of us dream of a holiday home, we have a long list of demands beautiful scenery, year-round activities and, most of all, somewhere to retreat to when the British weather disappoints. Ideally somewhere with skiing, perhaps, but also somewhere to swim. So where can you find this perfect combination? One answer is the Italian lakes. But there's a problem here: you need to have starred in a couple of Hollywood films to afford the price tag. Since George Clooney arrived in Lake Como in 2002, property prices have tripled.

But across the border, Switzerland boasts similar attractions at half the price: several of Italy's lakes span the border, and prices aren't so bad. Certainly, a chalet in one of the country's top ski resorts comes pricey, but the rest of the Swiss property market does not. Prices have risen "a modest 15%-30% in total over the past five years", says Peter Conradi in The Sunday Times. Only 10,000 Brits own homes in Switzerland and most of these have opted for major ski resorts rather than the south: here you get stunning scenery, sporting activities and a generous tax regime that would make Gordon Brown weep for the price of a studio flat in Hackney.

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