International property investment advice from our expert Alan Forsyth
Latest Property Investment Advice
Brought to you weekly by our international property expert, Alan Forsyth.
If you are buying a property abroad, or at home, for investment or for pleasure, you'll want to know what's going on in the international property market.
This is where we can help!
Each week Alan Forsyth of www.property-investment-tips.com and www.property-investment-deals.com, our international property expert, will give us a summary of the hottest topics relating to property markets worldwide.
If keeping up with all that's new in international real estate is overwhelming you then our weekly summary is just what you need!
If you want to keep informed of what's going on in the world of property then you need to read Alan's weekly column here, exclusively for Eye on Worldwide.
Alan's Posts:
28 November 2007
Returns from Property
Myself and James Syson, our portfolio manager have sat down with around 100 investors over the last 6 weeks, and a common theme throughout has been investors not being sure what returns on their investment they are achieving – and therefore their ideas on what properties are performing best are often not accurate.
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05 November 2007
Investment Property in Wroclaw in Poland
There is a shortfall of 42,000 houses in Wroclaw – and Knight Frank’s have calculated it will take 16 years to meet this current demand at the current building rate of just 2600 units per year - and this demand is increasing every day due to the maturation of the baby boom generation in the 70-80’s who are all reaching the age to leave home!
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15 October 2007
Buy to Let – excellent way to grow your own Business
When I sit down with investors and they ask me what area of property investing they should go into, I almost always will say go for buy to let and will relate it to business.
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14 June 2007
Huge Demand for Property in Sofia
I have just had 3 days in Sofia, checking on the market. I have been targetting the housing market there – as there is a huge under supply – indeed there are no large scale developers building houses.
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29 May 2007
Knight Frank Latest Ratings
Knight Frank again reported that the Baltic states and Bulgaria had the highest price growth in the world over the last quarter – firstquarter of 2007 - and I see no reason for this not to continue over the rest of the year.
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21 May 2007
Secondary Cities in Emerging Markets
I am a big fan of some of the emerging countries in Eastern and Central Europe, but would suggest you often look to the secondary cities. It is too easy just to focus on the capitals but there is often more value in the 2nd and 3rd largest cities in these countries and less hype.
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27 March 2007
The US and UK Property Markets
The big story with the US housing market has been around the sub prime mortgage market, or more accurately the collapse of this market over the last months.
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20 March 2007
Czech Republic and Morocco Looking Good
Czech Republic is looking an excellent investment right now – with prices rising in Prague as demand still outweighs supply and the mortgage market opens up even further. Locals and investors alike are attracted to the excellent value, and with VAT being added next year on new builds we feel this is an excellent time to invest in Prague, the 6th most popular city in Europe with a booming local economy.
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19 March 2007
Discounts, Market Value, Surveyors' Valuations
I hear so many differing views on this, and so many people getting too hung up with certain aspects of this so thought would write my thoughts on. I was checking over some properties last week, and the first thing the agent I met said was, “How much discount would you be looking for?”
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14 February 2007
Houses vs Apartments
I have had a busy couple of weeks and am in Nottingham this week catching up. This week we highlight a recent article in the Financial Times, and have an update on our Belfast events and Consultation days. Houses V Apartments – what’s best?
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29 January 2007
Opportunities in Czech Republic and India
I was over in Prague at the end of last week, and had some excellent meetings. The Czech property market is one I have been keeping an eye on for a while – and there are key reasons why now is an excellent time to invest.
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17 January 2007
Understanding Opportunity Cost
In this week’s newsletter, we have an article on “Understanding Opportunity Cost”, a free currency report for you for all those looking to invest overseas, and some positive news on Bansko, in Bulgaria.
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10 January 2007
Set Your Property Investment Goals
This is a time of year people set goals and resolutions – and it is a well known fact that those who write their goals down are far more likely to achieve them. I write and review mine on a regular basis.
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29 November 2006
Leasing Systems
Colliers this week released an interesting report looking at various countries around the world – and how their leasing systems work with commercial property. Some significant differences between the countries, so if you are looking to take on commercial leases, or purchase overseas make sure you understand how it operates – as most likely you will see differences to your local market.
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22 November 2006
Not Convinced by Germany
I am just back from a trip to Berlin – which was excellent. However I am still not convinced it offers any great opportunities at this time for individual investors. The reasons? The locals are not a nation of homebuyers – with only 13% owning in Berlin. Rents are generally low. German law is highly protective of tenants – it is very hard to evict tenants or raise rents!
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15 November 2006
Let's Begin
Ok, as stated last week I am delighted to have been asked to write a regular column on EyeonWorldwide – hopefully over time you will be too! I have a keen interest in the UK market as well as emerging markets in Europe and further afield, and will try to keep you posted on latest news in property markets across the world. Cyprus. First up, Cyprus has been something of a property success story among British buyers...
