Budva - few things to read before you come
Municipality of Budva is stretched along the central part of Montenegrin coast and it covers 122 km2. Budva is considered to be on excellent geographic position. The main road along the sea shore connects Budva with other coastal Montenegro places as well with the capital Podgorica via two roads. There are two airports which are easily accessible to tourists in Budva. The closer but smaller one is just about 20 km close, near Tivat. The other one is main airport close to capital Podgorica. Many visitors came to Budva with their cars to enjoy all the beauties of Montenegrin nature. However during the summer there is evident problem with parking space - except if you reside in reliable hotel. Other connections are good as well. As the number of tourists grows each year it is better to reserve hotel room or good private apartment in advance. In general Budva (as well as other coastal places in Montenegro) is calm, pleasant city with fantastic coast and great positive energy. If you absolutely require stillness and lull you may want to check places along Kotor Bay better, being a Montenegrin prime touristic place Budva does have a bit of rush and nervousness going on during Jul and August. Outside those two months it's pretty enjoyable with very nice weather.
If you are coming to Budva to investigate potential property investment you should know several things as well. In a very quick time span Budva came a way from undeveloped property market to the point where demand way excels the number that property agents could handle. That caused many small agencies to be opened overnight, not to mention prices that tremendously raised. The problem with such a demand is that it is starting to be harder to find good property. Everything good is being sold quickly, so you have to be fast and you have to be active. Property owners will sometimes overprice their property, yet very rarely underprice it, but getting a nice home for reasonable amount of money is certainly possible. Montenegrin official currency is Euro, although Montenegro is not part of European Union the government decided to go with Euro as official currency and that made life easier for foreigners, especially investitors.
Prices are ok in Montenegro (Budva as well). Although prices aren't as low as they used to be it is still cheaper than most European countries. People from EU especially like cheap alcohol beverages and beer. In fact, despite Montenegrins rushed to embrace EU regulations and laws as much as possible there are many inherited post-socialistic regulations that are in place and will likely to be, like low taxes on alcohol and tobacco, so if you are into lushing and chain smoking you may find your heaven.
The roads are in surprisingly good condition. If you are coming by car you have to be cautious with mountain roads, they have many non obvious dangerous points. The sight at area when you are driving from Lovcen down to Budva is phenomenal. Taking a trip around Bay of Kotor is mandatory. You may want to visit Cetinje, The River of Crnojevici, Skadarsko Lake and many other continental places as well. There are too many places to be seen and not missed.
The history says (or legend) that Budva were built by a man named Kadmo, the son of King Agenor and Quinn Telofosa. During the socialistic period in EX Yugoslavia Budva was the only Montenegrin touristic place, in terms that it didn't have any heavy industry built around and that its life mostly depended on tourist economy. Although Budva changed a lot from that time many hotels are still there, reconstructed to meet rising expectations of EU tourists. The visitors profile has also changed, from mainly middle class German tourists during the socialistic period, and tourists from Serbia during the existence of Serbia and Montenegro, to the mix up of Russians, Britain, Check Republic, Slovenian and Serbian tourists as it is now. Sveti Stefan was and still is the place to handle high paying visitors, while Budva something to offer to everybody.
