photo credit: sscornelius

Well, why splash out $200,000 a piece on new homes when a) you probably can’t get a mortgage and b) if you could you might just buy one of America’s vastly discounted foreclosed homes.

New figures show US buyers are getting turned off when it comes to freshly-built property. The country’s Department of Housing and Urban Development said new residential sales in August were 34.5 per cent down on the same month last year.

Foreclosed homes = cheap property

This isn’t necessarily bad news for budding property investment professionals, as the current market in many western countries is arguably more welcoming to speculator virgins than it’s ever been. In America a wave of foreclosed homes means cheap property is available nearly everywhere, new builds are going down in price and in the UK an overall price correction continues. All this means anyone who already has the finance could potentially grab a bargain and come out unscathed, particularly as an imminent bailout of the US financial system could spark a slow recovery process.

UK downturn sparks discount sale

The UK’s downturn has seen some developers falling over each other to offer discounts to buyers – some are offering wine tasting evenings just to get punters through the shiny new doors. Other have bettered the government’s scrapping of stamp duty by offering to pay it for buyers of new homes which are too expensive to fall within the concession. It’s a discount free-for-all that those who can afford could take advantage of. New homes for sale now at $200,000 might next year be worth £190,000 or less (note the might), but in six years could be topping more than $300,000. It’s not for everyone, but those willing to take the chance might find the current cloud has an eventual silver lining.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment

photo credit: oztenphoto

Thanks to hurricanes in America and a global financial wobble, property investment professionals have plenty of physical and cash-related mess to worry about. But what one landlord in Texas found in one of his rented apartments makes a world meltdown seem like a welcome fate.

Australia’s Daily Telegraph reports the unnamed landlord had not been able to get hold of the tenant after they owed cash, despite leaving notes at the property. Once the door was finally unlocked, vast piles of rubbish were found along with a general mess so disgusting that someone grabbed a camera and pictures were taken.

The paper has posted an online gallery of the snaps for you enjoyment.

World’s most untidy flat?

Discarded pizza boxes, what looks like thousands of fag ends and the rankest toilet I’ve ever seen are depicted in the photos. Anyone who may have been looking to buy investment property for the first time may put off for good – what we are talking about is more than your average rubber gloves job. The place looks like it should be torched for the public good.

World’s most ironic ironing board?

In one shot an erected ironing board and iron can clearly be seen – showing whoever lived there at least cared about uncreased threads, even if they didn’t mind leaving a mountain of soiled toilet paper on the bathroom floor.

In my youth I was once billed for leaving weeds in the lawn having moved out of a house. I refused to pay on the grounds that every lawn has weeds, as did this particular one when I’d first moved in. I’d like to hear the excuse of this particular Texan tenant - “what’s wrong with it? It looks fine to me”, says one post on the Daily Telegraph site.

**Stu – links to gallery and story**

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/gallery/0,22056,5034711-5013416-6,00.html

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24396021-5013110,00.html

photo credit: downing.amanda

Those who have had houses for sale for a lengthy period during the current US slump will probably sympathise with Gerry and Cindy Mann, who live in Battle Creek, Michigan, and some might also raise a surprised eyebrow at their marketing methods. The couple have had severe difficulty in selling their home over the last year and decided to get more creative in an effort to finally shift the two storey property.

Any property investment professional or regular buyer can buy a dolls house copy of the home for $169,000 – and get the real property thrown in for free.

Property is shrinking

Mrs Mann’s late father Ron Caldwell worked on the model to get it to mimic the house as a treat for the couple’s three children, and the pair now hope it will finally help them to move from an area which is seeing falling house prices.

‘Creative marketing’

Mr Mann said:

“After a year I was thinking, I don’t know, I have this doll house sitting in my basement, let me see if I can do some creative marketing.”

- I’d love to know how much the couple spent on employing real estate agents to oversee the sale, but I bet it got less coverage than their own ploy – the story appeared in the local paper and was picked up by Associated Press, meaning the pair now have a global-reaching advert. Not bad for a mini house worth around $2,000.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment

photo credit: wotthe7734

There’s nothing like a momentous event to put things into perspective when the going is getting tough. Monday’s brutal and tragic killing of Lalit Kishore Choudhary, chief executive of an Italian subsidiary firm in India, did just that.

