APART from Moonraker and an ineradicable sheen of Seventies kitsch, what do Roger Moore and Shirley Bassey have in common? Throw in the racing drivers Jenson Button and David Coulthard and the retail tycoon Philip Green, and it can only be that they all live in Monaco, that rash of high-rise apartment blocks jammed into two square kilometres of the Côte d’Azur.

If you’ve always dreamt of rubbing shoulders with Europe’s wealthy elite, or perhaps you have a thing for the 10,000 true-blood Monegasques, you’d better be rich yourself. Prices for a tiny studio with no terrace overlooked by other apartment blocks thrusting their penthouses skywards to block out the sun, start at about €200,000 (£135,000) and are highly prized. So much so that they can’t build new ones fast enough. The principality is awash with sites where they are constructing more concrete apartment blocks “designed” by architects who seem to have used a ruler and no imagination.

At first glance it seems a strange place for rich people to want to live. The traffic’s terrible, it’s got one of the world’s highest population densities, and apart from a very good football team there are not a lot of amenities, but that’s not why the majority buy property here. Most people who buy in Monaco don’t want to live there. You buy a flat and rent it out to other people who don’t want to live there either. All that counts is the precious title of resident and the lack of income tax that entails.

Of course, it’s not easy getting to be a Monegasque. As well as having to buy or rent an extremely expensive apartment (there are few houses), you must either “sufficient visible means of support”, whatever that means, or at least €1 million in the bank and be able to convince the authorities that you’re a citizen of “good standing”. If you’re lucky enough to meet all of those criteria, the fun doesn’t end there.

“They checked up on me very closely,” said one former resident who refused to be named. “They noted down the readings on the water meter and the electricity meter and calculated that I hadn’t been living there for the full six months and a day. Once they were convinced that I wasn’t fulfilling the conditions, they cancelled my residency.” Without that zero income tax, there’s precious little point living in Monaco, unless you yearn for fleeting glimpses of Roger and Shirley.

However, if you are prepared to tough it out in Monaco for the whole non-consecutive half year and a day, you’re probably going to want something a little bigger than the €200,000 shoe-box. Being surrounded by the South of France means it gets pretty hot in the summer, and with no parks to speak of and only a tiny beach, most decent apartments come with a terrace that’s almost the size of the interior. Just €4 million will get you a three-bedroom penthouse apartment with terrace, three bathrooms and a guest lavatory. For that kind of money elsewhere in Monaco, you can also get an outdoor kitchen for all the cooking you won’t be doing.

There doesn’t seem to be any upper limit on the prices; €5.5 million was the most expensive apartment I was offered, but you can pay a lot more than that, if you can get there quick enough, since the market is jamming up. In the past three years the number of properties coming on to the market has fallen by 30 per cent, and with more than 100 estate agencies (the world’s highest density of estate agents) the competition is beginning to hot up.

The scramble for apartments has also intensified with the changing profile of immigrants. It’s not just the idle rich or the retired who are toughing out their six months; an increasing number of entrepreneurs from the UK are also setting up shop in the principality. Although clearly that’s not “shop” in its literal sense. With their enlightened view of who should spend your money, the Monegasque authorities were apparently instructed by His Serene Highness, Prince Rainier, to diversify from “luxury tourism” and recently began to encourage businessmen to take advantage of their policy of not taxing company profits or dividends. With 39,000 jobs in Monaco and only 30,000 residents, this policy seems to be working. Curiously, I never found out where the 12 farmers on the official employment register actually live and work.

So if you want to buy an apartment not to live in, Monaco is just the place. Should you manage to get in, could you let me know why there is a Rwandan consulate in Monaco? What do they do? Did I miss something about one of the world’s poorest countries? Or was it something about Monaco I missed?

Three-bedroom penthouse apartment with terrace. €4 million, contact Roc Agency, 00 377 9770 7909; four-bedroom penthouse duplex with garden-terrace, heated pool and spa bath. €5,500,000, contact John Taylor & Son, 00 377 935

HAVEN SENT

A five-bed villa is in the belle époque style, with shuttered window arches and marble floors. At 450 sq m there is room for a live-in maid, should life be too busy to deal with domestic chores. It has three reception rooms, a modern kitchen, sea views and a space to park the Ferrari.
€4.3 million (£2.9 million) from Park Agence International, 00 377 9797 3737, www.parkagence-monaco.com

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