Overseas Property Blogguide to international real estate investment |
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Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 
Posted by liambailey in International Real Estate Trends, Predictions, UK PropertyKnowing — or maybe believing is a better word — that property markets and economies around the world are on the way back up sure is a nice feeling. It may be a short-lived feeling, because according to some there are signs that the short-lived positivity will end as quickly as it begun.
Friday, December 18th, 2009 Posted by liambailey in International Real Estate Trends, Predictions, United States PropertyKnowing — or maybe believing is a better word — that property markets and economies around the world are on the way back up sure is a nice feeling. It may be a short-lived feeling, because according to some there are signs that the short-lived positivity will end as quickly as it begun.
I am not one of the people. Nor am I one of the plastic fantastic optimists that think the only way is up, and that rejoices in reports of UK mortgages doubling, and property in some areas selling for almost the same as it would have at the height of the boom.
The truth is, yes, we are making some headway against the deluge of negative financial news. In fact, a good analogy of the current recession recovery process for me, is a snow plough that has been completely submerged in snow: we have just jumped in and managed to get the engine started, the heat is slowly melting the snow, but we still have a hell of a lot of pushing to do before we clear the drifts.
As you would expect, all the countries of the world are recovering in different ways and at a different pace, depending on the makeup of their economy and the funding and direction of its government’s economic stimulation policies. Nobody knows how strong the recoveries are without the massive injection of cash and stimulation being poured into the world’s markets.
In this series of articles we will profile the G8 nations to track the progress of recovery in their housing markets so far, and attempt to map any possible deep-drifts in the road of stimulus withdrawal ahead.
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 Posted by liambailey in Buy to Let, Guides and Tips, Property Investment StrategiesRegular readers to the site will know that this is the next installment in a series of articles giving how to tips on buy to let property investment abroad, the first covered the potential pitfalls of buy to let investment abroad, and the second covered the potential pitfalls of buying off plan property overseas.
Having been dropping like a stone thanks to the global economic crisis, Dubai property prices have finally risen again, according to real estate consultancy Colliers International – by 7% in the third quarter. This is the first rise since the emirate’s property market crashed at the end of 2008. Investors who bought during the boom will not be dancing in the streets just yet, though, as this rise still leaves prices around 50% down on their pre-crash level.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city’s central bank, last month imposed tighter mortgage restrictions, which Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang said were to stave off a big property bubble following soaring prices this last year. He told attendees at a business lunch: “We do not want to see a huge property bubble developing in Hong Kong,” having earlier said that he wasn’t sure whether a bubble was forming or not.
South Florida property developer Joe Milton has put up $100 million of his company’s cash to set up a mortgage company to fund loans for foreign buyers, because foreign buyers are often locked out of the market if they don’t have cash. Although sixty percent of Milton’s buyers are foreign, the few loans that are being made to foreign nationals come with terms deemed unacceptable by most. However, more than half of these foreign buyers are paying everything in cash, with European and Canadian buyers most likely to reject the financing option.
A worrying trend appears to be emerging in Ireland – overseas ‘property investors’ seem to be walking away from their foreign property investments in their droves.
People who bought during the boom years are now finding the value of their properties has slumped to the point that they are having to simply hand their keys back to the bank and walk away. Some of these individuals have not even been able to enjoy a single day in their foreign homes because they were bought off-plan, meaning they paid their money on the basis of a projected building yet to be built on a certain plot of land. Now these projects are nearing completion and the final staged payments are becoming due, property owners are realising they have already paid two or three times what their investment is now worth, without even adding in this final payment.
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 Posted by Overseas Property Mall in Internet Marketing, Online Start-ups
Back in September, we blogged about TweetLister a new and innovative real estate listing service that list properties for sale and rent via the micro-blogging platform – Twitter. Quite a lot has changed at TweetLister since our last feature. So we asked Lloyd Chrein (pictured on the right), a founding Partner at TweetLister.com to update us about these new changes and share a few thoughts about TweetLister and he was kind enough to oblige.
Monday, November 23rd, 2009 Posted by Overseas Property Mall in International Real Estate Trends, Predictions, Stats, TrendsAround the world the recession is easing, or, at least according to economic indicators that is what is happening.
Much of Europe emerged from recession in the second quarter, including the big duo of France and Germany. Most of the rest followed in Q3 including Italy. US GDP grew 0.9% in the third quarter, and Italy’s an impressive 1%. Slovakia has also performed impressively; with growth of 1.6% in Q2 and 1.1% in Q3.
