Property investors looking to pick up discounted property amid America’s ongoing foreclosure phenomenon can now access online tracking data.

Foreclosure Trackers (FTI) has launched foreclosuretrackers.com featuring time sensitive data and helping to guide those ready with money to spend.

In California and Nevada, where foreclosure rates are higher than in most parts of the US, the site lists around 100,000 properties, with new information updated daily.

David Phelps, president and co-founder of the site, said:

“Many data publishing sites can take up to three weeks to post foreclosures or even post inaccurate or inflated foreclosure statistics.”

“We now provide the quickest turnaround for the posting of essential foreclosure information in the Southern California and Clark County, Nevada areas.”

Nevada currently weighs in as the US state with the highest foreclosure rate, according to RealtyTrac figures published by the Denver Business Journal.

Elsewhere, Colorado recently surged up the foreclosure charts, with filings up 23 per cent. A total of 11,630 new foreclosure filings were made in the state between January and March, up from 9,443 in the same period of 2007.

A UAE state is considering a long term residence visa scheme for property investors which exceed the current three-year permit system. The government of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) is pondering the move as it bids to boost the country’s emerging real estate market, Gulf News reports.

According to the news provider, Dr Khater Massaad, chief executive of the Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority, said the idea was being considered by officials but did not give a timeline.

Quoted by Gulf News, Dr Massaad said:

“The Government of Ras Al Khaimah, especially Shaikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, is trying to facilitate longer term residence visas to property buyers.

“We are hopeful this will happen some day, which will boost foreign investment in real estate sector.”

Currently, foreign property investors are only granted a three-year renewable permit via offshore firms and developers since there is no law guaranteeing visas to outside owners.

Earlier this week RAK development firm Rakeen unveiled the Gateway project and began selling land from the plan to property investors and developers.

Based on the Emirates Road close to the new World Trade Center in RAK, the development is a huge mixed-use venture.

A property investment consultancy is reporting a “new breed” of reluctant landlord as a result of the faltering UK market. Cluttons said more and more property investors are opting to let their properties out during the current slump and were missing out on opportunities due to inexperience.

The firm said some were “unrealistic” about rents while others were unprepared for the administrative burden attached to renting homes out. Cluttons lettings specialist Lynn Hilton said:

“Many of our new landlords are not entering the lettings market by choice and they have a great deal to learn about the business.

“A number of them are missing out on opportunities to let their property by refusing to budge at all on the asking rent, instead settling for void periods, which every professional landlord knows is seriously detrimental to yields.”

Alice Blount, owner of a five-bedroom stone cottage in Wootton, Oxfordshire, has suddenly found herself facing the prospect of becoming a landlord, two months after putting her home up for sale.

She said:

“With the market being so slow, we feel we have little choice but to put our house up for let and sale, and take whichever comes first.

“We are anxious about who our future tenants might be, whether they will default on payments, upset the neighbours or fail to maintain our garden.”

However, Cluttons reports that on average properties on the market for four months without a sale are successfully being let within two weeks.