Buy One Get One Free On The Spanish Costa
Nov. 28, 2008
Baltimore, Maryland
PLUS:
- Global Property Markets Are Tumbling So Fast, It's Hard To Keep
Up...
- When It Comes To Vulture Property Investing Right Now, Spain Should
Be At The Top Of The List...
- The Key Is The Rental Potential...Otherwise, You're Just Buying An
HOA Fee...
- To Penetrate The "Gringo" Market, You've Got To Invest Some Shoe
Leather...
AND:
- New Golf Course In The Bay Islands...
---------------
Two More Days Only!
Thanksgiving Holiday Invitation Saves You US$200
You can retire in style overseas and live better than you do now...for
as little as US$694 a month.
Live well--including a maid, a gardener, a
driver--all on a Social Security budget...
Enjoy free medical care or health insurance
for US$300 a month or less...
Own your own home in the sun for as little
as US$120,000... and wake up each morning to
the sound of the waves on the sand...or the
freshness of clean, mountain air...
Where to Go Overseas in 2009--Best-Values Special Report
Free.
Plus, right now--through this Thanksgiving
holiday weekend only--I'll also give you a
voucher worth US$200 off any of the live
events we have planned for 2009!
---------------
Dear Overseas Opportunity Letter
Reader,
As I've reported to you, our global real
estate investment editors have been issued
marching orders: Identify and detail the
world's top crisis investing opportunities
right now.
That's no small challenge, for the number of
markets that qualify continues to expand.
Property markets worldwide are soft, down,
tumbling...even falling off a cliff in some
cases.
One editor in Europe advises:
"Spain should be high on
our list. I have at least three sourcing
agents that offer deeply discounted
properties there (50%+). Foreign developer
stock in Portugal (especially end-of-project
stock) is sometimes prone to discounts, but
nothing like the Spanish phenomenon. It's
like buy-one, get-one-free along this
country's coast."
Our new friends at
NuWire concur:
"Spain's property market continues to
tumble,"
NuWire's editors report, "as a surplus
of homes and condos depresses prices. The
decline may continue for years, and property
prices in this country could fall as much as
50% over the coming three years, as more
developers suffer severe financial problems.
"As in many places around the world,
property sales and lending have collapsed in
Spain, but here the situation is compounded
by chronic over-building.
"The most pessimistic outlook comes from
Javier Ortiz, financial director of real
estate group Grupo Inmo. 'If developers
don't sell their flats 25% or 30% cheaper
now, in two or three year's time, they are
going to have older, unmarketable
properties,' he claims. 'These properties
will then be more expensive due to financial
costs, and the developers will be forced to
sell for as much as 47% less in real terms,'
he continued.
"Two more lending developers are in crisis.
Restaura SL and Strength, have been forced
to seek court protection from their
creditors.
"Restaura SL specializes in buying,
refurbishing, and reselling residential
buildings in prime city locations, mainly in
Barcelona. It has bought and refurbished
some of Barcelona's landmark historic
buildings, and many of its clients are
international investors.
"The company, which has debt of 237 million
euro spread among a half-dozen banks and
savings banks, is part of the Restaura
Group, which has debt of 1.6 billion euro.
Due to a lack of financing it has been
unable to close crucial sales in recent
months.
"Restaura SL is regarded as a victim of its
own ambition, having expanded too quickly
during the boom. Restaura, which has offices
all over Spain, also opened offices in
France, Germany, and Poland.
"The real estate developer Strength, which
specializes in building holiday homes around
Catalonia, has 100 million euro in debt.
"The International Monetary Fund has
forecast recession for Spain in 2009, but
the Spanish government is calling for 1%
growth. What in fact plays out is crucial
for the property market, as, without
economic growth, there is no job creation.
Without new jobs, there are fewer buyers to
help mop up Spain's monumental housing glut
of more than a million homes, many of them
new."
Even at these prices, should you be thinking
about buying along the Spanish costa?
"The key, bottom line," our in-house global
property investing guru Lief Simon,
cautions, "is to buy for rental. The current
situation in Spain is a chance to put a nice
rental cash flow in place...as long as you
make sure you're buying in an area that will
see enough traffic to get you the occupancy
you need. Otherwise, you're just buying an
HOA fee."
Kathleen Peddicord
---------------
Discover Italy
Own In The Most Overlooked And Undervalued
Region In Italy
House
Around Italy
---------------
MAILBAG:
"Would you have a Third World
golfing index in the archives? I
don't golf, but I can't get anyone to travel
with me unless I lure them with a golf
junket!"
-- Greg B., United States
We hear you, dear reader. No, we haven't
published anything like this, but it's a
great idea and our golf-savvy editors are on
it.
Meantime, a new course is going in on
Roatan, in the Bay Islands of
Honduras, right now. Our correspondent
reports that the developer has full funding
and is ahead of schedule for construction:
www.pristinebayresort.com.
***
"El
Valle? I did a search at a
Panama real estate web site. They had no
farms, no lots, and only one house at
US$450,000. I'm sorry, but if that is a
typical price, my retirement account isn't
going to cover me."
-- Daniel G., United States
Please don't make any judgment about any
place based on one Internet search and a
single property listing!
First, right, El Valle is not the world's
most affordable retirement haven (that'd be
Ecuador). El Valle, Panama, is
simply the best place in the world to think
about spending your retirement days. It's
affordable, but it's not super cheap.
Remember, there's more to this retiring
overseas thing than
cost of living. El Valle is a sleepy,
friendly, safe mountain town with great
weather and friendly neighbors.
Second, again, a quick Internet search is no
way to get a read on a localized property
market. You can start your research online,
investigating as many sites as you can find
offering properties for sale in the area
that has your interest. However, and
critically, then you've got to get on a
plane and launch an on-the-ground search.
The best deals in any market never make it
to the Internet. What you find on property
websites (typically) are the leftovers and
the sucker deals...the properties that can't
be sold, at least not at those prices, to
live buyers. Do your long-distance research
on the Net, sure, but understand that the
intelligence you're gathering is probably
out-of-date and certainly biased. You can
only really understand a market (and
penetrate beneath the "gringo" level of a
market) by investing some shoe leather.
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