This is a simple question, but has many answers :-)

I'll try and break it down into 5 key reasons:

Slovenia has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Lakes and mountains, rivers and canyons, valleys and vineyards, forests and flowers, cliffs and beaches. There are not many places in the world where you can ski in the morning and have coffee by the Adriatic in the afternoon. The nature here is unspoilt, with 70% of the country covered in protected forests. 

Slovenia is the sunny side of the alps. We have gorgeously warm summers, yet the proximity to the alps brings naturally cool mornings even in heat waves. We have proper winters with beautiful snowy peaks and frozen lakes. Where we live in the centre of Slovenia - there is very little wind. We didn't realise how much of a difference this makes to quality of life. 

We are in the centre of Europe. Austria, Italy and Croatia are all less than an hour away. A weekend trip to Vienna or Prague, a day trip to Venice, a night out in Zagreb are all possible. Slovenia itself is small yet delightfully diverse. We live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world - Ljubljana. From here we can get to the coast or the mountains in less than an hour. 

Slovenes are hard working, no nonsense people who enjoy a good time. The "work hard, play hard" philosophy is manifested in abundance. People often start work at 6 or 7 in the morning, and then go hiking or cycling or skiing in the afternoon. There are issues with the politics (like most places), but the people are generally welcoming and often speak amazing english. We've met so many lovely Slovenes, and we feel there is much less of a "class" problem here compared to quite a few other European countries 9especially the UK).

The quality of food and drink in Slovenia is amazing. There are so many good restaurants, and compared to other places they don't cot an arm and a leg. There are cafes on every corner - all serving good coffee. You can order a Kava z mlekom everywhere - its like a flat white, but has been around way before that became a thing. In many other European countries buying a coffee is a bit of a gamble - it may be good, or it may be terrible, not so in Slovenia. Its not just coffee, but Slovenia has stunningly good wine, a crazy amount of craft beers and award winning gin. The capital Ljubljana is buzzing and a great place to be in Summer and Winter alike - with its river-side cafes, castle on the hill, art galleries, open air concerts and huge pedestrian zone. 

We are proud to call Slovenia our home. If you've never visited, then plan a trip - you won't be disappointed. 

NB - all the images in this post are photos we've taken ourselves

We've had our first meeting with our architect - Matej Gasperič on our plot.

We found Matej via Ekoart - a wooden house builder here in Slovenia. We love the idea of building with wood and luckily for us there are many wooden house builders in Slovenia. However most wooden construction methods use CLT - cross laminated timber. These are essentially glued wooden panels and beams that are very strong and are very versatile construction material. Ekoart are a bit different , they have a patented IQWood product that "consists of cross-stacked wooden boards, firmly and permanently joined with solid wooden dowels".  

We loved the idea of a house built only with natural materials - and although we haven't fully decided to complete the project with Ekoart - we are very tempted. While the construction materials for a house don't need to dictate the house design, we found that many of the Ekoart projects matched our desired style. The nice thing with Ekoart houses is that the construction material can be exposed internally - there is no need for additional cladding. They look beautiful.

When looking at Ekoart references, we found that many of the houses had been designed by Matej. We found his portfolio and fell in love with many of his previous houses. 

We put together a fairly detailed proposal and arranged a meeting on site. It was a great first meeting - we were outside due to the pandemic restrictions but we were able to talk about our brief and what we are looking for in a house.

Although our plot has significant disadvantages (an apartment building to the south, unfinished roads, etc.) we loved that Matej was able to see the potential in the plot. We have direct access to a brook (stream) and he was excited at the prospect of designing a house that connected with this beautiful piece of nature. 

We left the meeting encouraged and looking forward to receive a proposal from Matej.

Finding land in Slovenia is relatively easy. Finding land at a good price with good access is a bit harder.

The main place to search is nepremicnine.net and the english version: realestate-slovenia.info 

The search engine is pretty good, although they don't have a way of viewing the results on a map which would save quite a bit of time!

For example this is a search for buildable land plots (i.e, not agricultural) that are in the LJ surroundings and are between 1000 and 2000 sq m in size:

As you can see, there are currently 208 results. Its fairly easy to browse through, see roughly where the land is and a description. Quite a few adverts have minimal information on the english language version of the site though, so if you are interested in a piece of land its worth looking it up on the Slovene version of the site (and using Google Translate :-)). The best way to find the land on the Slovene version is to search by the "ad reference number".

Once you find land that you are interested in, you can contact the seller (or their agent). We advise to ask for the following:

The parcel number - with this you can search for the land on one of the GIS portals. For example in Ljubljana you can use gis.iobcina.si . You can register for free and get loads of information about a particular plot, for example the exact size, how it is zoned, flood risk, utility connections, etc. 

The "Lokacijska informacija" (location information) - the seller should have this - it gives the detailed conditions on what can be built on the plot. There may be restrictions on what shape the house can be, its height, what percentage of the plot it can take up, etc. Any architect or pre-fab house company will need this information to advise you on the plot.

With the above information there are a few things that it is good to consider:

Is there access from a public road. Quite a few plots don't have direct access from a public road - this isn't a deal breaker, but could add a lot of time and cost to your build. In some circumstances it may mean you need permission from a host of land owners to build a road. 

Some plots have an existing building permit. If you are happy to roughly follow the design included in the permit this can be a shortcut. Not many plots have this though, and its likely that the reason you want to build your own house is so that it can be fully customised to your tastes, so this may not even be that useful.

This varies a lot. There are some plots that don't are awaiting detailed spacial planning. These plots can't be built on until this is completed by the municipality - so there is a lot of risk in buying them as an individual. Some plots have very prescriptive spacial planning and building restrictions - this isn't necessarily bad, but you definitely need to be aware. 

There is an amount of money that needs to be paid to the municipality for each plot of building land to cover things like road access, etc. This only needs to be paid once per house per plot of land - so if you are buying land with an old house that you will demolish then you may not need to pay this. If you are knocking down one house and building two houses, then you will need to pay the difference. The amount varies a lot, in some areas where lots of houses are being built and a lot of new infrastructure is needed the cost could be €80.000+, whereas existing built-up areas may only require a €10.000 contribution. The seller of the land should have an idea on how much this will be.

The plot may have beautiful views, but if it is all at a 30 degree angle then your foundation costs are going to be enormous. From our research, the reduction in price for sloped land was never enough to offset the increased cost of building on that land. 

There is huge variation in land costs from €30 to €500 a square metre. Our experience is that if the land is cheap, there is a reason. It could be that there is no access, or it is steep, or it is far away from any main roads, or its not possible to build yet, etc.

If you are looking in the Ljubljana area and you want good access then you need to be ready to pay €250+ per sq metre of buildable land. Premium land will be up to €500 a sq metre, and if you are ready to be 10min+ from the highway your prices can go down to €60 a sq metre. You need a minimum of 400 sq m, but ideally something closer to 1000 sq m if you want a decent house with parking and privacy. This means that in the LJ area you are looking at spending between €100.000 and €400.000 just on land.  A smaller plot off the beaten track however could only cost you €30.000. 

I hope this information was useful. We'll post more detailed information on how the actual purchase process works in another post.

1st Architect Meeting