Dear Overseas Property Mall,
I am a little confused about the state of the Spanish property market. I read conflicting reports and projections about Spain all the time and the newspapers are filled with doom and gloom alongside glowing projections. Should I invest in Spain or not ?
Yours sincerely,
Confused in Coventry
Dear confused in Coventry,
Your confusion is understandable. Several small and medium sized Spanish property developers have recently run into financial difficulties, some of the smaller ones taking deposits from customers with them.
The most recent casualty, Colonial, saw it’s shares plummet 40% in 2 days, seemingly for no reason other than worries that the Spanish property boom is over. The president and largest shareholder, Luis Portillo quit after this drop.
This follows on from two other medium sized casualties. Astroc saw their shares drop 85% in July last year causing the founder, Enrique Banuelos to quit and Llanera, a developer based in Valencia, filed for credit protection a few months later.
The Financial Times has a more in-depth look at these casualties here.
We reported recently on the likely boost in 
Even for us, it is sometimes difficult to sort the informational wheat from the chaff and we are looking at conflicting reports coming from the Indian property markets at the moment.
To a certain extent, the decision to buy off plan or a second hand home depends on the market concerned. In a fast moving market, off plan will be a far more appealing and practical investment than in a stagnant market. Here is a comparison and a list of potential advantages and disadvantages. First the difference between off plan and on plan needs defining. On-plan is a property that has already been constructed, perhaps even changed hands several times already. Off-plan is a property that is literally off the plans, meaning construction may not even have started yet. Some of the most important things to take into consideration when looking at off-plan investments are: The state of the market. Is it buoyant or stagnant? The reputations of the builder and promoter. Are they reliable? Do they have strong track record of completing projects on time and to specification?
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Craigslist also have a few bargains available, and this one jumps out. Considerably cheaper than the spot in Fulham. “I am selling my parking space in Whitechapel. It is on a private gated road next to the London Hospital. It is just outside the congestion charge zone so is very convenient for the City etc. It has been valued at £25K but I am keen to sell quickly.”
Every year, the World Bank produces a report on the ease of doing business in 178 countries, ranking them from 1 to 178. The World Bank uses several criteria to determine the rankings, but factors taken into consideration include the ease of hiring employees, the ease of starting a new venture to the ease of putting a company into bankruptcy.
Buying a property in France, for the most part is no different to buying in the UK or the US, but there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration before making a commitment, especially in light of the recent and continued changes in French Property laws and social security rules.
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