Advice on Marrakech property

G

Gunn

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Is anybody familiar with the rental and resale market in Marrakech. I have been there a few times and love the city and it's exotic atmosphere. I wanted to know the investment merits here and see if it may be viable to purchase an apartment that will successfully rent and achieve a profit on reselling in the future.

The local agents think you can't lose! However cannot find any reliable data on price trends, future forecasts, rental values.

I am not a fan of golf developments. And would look in the trendy city center areas.

Your experiences or views would be most welcome.
 
Given the upheavals in the Middle East going on right now, including Morocco albeit at a low level, I wouldn't place a red cent on property there or anywhere in the Arab world. I've been there a few times and agree it's a lovely place, but I would hold-off investing there for a very long time until things have returned to some kind of normality.

As the the opinion if the local agent, well he would say that woudn't he?
 
All in the timing

horusd said:
I wouldn't place a red cent on property there or anywhere in the Arab world.
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There may be value in buying when nobody else is. True Morocco is not as affected by the upheavals in mid-east. Also as the global economy has seen the worst of it isn't now a better time than when the herds of buyers return over the next few years? Could be a matter of 50% saving on the purchase price.
 
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Oso said:
Also as the global economy has seen the worst of it
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I would disagree with that statement for loads of reasons, but here's four big ones:

1. The US are trying to inflate away their debt (quantitative easing) which is seriously devaluing their currency and putting them at risk of hyperinflation. How long more will China continue who hold trillions of dollars? How long more will foreign investors continue to buy risky, poor value US treasuries? (Evidence suggests a declining number of investors are willing to do the latter).

2. The UK and to a smaller extent the EU are also trying to inflate away their debt.

3. We have a stock market bubble which will burst if QE is stopped and the money supply is reduced.

4. The people in power who got us into this mess are the one's trying to get us out of it. They are Keynesian economists which IMO means the US, UK and EU are screwed.

I would be extremely concerned about the next 10 years.

That's not to say there aren't deals to be made in Morocco, but I would imagine - like every other country - they have seriously inflated property prices for foreigners.
 
Do your own research.

I think I saw an item on BBC World Service TV where they had an item about French citizens moving to the Medina to live, and locals selling up the family home and moving out to the suburbs. Go figure whether the prices are inflated for foreigners then if people are prepared to sell up their ancestral home.

Could be fabulous for a lifestyle move, but for rental I would normally look at these things from the other side: If I wanted to rent a place in the Medina, how much would I have to pay and how much is available?

Then you can get a gut feeling for what is achievable as an income stream and hence work out an appropriate purchase price using a suitable multiple of the gross rental yield (like 10 to ensure you cover all costs taxes etc. = 10% gross yield) Anything less than that and you may as well buy a REIT IMVHO.

Check out e.g. http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/medina/ or [broken link removed] or a host of others.

There seems to be lots of availability. In fact it's sometimes harder to find bookings than spaces.

I'm sure there's plenty of other data out there if you care to do a bit of creative searching.
 
There continues to be ongoing political unrest in Morocco. There is a massive wealth gap between rich & poor. The King has been heavily criticized for his extravagant lifestyle. There is simmering unrest in the south, that has only been held in check by massive repression. As unrest & instability continues to grip the region, investments in Morocco would in my opinion be very risky.

Who knows what the future will hold? Libya looks like it's settling into a civil war, Algeria has been unstable for 30 -40 yrs. You pays your money and you takes your chance. If it were me, I would not invest here, and if I did, I would want a very steep discount to account for the risk.
 
I saw these reports on aljazeera yesterday. el fna is a world heritage site in the heart of Marrekech,heavily utilised by tourists. I was there a few times. Once on Sept 11 I was approached, asked was I American, and told there would be many more attacks. I'm not into scare-mongering. The Arab world is generally a few nice and safe place to visit, and there are nut jobs everywhere, but the underlying unrest in Morocco is palpable.
 
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