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Alan's tips start on 15 November 2006. In the mean time here's a message from Alan:
"Hi there, my name’s Alan Forsyth, and I am delighted to have been asked to write on a regular basis for Eye on Worldwide.
I am a full time property investor, based in the UK, having bought my first property at the age of 18 – a 4 bedroom house in a popular student area in Edinburgh where I stayed with 3 other students, and have never looked back.
I write for various property websites and magazines on a regular basis – as well as running sites at www.property-investment-tips.com and www.property-investment-deals.com
I have a keen interest in the UK market – and concentrate my own buying efforts in Scotland and the NE of England.
Overseas I have a lot of interest in the emerging markets, in particular the new EU countries in Eastern Europe and other emerging markets around the world – I am usually checking out a country every month, and have contacts in most key markets.
I will give my viewpoints first and foremost as an investor – and will look at buying trends, buying costs, taxes and key economic factors when looking at each country and will aim to keep you up to date with info from the property markets around the world.
Hopefully you will find this useful – any questions, do not hesitate to contact me at alan@property-investment-tips.com, and I look forward to starting in earnest next week!"
About Alan Forsyth:
My name is Alan Forsyth, and I am a full time property investor from the UK. I also run the website www.property-investment-tips.com which gives free, independent investing tips to investors. This site, www.property-investment-deals.com is designed to run alongside my original website, and will give in more detail my recommended property deals, and full details/pictures of any new deal on offer.
When I started out, it was difficult to know who to trust or believe when it came to property deals, or what was the right time and place to buy – that is why I put my original website together - I also had plenty of time on my hands after quitting the day job at 28! As I was asked more and more about good deals, and to help source deals, it was natural to put this site together.
Both in the UK and overseas it will be very rare I offer or recommend a deal/property where prices are over £100,000.
Why? Because I am always looking for property that will give a good rental return and therefore a positive cashflow.
I also look for deals that do not require huge sums of money to get into - you will see that many deals we recommend require under £15,000 of your own money.
We concentrate on the areas I invest in personally - in the UK, areas where property is under £80,000 and gives a positive cashflow, overseas in emerging markets with strong local ownership and therefore clear economic reasons for continued capital growth. We also have a proven track record with syndicated investments where investors pool their funds together for hassle free profits.
These deals are very popular - without any advertising, my company now source more high yielding Buy to Lets in hotspots in the UK than any other company - over 50 a month and rising. Most of our investors are repeat investors or have been recommended by other investors, which gives great satisfaction.
We look for key criteria when sourcing a BTL property in the UK:
1. First and foremost it must be in a good rental location
2. The property must represent good value to the investor
3. There must be a net yield every month ie properties with a gross yield of over 7.5%, and often higher.
Now clearly this is not easy to do, which is why we have to work so hard to find them, and they go so quickly!
We source properties both on the open market, and off market through our many sources. Now I make no apologies for saying I will not be offering any "15-20% discounts", "potential to earn £1000 a month rent" etc etc - I will only offer true value, good yielding property deals.
Overseas, we look for developing economies - keeping a close eye on buying costs/taxes and borrowing costs - as well as rental yields and potential capital growth. Again these deals sell very quickly - with recent deals in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria. We have no ties in to one particular developer or country, and will only offer deals where we are confident the figures will stack up.
We put together property syndicates for investors - with a recent syndicate put together to develop an apartment block in Estonia which I have personally invested in, with some very attractive returns.
On the following pages, I will update my latest recommended deals, and give my reasons why I like the deal/the company/developer offering the deal. By no means is this list exhaustive and I am sure there are plenty of other good sources, although I also know some not so good - email me with any good experiences/sources you have used for any property investment. I will also have examples of recent deals that may be sold out.
To be kept up to date of deals as they are offered, I would recommend signing up for my deals newsletter, this is completely free - you can do this simply be entering your email address in the box above. This will be sent out, as and when a recommended deal comes along.
You will also receive a free copy of our highly acclaimed 7 part course, “7 Fatal Mistakes to Avoid as a Property Investor” when you sign up.
This may be once a week, or twice a day depending on how many good deals I come across - don't worry, I will not be sending out discounted deals on Manchester/Birmingham city centres - you probably get enough of them already!!
Now this will not just be deals offered by me, or one specific company - it will be from companies I know and respect, and will hopefully provide deals of interest to all property investors - whether it is buy to lets in the UK, off plans Overseas, guaranteed rental schemes, or discounted property.
Disclaimer:
The information on this page is provided free of charge. All real estate property news and information is carefully researched but we disclaim responsibility for any inaccuracies or omissions. Real estate Property prices can go up and down. You are advised to take independent professional advice before investing in real estate properties overseas.