The people behind
Holiday Home Times

Sophie Brennan

Irish · Lisbon, Portugal

Sophie covers citizenship-by-investment programmes, residency visas and the legal frameworks that govern how high-net-worth individuals build a life across borders. Based in Lisbon since the launch of Portugal's Golden Visa, she has tracked its evolution closely and has reported on programmes across Malta, Greece, UAE and the Caribbean.

Sophie holds a law degree from Trinity College Dublin and previously practised as a solicitor in international private client matters.

Valentina Cruz

Argentine · Barcelona, Spain

Valentina writes about property markets across southern Europe and Latin America, with a particular focus on Spain, Italy, Greece and Brazil. She has a background in architecture and urban planning, and her reporting often explores the relationship between built form, planning law and investment value.

She has contributed to property supplements at major European newspapers and holds a Masters in Urban Studies from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya.

Marcus Reid

British · Geneva, Switzerland

Marcus specialises in the tax and legal structures that sit beneath cross-border property ownership - from offshore holding companies and treaty networks to inheritance planning and currency exposure. He previously worked in private client advisory at a Big Four firm and brings a practitioner's eye to complex ownership structures.

He is a Chartered Tax Adviser and writes for both specialist and general-interest audiences on wealth structuring, estate planning and cross-border compliance.

Nadia Patel

British-Indian · Dubai, UAE

Nadia covers property investment strategy, buying processes and market intelligence across the Gulf, South Asia and East Africa. She has a background in financial analysis and spent five years covering emerging-market real estate for a specialist research house before joining Holiday Home Times.

Her reporting draws on deep data literacy and a network built across developers, agents and institutional buyers from Dubai to Nairobi.

Priya Nair-Santos

Indian-Portuguese · Goa, India

Priya writes about the lifestyle dimension of second-home ownership - the communities, the culture, the schools, the restaurants and the invisible infrastructure that makes a place feel like home. Her base in Goa gives her an insider view on one of Asia's most dynamic second-home markets.

She has written for travel and lifestyle titles across India, the UK and the Middle East, and holds a degree in Journalism from Symbiosis International University.

Cleo Hartmann

German-Swiss · Zurich, Switzerland

Cleo covers ski resort markets, Alpine property and second-home markets across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Scandinavia. She grew up between Munich and the Bernese Oberland and has a long-running interest in how seasonal markets respond to climate change and shifting travel patterns.

She previously edited a German-language property title and holds a degree in Geography and European Studies from the University of St Gallen.

Aleksandra Djordic

Serbian · Podgorica, Montenegro

Aleksandra Djordic is the publication's specialist for the Adriatic coast and the western Balkans, a region she has tracked closely since Montenegro's first wave of luxury marina development in the early 2010s. Born in Belgrade and educated at the University of Arts in Belgrade before completing a journalism degree at City, University of London, she has spent the better part of a decade based between Tivat and Podgorica.

Her reporting focuses on the intersection of tourism infrastructure, foreign investment frameworks and the branded-residence developments that are reshaping Montenegro's coastline. She has interviewed developers behind Porto Montenegro, Lustica Bay and Chedi Lustica Bay, and maintains close relationships with the legal and tax advisory firms active in the market.

Aleksandra also contributes to regional real estate and travel media in Serbian, Croatian and English, and advises a small number of international buyers on market entry as a non-practising consultant.

David Martins

Portuguese · Canggu, Bali, Indonesia

David Martins covers the property markets of Bali, India and Thailand — three of the most active second-home markets in Asia — with a focus on new-build villa communities, branded residences and the legal structures available to foreign buyers.

Portuguese by birth, he moved to Southeast Asia a decade ago for what was meant to be a year and stayed for the market. Based in Canggu since 2018, he has watched the Bali villa market evolve from informal lease arrangements to a more structured investment landscape and reported on every major development phase in between. His writing spans project reviews, regulatory analysis and the practical questions that buyers encounter when moving capital across borders into leasehold markets.

Before joining Holiday Home Times, David contributed to property and investment publications in Portugal, Singapore and Australia. He holds a degree in Economics from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Elena Voss

German-American · Miami, Florida, USA

Elena Voss specialises in luxury second-home and resort-residence markets across the Caribbean and Central America, with particular depth in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Antigua, Grenada and the emerging Belize market. She splits her time between Miami and the islands she covers, which gives her both market proximity and the transatlantic perspective her largely European readership values.

Born in Munich and raised partly in New York, Elena studied International Business at New York University before shifting into property and travel journalism in her late twenties. She has spent more than a decade reporting on branded-residence developments, CBI-linked property opportunities and the infrastructure — marinas, airports, healthcare — that determines whether an island market matures or stalls.

Her work has appeared in luxury property supplements, investment guides and high-net-worth lifestyle titles on both sides of the Atlantic. She is a licensed real estate agent in the State of Florida, though she writes independently.

