Apartments for sale in Hergla

Hergla is holding out. Between Kantaoui, saturated with developments, and Hammamet Sud, where the square metre has doubled in ten years, this white village perched on its cliff is one of the last places on the Sahel coast where an apartment for sale with a sea view still trades at a price a Tunisian professional can finance with a bank loan. The A1 motorway exit is a few minutes away, Enfidha airport around twenty kilometres, Sousse half an hour.

The market is young. Fifteen years ago Hergla had nothing but fishermen's houses and a few summer villas. Today developers from Sousse and Tunis are delivering two to four storey buildings along the beach or on the harbour road, and the buyers fall into two groups: Tunisian families who want a holiday base, and the diaspora preparing to come home.

Where the new developments are being built

Most of the supply is south of the village, along the beach, where land was still free: schemes with a communal pool, a caretaker and a lift, S+1 and S+2 apartments (one or two bedrooms plus a living room) of 60 to 100 sq m with a sea facing terrace. A few higher end projects target the cliff front, with S+3 units and duplexes. To the north, towards the fishing harbour and the old village, you find instead floors of houses converted into apartments, cheaper and more authentic, but with no parking and no building management.

The village itself, around the square and the old mosque, remains protected from high rise building: that is what gives it its charm and what limits the supply in the centre. Village houses and villas have their own page, houses for sale in Hergla.

Prices, off plan buying and traps to avoid

The square metre in new build by the sea usually runs around 2,500 to 3,500 DT, appreciably below Kantaoui or Yasmine Hammamet for a comparable view. In older village property it drops well below that, but you have to allow for the work. Many sales are agreed off plan: check that the developer holds a blue title, the individual land title, on the plot, that the building permit is displayed, and insist on a written payment schedule. Hergla has seen schemes delivered two years late.

Another point to examine: the co-ownership charges. A communal pool and a caretaker cost a lot when the building is occupied only two months a year, and absent owners are poor payers. Ask for the management budget before signing, and prefer developments where a share of the owners live on site all year.

Buying to live in, to let, or to wait?

In Hergla, buyers broadly fall into three profiles. The retiree or remote worker settling year round, who has to accept a quiet village where the shops close early out of season. The investor counting on seasonal letting: demand exists from June to September, driven by people from Tunis escaping the crush of Hammamet, but income stays modest the rest of the year; look at the apartments to rent in Hergla to gauge the real rents. And the patient buyer betting on prices rising with the airport, the motorway and the tourism projects that have been announced around the village for years.

The whole coast, from Kantaoui to Sousse Medina, is on the apartments for sale in the Sousse governorate page.