Mr Choudhary was allegedly attacked and murdered by disgruntled former workers who had previously been sacked from the company, based in Greater Noida, near New Delhi. Before all this Indian property developers had been trying to negotiate construction costs, interest rates and high mortgage rates in a bid to revive the market. Now they are paying tribute to a dead business colleague and wondering what impact the incident will have on outside investment.

‘Wider implications’ in property and economy

Despite still having some developmental catching up to do, India is largely viewed by the rest of the world as a stable and hospitable place. This incident, which reportedly involved a mob confronting Mr Choudhary and beating him to death, is saddening and clearly has wider implications for the sector and the economy as a whole – who wants to invest in a country where workers can apparently attack and kill their former boss en-masse?

Tragic, hopefully isolated too

Of course, this sort of event will do little to deter the likes of Donald Trump pumping millions of dollars into Indian property. But it could affect the small-to-medium investor who could be wary of visiting and dealing with a project for fear that unhappy builders might suddenly take up arms and head in their direction. Justice appears to have been swift, arrests have already been made. Let’s hope this tragic incident is an isolated one, for India’s sake.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment

photo credit: revjim5000

Buying an expensive new home and moving in is tricky at the best of times, even with all the planning in the world – and what about selling it? Shifting on a £3.6m mansion is not a simple task, even to those who have got the money.

So imagine the predicament faced by Anwar Rashid, a businessman who was chuffed when he and his family first took up residence in Clifton Hall, a 17-bedroom spread in Nottinghamshire, UK.

Screams in passageways

He not only faced trying to sell the home during a crunch on the mortgage lending market, but attempted to offload it following a full-scale haunting which drove him, his wife and four kids, and a collection of other relatives, out of the house. The Rashids say they fled from the grand residence after hearing screams late at night in the hall’s passageways, and the final straw came when phantom blood spots were spotted on the clothes of a baby in the family.

Desperate measures

“I never believed in stuff like this before, but I do now.” said Mr Rashid. He’s even revealed he simply stopped mortgage repayments on the home after he failed to sell it so the bank would be forced to repossess.

This brings a whole new dimension to the foreclosed homes issue in America. In fact Kate from the US has even left a telling comment on the story at the Nottingham Evening Post website. “Give you a $100.00 for it.” She says.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment

photo credit: littlefishyjes

Russian property investors are popular people at the moment. But then again, so is everyone who has piles of cash, all the time. However, an apparent keenness to splash out on property despite the global downturn has got just about everyone knocking on Moscow’s door.

Strategic Marketing and Exhibitions (SME), organisers of the ‘International Property Show’ in Dubai, are so keen they are packing their furry hats and heading north to take the fight for investment in the UAE to Russia’s door. The company is running an event in Moscow in November showcasing the best Dubai has to offer in terms of prime real estate development.

Thermals sold out at Dubai Mall

One hopes they have been down to the Dubai Mall and stocked up on thermals. Do they realise that the temperature in Moscow hovers around two degrees centigrade, tops, in November? This is compared to 22 degrees plus in Dubai at the same time. I know property investment can sometimes require cold hard nerves, but that takes the biscuit, sorry, I’ll stop the puns for now.

Important injection for Dubai investment

But the SME venture is an encouraging sign that Dubai’s boom is still far from over despite recent signs that prices may have to start dipping. A welcome injection of Russian cash is likely to keep the market stable in the short to medium term, possibly avoiding a slump of UK-like proportions. Let’s just hope Roubles don’t melt in the desert.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment

photo credit: kevindooley

Mortgage lending is now 36 per cent lower in the UK than it was in August 2007, which pretty much confirms that banks are getting tighter than Scrooge in a goldmine. “Lenders are uncertain about future sources of funding and the cost of funding” the Council of Mortgage Lenders explains.

Where has all the money gone?

This begs the question – if banks won’t lend an investor money to buy the cheaper properties now on the market, where can someone go to get their hands on some quick cash? Perhaps the UK’s major home loan lenders could set up a Dragon’s Den-style panel. For anyone who has not seen this television show, it basically involves a panel of rich investors listening to pitches from entrepreneurs who are hell-bent on making a packet from their latest scheme. In the US they call it ‘American Inventor’.

In short, half of the ideas are completely ludicrous – “I’m looking for a £200,000 stake in my bath plug holder maker company in return for three per cent equity”. The entertainment comes in watching the dragons tear the more idiotic plans to shreds.

Mortgage trial by TV

In fact, why not instead just televise every meeting a property investor or conventional buyer has with their bank manager. We can then hurl things at the TV and sneer at the ‘dragons’ when they turn the appeals down. I can imagine many a mortgage meeting would make great viewing at the moment.