Emma Reyes

Spanish · Barcelona, Spain

Emma Reyes covers the regulatory environment for short-term rentals and foreign property ownership across Europe and Southeast Asia — one of the most rapidly changing areas in international property law. Based in Barcelona, she has reported extensively on Spain's evolving STR licensing regime and the city's phased ban on tourist apartment licences, and has broadened that expertise to Bali's NIB compliance framework and the EU's new STR data-reporting obligations.

Spanish by birth, Emma holds a law degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and a Masters in European Business Law from ESADE. She began her career in a law firm specialising in foreign investment in real estate before moving into journalism, a transition that gives her reporting an unusual level of technical precision without sacrificing readability.

She advises editors, developers and owners on regulatory implications as a consultant, and contributes expert commentary to Spanish legal and property publications alongside her work for Holiday Home Times.

Giulia Benedetti

Italian · Milan, Italy

Giulia Benedetti covers luxury resort residences in Italy and the wider Alpine market, with a particular interest in wellness-led developments, lakeside properties and ski-in ski-out residences at premium European resorts. Milan-based but perpetually on assignment, she spends a significant portion of each year at the properties she reviews — a working method she considers non-negotiable.

Giulia studied Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano before pivoting to property journalism, and her architectural training informs a reporting style that pays close attention to build quality, material specification and the relationship between a development and its landscape. She has reported on properties across Garda, Como, Cortina, Courchevel and the Dolomites.

Before joining Holiday Home Times, Giulia contributed to Italian architecture and design publications and to the property sections of Italian-language financial newspapers. She speaks Italian, English and French.

Helena Matos

Portuguese · Lisbon, Portugal

Helena Matos is Holiday Home Times's lead writer on Portugal, covering the Algarve, Comporta, the Douro Valley, Lisbon and the Alentejo with an eye for both the investment case and the lifestyle reality. Lisbon-born and educated at Universidade de Lisboa in Economics, she has spent fifteen years at the intersection of Portuguese property, tourism and foreign investment.

Her reporting spans branded resort residences — where Portugal has produced some of Europe's most compelling recent developments — and the practical frameworks governing foreign ownership, non-habitual resident tax status and the post-Golden Visa landscape. She has close relationships with developers, agents and legal advisers active across the country, and writes with the authority of someone who has watched the market through multiple cycles.

Helena also contributes to Portuguese-language property and investment media and serves as a market commentator for international conferences focused on Iberian real estate.

James Whitfield

British · Nassau, Bahamas

James Whitfield is based in Nassau and covers luxury resort residences and private island communities across the Caribbean, with particular depth in the Bahamas, Grenada, Belize and the Dominican Republic. He came to property journalism from a background in private banking, where he spent eight years advising ultra-high-net-worth clients on asset allocation in Caribbean real estate before deciding the journalism side of the conversation was more interesting.

His reporting is characterised by a rigorous focus on the investment fundamentals beneath the lifestyle pitch: occupancy economics, freehold versus leasehold structures, exit liquidity and the track record of the development group behind each project. He has reported on more than forty Caribbean resort-residence developments in the past six years and maintains one of the most comprehensive private databases of Caribbean branded-residence performance available outside the institutional research houses.

British by birth, James holds a degree in Finance from the University of Exeter and a CFA charter.

James Whitmore

British-Australian · Sydney, Australia

James Whitmore writes about the softer, harder-to-quantify side of second-home ownership — the monsoon interiors of Goa, the evolving lifestyle offer along Australia's Sunshine Coast, the cultural logic of Albania and Montenegro as the Adriatic's last affordable frontiers. He approaches property as a lived experience first and an investment second, which produces the kind of writing that makes markets legible to readers who have not yet visited.

British-Australian and permanently peripatetic, James has spent time living in India, Southeast Asia and now Sydney, and his editorial range reflects the breadth of markets he has inhabited rather than merely reported. Before coming to property journalism he worked as a travel writer and documentary researcher, skills that translate directly into the on-the-ground reporting Holiday Home Times values most.

He holds a degree in English and Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh and contributes to Australian lifestyle and property media alongside his work for this publication.

Layla Al-Rashidi

Kuwaiti · Dubai, UAE

Layla Al-Rashidi is the publication's specialist in Dubai and the wider Gulf market, covering the branded-residence sector that has made Dubai one of the world's most active luxury second-home destinations for international buyers. Kuwaiti by background and Dubai-based by choice, she brings an insider's understanding of Gulf culture and capital flows to a market that is often misread by outsiders.

Her reporting focuses on the major branded-residence communities along the Palm, at Dubai Harbour and across the Downtown and Business Bay corridors — developments that require the kind of access and trust she has built over more than a decade of covering the sector. She is one of a small number of journalists who regularly interviews the development directors of Emaar, DAMAC, Nakheel and the international hotel groups that have licensed their names to Dubai projects.

Layla holds a degree in Business Administration from the American University of Kuwait and a Masters in Real Estate Finance from Heriot-Watt University's Dubai campus. She writes in Arabic and English.

Nikos Petridis

Greek · Athens, Greece

Nikos Petridis covers the Greek property market with a focus on the resort-residence and luxury villa sectors that have attracted significant international buyer interest since Greece's Golden Visa programme opened in 2013. Athens-based, he has reported on developments across the Peloponnese, Corfu, Mykonos, Santorini and the emerging Crete and Epirus markets.

