Showing posts with label overseas property. Show all posts
Showing posts with label overseas property. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Investment Holiday Homes

During the boom years, many of us had the luxury of treating ourselves to an investment holiday home. For me, that term always seemed like a cleverly disguised contradiction, as a property you use for your holidays will rarely, if ever, provide a rental income that covers your mortgage or a sound exit strategy when you've grown tired of using it.

There may be a couple of exceptions, but my view has always been that if you want to make money, you would be better off investing in urban locations, with strong local demand, year round rental income and a clear exit strategy. Use the rental income and profits to rent an amazing holiday home every year - there's no shortage of rental websites advertising empty properties out there.

Our property market is changing incredibly fast at the moment, and we understand that the combination of the global credit crunch and our struggling domestic property markets have changed the way many of our clients approach new investments. In order for us to better tailor our future product offers to your changing needs, please feel free to tell us which factors are most important for you when considering an overseas property purchase.

You'll find a list of these factors by clicking on the link below.
Preview Future Project Launches

Best Regards

Colin Murphy
Director
Someplace Else Ireland

Monday, August 11, 2008

Investor Reactions to a Domestic Slump

Good morning and welcome to the Someplace Else Blog.

Widening Economic Gap
This week, I thought I'd briefly write about the huge and widening directions the UK & Irish economies are moving in compared to the emerging markets myself and my colleagues discuss with clients every day.

The Irish economy, as we have been constantly reminded over the last few months, is heading in a very worrying direction. Unemployment is rising fast and foreign direct investment is falling fast. Public spending is being severely curbed because government tax receipts are rapidly declining. Much of this is down to the rapid deceleration of investment in the domestic residential market, which, as the Irish Times recently pointed out, represented a completely unsustainable 13.3% of our GDP in 2006 (IMF calculates 6.5% as a sustainable rate).

The UK is also in for a rough time. According to the Bank of England, mortgage approvals for home purchases in June fell to 36,000, a mere third of what they were a year ago. The combination of a slump in the housing market, a banking trauma that refuses to end and rising inflation is starting to make life very difficult for those with high debts and low incomes.

Investor Reactions to a Downturn
Experience has taught me that there are many types of investors out there who will react to a local downturn in a variety of ways. Some will be spurred into immediate action and will hunt for opportunities that will protect and grow the assets accumulated during the boom. Others will take a more cautious route and will cancel planned investments and wait for their domestic markets to recover. Others will form a compromise strategy where they will invest a portion of their cash into areas that should perform strongly while keeping the bulk of it in a low interest (but safe) deposit account.

Whichever type you may be, myself and my colleagues are more than happy to discuss both modest (eg Berlin) and ambitious (eg Panama) investment opportunities.

Looking Ahead
Before I sign off, it is perhaps worth noting that domestic consumption in emerging markets is now rising three times faster than developed markets and investment in capital expenditure is rising an incredible 14 times faster.

As the surest residential property investments are usually those with a strong local market where banks have plenty of scope to expand their mortgage books, the people currently investing in our projects in eastern europe and central & south america have every right to be optimistic in the face of tough conditions at home.


Kind Regards

Colin Murphy
www.someplaceelse.ie