“So can I have the £200,000?”

“No”

“Why, don’t you like the business plan?”

“Well, we haven’t actually got any money to lend anymore.”

“Why?”

“Since last week, everyone keeps their cash under their mattresses. Go and ask some of them.”

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment

photo credit: manoellemos

The dangers of diving into the Middle Eastern commercial property market have been brightly highlighted this week. And I don’t mean financial danger either.

UAE daily the Khaleej Times has reported strange goings on at the Dubai Mall Aquarium. According to the paper, Sand Tiger sharks have killed at least 40 smaller sharks in the tanks. The Times has also reported sources which say divers working in the aquarium, without the protection of a cage, have had equipment damaged and have received ‘minor injuries’ due to the sharks.

So much for the ’shark tank’ that is the property development market then. This is not the only weird happening in the UAE property world this week. Arabian Business reports Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan is to be involved in the development of a scheme in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK).

There might be turmoil in the world stock markets and mergers and acquisitions all over the place, but you can count on the UAE to carry on as it usually does. IE, unpredictably. Even with the rest of the world tottering gingerly on its monetary stool, the Emirates can be relied upon to go on building and go on surprising.

Even if the world was to undergo nuclear fall out, you can almost bet that a UAE developer would still be unveiling a scale model of a new apartment block, possibly shaped like a cruise missile for topical effect. Keep building Dubai, as much for our sanity as for the market.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment

photo credit: backpackphotography

You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but the British are an odd lot. They love to queue and are always apologising when it’s not their fault. Step on their toes in the street and most will say ’sorry’ and shuffle quickly away in the opposite direction.

Besides tea and being on time, they also love gardens, or so research from Yorkshire Bank claims. A study by the company has shown UK homeowners who currently do not have a garden would be willing to pay about a third of their annual income in order to add a green area on to their home. A third. If they are earning £30,000, this means they’d shell out £10,000 just for a bit of grass, some pansies and room for a gnome. Or one of those ‘little people they keep outside’, as a French friend of mine once said.

£16,363 for a garden!?

The Yorkshire Bank stat shufflers also say British people living in the South East of the country, IE London, would be willing to pay some £16,363 for an outdoor space. How they got the £3 on the end I don’t know, but you get the point.

It just goes to show that in some circumstances what looks like a bargain could be a bit of a waste. A semi detached investment property for £90,000 is apparently worthless then, if there’s nowhere decent to hang the washing and burn sausages.

Hotcake or hot cack?

It’s also a reminder that property investment hotcake in one country is a pile of crud in another. In parts of Japan a house with barely a backyard is a godsend. In France they might turn their noses up at just the same home. When in Rome, do your homework, as I’ve decided the saying now goes.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment

photo credit: David Farrell

A “filing cabinet” is how Edward Norton’s character describes his apartment block home in the US film Fight Club. This is an apt and almost polite description for the humble late 20th/early 21stcentury flat complex.

But wait! Is it a flat, or is it an apartment? Estate agents would have you believe that every form of high-rise living is an ‘apartment’ regardless of when it was built. The term ‘flat’ has been forever ripped from the agents’ dictionary. Likewise the phrase ‘bedsit’, which has been morphed into a ’studio apartment’ without so much as a builder’s hammer. Wow!

Compact living

The point is, when is a cramped dump a cramped dump, and when is it actually a decent development? In the UK the debate is bubbling nicely. Figures from the European Urban Knowledge Network show that in 2001 new homes completed in England had on average only 82.7 square metres of useful floor area per dwelling, per person. If you’re struggling to visualise, that’s tiny. This figure, when recorded, was better than only Italy, which had an equally squalid average of 81.5. The rest of Europe on the whole, is building bigger new homes than England.

UK flats ‘30 per cent smaller’

The BBC reports an exhibition in Venice has demonstrated just as much, showing a social housing flat scheme in Britain has 30 per cent smaller units compared to similar flats built in Switzerland by the same firm. If you’re not convinced, have a look at the planning applications in a regional UK newspaper, sandwiched somewhere between deaths and unwanted Rover Metros. Then go and visit the actual site and guess how many flats/houses are planned for the spot. The reality is likely to be higher than you imagine.

The lesson in all this? Space in the UK is at a premium, that’s true, but don’t invest in the evil 80s monolith or decrepit slum of tomorrow. Small isn’t always beautiful.

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate investing, property, property investment