If buying a new home for yourself, you probably need an offer on your old home before the estate agents take you seriously as a prospective purchaser. The logical sequence is to concentrate on the selling before tackling the buying. If you find your dream before your sale is more or less ‘in the bag’, you’re likely to be sorely disappointed.

However, if you’re looking to invest in property overseas, it’s highly likely that the property itself will loom too large in your thinking at too early a stage, whether the vision is triggered by something you see in the property pages of the press or the word-of-mouth stimuli of friends and acquaintances. In reality, you need to do the boring homework first of all in order to keep your feet on the ground when your reach the stage of considering individual properties.

Henry Davis of International Property (www.internationalproperty.ie) stresses the need to do your homework before you go into the market. Interestingly, the cornerstone of his approach is investigating that rental incomes are sufficient to make an investment worthwhile. For example, he recommends talking to lettings agents as a way of finding out which properties are easy to let.

Latest figures show that four million US citizens own property abroad, a much higher proportion than, say, among British citizens. The differences between the US approach to real estate purchases and the systems to be found abroad are legion.

The 4 million statistic seems surprising in view of the fact that Americans abroad must file tax returns (and often pay tax) with the US Internal Revenue Service every year, whereas UK citizens are able to avoid this onerous chore unless the HM Revenue & Customs happens to turn its beady eye upon them.

Failure to send in tax returns in a timely manner could lead to an American paying income tax twice over (once in their country of domicile and again in the States) rather than just paying a penalty to the revenue. Americans abroad normally don’t pay income tax to the IRS on the first $82,500 of income but since last year they have started to pay higher tax rates on the excess AND incur high rates for housing benefits paid by their employers (read more on investorsoffshore.com). For more information about the tax situation for American expats visit www.usa-international-offshore-expatriate-tax.com .

The International Consortium of Real Estate Agents provides valuable details on the framework for residential and commercial property dealings in the USA and 24 other countries.

Where to Look

With so much that is iconic in the realms of culture and tourism, it’s difficult to find a clear-eyed assessment of the relative merits of different parts of the country. However, given the distance from Northern and Western Europe and the country’s own topography, it’s worth remembering practicalities such as the proximity of international airports.

Mainland destinations such as the Halkidiki peninsulas in the north (close to Thessaloniki) and the Peloponnese or the island of Crete have the edge in terms of accessibility. It’s also worth keeping a look out for news of new budget airline routes such as GB Airways’ plans to serve Cofu, Mykonos and Rhodes this summer. The level of exclusivity that you are looking for will also narrow the field.

Snags, Points to Remember, Legal and Otherwise

There are some extra controls on non-EU nationals acquiring property in places such as Rhodes (which is adjacent to Turkey) and the country’s northern frontier with other Balkan states. Greece has no land registry so property transactions will normally be accompanied by a topographical survey of the boundaries with neighbouring properties.

Property purchases are almost exclusively in Euros and purchasers normally expect to pay a 10% deposit when the initial sale agreement is signed; THIS IS NOT NORMALLY REFUNDABLE.

There have been some cases of planning permission being revoked with allegations of corruption being made, as in Porto Carras in Halkidiki.

Over the next few days we’re taking an orderly look at buying property in a number of countries, of which Mexico is the first. We hope that this logical approach will tick the right boxes for readers and give some ideas for comparing different countries and setting about gathering similar information for countries we haven’t covered. We’d love to hear from others with hands on experience of the process.

Where to Look

The Yucatan Peninsula and Baja California are especially popular with Americans (though there are problems with buying in coastal regions – see below). San Miguel de Allende in the state of Guanajuato (north west of Mexico City) is also popular.

Snags, Points to Remember, Legal and Otherwise

Foreigners are prohibited from owning property within 100km of the frontier and 50km of the coast but the law does allow them to hold property on lease from a Mexican bank trust in an arrangement known as a fideicomiso. This will require an initial charge and an annual commission payable to the bank of, say, $600 and $800 respectively and both of these will be subject to VAT at 15%.