Greek by birth and trained as an economist at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Nikos moved into property journalism after a decade in investment banking, where he covered the broader Southeastern European real estate market. His reporting combines financial rigour with an understanding of the cultural and planning complexities that make the Greek market distinctive — from the complexities of title registration to the practical realities of ownership in a country where the informal economy has long shaped property transaction norms.

He contributes to Greek-language financial and property media as well as to this publication, and is a regular speaker at investment conferences focused on Southern European real estate.

Oliver Beck

British · London, UK

Oliver Beck writes the publication's market commentary, reader Q&As and editorial columns — the pieces that step back from individual projects to take a view on where money is moving and why. He joined Holiday Home Times from the financial press, where he spent ten years covering real estate investment trusts, private equity real estate and the macro forces that drive cross-border capital into property markets.

Based in London, Oliver covers no single geography but instead focuses on the themes and structural shifts that cut across markets: the repricing of interest-rate risk in resort property, the convergence of CBI and branded-residence incentives, the demographics of the second-home buyer cohort. His Letter from the Editor column is one of the publication's most widely read pieces.

Oliver holds a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford and a Masters in Real Estate Finance from the London School of Economics. He is a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Priya Mehrotra

Indian · Bangkok, Thailand

Priya Mehrotra covers resort and villa property markets across Asia with a breadth of geography that reflects both her extensive travel and her deep editorial relationships across the region. Bangkok-based, her reporting takes her from the hill stations of Tamil Nadu to the limestone karsts of Phang Nga Bay, the emerging private island markets of the Philippines and the branded-residence pipeline of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Indian by birth and educated at Delhi University before completing a Masters in Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, Priya has spent her career at the intersection of Asia's rapidly growing outbound wealth and the resort properties designed to absorb it. She is one of the few journalists writing in English who covers the Thai property market with both the market access and the regulatory literacy the sector demands.

Before joining Holiday Home Times, Priya contributed to property and investment publications in India, Singapore and Thailand, and worked for three years as a market researcher for a Singapore-based real estate fund focused on Southeast Asian hospitality assets.

Rohan Khanna

Indian · Mumbai, India

Rohan Khanna is Holiday Home Times's specialist on the Indian second-home market, a sector that has undergone a fundamental shift since 2020 as domestic high-net-worth buyers redirected capital from equities into tangible assets close to India's major cities. Mumbai-based, he covers Goa, Alibaug, Kasauli, Coorg, Lonavala and the other hill-station and coastal markets that form the backbone of domestic Indian holiday property.

His reporting focuses on the developer landscape — the branded projects from Tata, Raymond Realty and the hospitality groups entering the managed-villa segment — as well as on the planning, legal and financing frameworks that determine whether a project delivers on its promises to buyers. He is one of the few journalists covering this space who consistently obtains access to the actual unit economics behind the rental-yield claims developers make.

Rohan holds a degree in Commerce from Sydenham College Mumbai and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. He previously worked in investment banking coverage of the Indian real estate sector before moving into journalism a decade ago.

Sarah Brennan

American · Aspen, Colorado, USA

Sarah Brennan covers luxury resort and second-home markets across the United States, with a particular focus on ski destinations in Colorado and Utah and the coastal leisure communities of Florida and South Carolina. Aspen-based, she has an instinctive understanding of the aspirations and trade-offs that drive buyers toward the kind of masterplanned resort communities that the American market produces at scale and quality unmatched elsewhere in the world.

American by birth and upbringing, Sarah studied Journalism and Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder before beginning her career at a Denver business publication covering Colorado real estate. She moved into national property journalism in her early thirties and has spent the past eight years writing about resort communities, ski real estate and the infrastructure — trails, lift systems, dining, schools — that determines long-term value in leisure markets.

She is a licensed real estate broker in Colorado, though she does not transact on her own account, and holds a position on the advisory board of a Aspen-based mountain community foundation.

Sarah Chen

Taiwanese-American · Singapore

Sarah Chen is the publication's specialist in tax residency programmes, citizenship by investment and the legal and financial structures that sit beneath cross-border second-home ownership. Singapore-based, she covers the full range of programmes — from Portugal's IFICI regime and Spain's non-resident tax rules to the Caribbean CBI programmes and the UAE's Golden Visa — with the rigour of someone who has spent years reading the underlying legislation rather than developer marketing materials.

Taiwanese-American and educated at UC Berkeley in Economics before completing a Masters in International Tax Law at Leiden University in the Netherlands, Sarah began her career at a Big Four firm advising high-net-worth individuals on international tax structuring. She moved into journalism in her mid-thirties, finding that the explainer format allowed her to reach a far wider audience than advisory work ever could.

Her writing combines the precision of a practitioner with the accessibility of a skilled journalist, and her analyses of programme changes — particularly in the Caribbean CBI space — are widely shared among immigration lawyers and wealth advisers as well as by the readers of this publication. She writes in English and Mandarin.