Overseas Property Dream has become a Nightmare for Many

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Steve D

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From the Independent:

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/the-foreign-property-dream-now-turns-nasty-1861366.html

About 150,000 Irish investors are thought to have bought properties in Spain, while thousands more punters flocked to Portugal, Florida, Dubai, Bulgaria, Turkey and elsewhere.
As the price of many of these properties has collapsed -- some by as much as 80 per cent -- many don't have the option of selling their holiday homes to pay off the massive loans thrown at them by Irish and foreign banks. The difference between the current market value of their holiday home -- and the amount of money borrowed a few years ago to buy it -- has become so marked that many owners of overseas property are facing financial ruin
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Similar to a couple I know, they sold their beautiful home In Ireland, cleared their mortgage gave up great jobs and went to Spain only to be had by a corrupt builder who was working with a corrupt solictor (both are currently in hiding and can't be located) They didn't receive the deeds to their house (which was only halfway finished) so they don't even have the option to sell it. They moved back to Ireland very distressed, and are now claiming welfare and living in rented accomadation and finding it very hard to get work. A far cry from their circumstances before they left here three years ago.
 
Reading CAT101 story it reminded me of a report of people that had bought apartments in Portugal from Michael Lynn and didn't know if they had lost their large deposits. Does anyone know if this was ever settled. One couples story really touched me that had lost all their savings but I doubt there are alot of sad stories yet to emerge even on the home market.
 
Thats some read Steve. Bulgaria never actually managed to established a resale market so even at the top of the market they were way overpriced. This begs the question what are they worth now. Have seen people even try to seell them on ebay
 
Certainly a lot of the "Property" programmes on television indirectly encouraged people to purchase overseas. Bulgaria featured on many of these programmes. Whatever about Spain and France at least you can fly to your destination fairly easy. Although seeing Ryanair having a hissy fit about Manchester airport and closing most of their routes from there you would wonder is anywhere going to be "easy" to get to in the future.
 
I know for a fact that the degree of "homes in the Sun" programs put many people under pressure to buy from within their own families.
I think that thsi type of house advertising should be monitored and any station carrying it should be forced to carry "balancing content" programmes about problems associated with such a move.

ONQ.
 
did you ever eat so many sweets as a kid that it made you sick,no one forced you to eat em but you were foolish and greedy.
 
It is true right enough that most of this is actually the buyers' own fault -- nobody forced them to buy, they thought they were pulling one over on the foreigners.

However a lot of people would not have bought if the selling agents and the newspapers had been more truthful about the products on offer. It doesn't excuse peoples' stupidity, but it helps to explain it.

The funny thing is, there was lots of good property on sale overseas at that time, but people walked past it to buy the junk. The bigger the promises from the sellers, the more the buyers queued up with their chequebooks. Good stuff with modest claims wasn't sexy enough for Paddy!
 
Hi,

yes there are many bad stıories but Turkey , as a just developing country, has taken its lesson from Spain example and is trying to build up a well working system. The bad experiences foreign investors had in the past have helped Turkey and Turkish property dealers develop a better system now. The house prices are still cheap and as long as you buy through a good company it s quite safe. You can have a nice place for yourself in this sunny country with nice beaches.
 
ashleyturkey said:
Hi,

yes there are many bad stıories but Turkey , as a just developing country, has taken its lesson from Spain example and is trying to build up a well working system. The bad experiences foreign investors had in the past have helped Turkey and Turkish property dealers develop a better system now. The house prices are still cheap and as long as you buy through a good company it s quite safe. You can have a nice place for yourself in this sunny country with nice beaches.
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Ashley, your username gives a hint that you might not be entirely objective.

Care to deal what steps have been taken to produce this "better system".
 
That's true .I may not be . But what ı realize is that the bad stories experienced before in Turkey made both the buyers and sellers be more careful now .At least we can be sure that the houses can not be taken back from the owners later , as happened in Spain.
 
Its their own fault if people gambled and lost. In many cases such as Berlin its cheaper to invest the money elsewhere in a bank account and rent whenever you want to visit.
 
Well I know that there are people who've really been stung and they have my sympathy but there are others of us who didn't over-extend ourselves and who continue to enjoy our homes in the sun - I certainly
 
There are also those of us did all the homework & legwork, bought in decent areas for local prices, were happy with a realistic return and the income is covering the costs.
I'm much happier that I bought abroad than in Ireland. At least my properties haven't halved in value.

I do feel sorry for people who got burned. There was lots of advice on here for which I'm very grateful. Unfortunately some people didn't want to listen!
 
ashleyturkey said:
That's true .I may not be . But what ı realize is that the bad stories experienced before in Turkey made both the buyers and sellers be more careful now .At least we can be sure that the houses can not be taken back from the owners later , as happened in Spain.
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A flucuating currency and erratic interest rates.. real safe. Add to this Turkey have zero chance of getting into the EU with France and Germany pretty much knocking that on the head now. As a consequence it is not exactly heading in the secular direction it professed to be a few years ago so it's political (mis)direction is not going unnoticed.
I love to visit Turkey but the only people who will be buying there for the forseeable future are bottom feeders gobbling up distressed sales.


There are also those of us did all the homework & legwork, bought in decent areas for local prices, were happy with a realistic return and the income is covering the costs.
I'm much happier that I bought abroad than in Ireland. At least my properties haven't halved in value
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How on earth do you quantify that?? Only people who bought in the last 6 years in Ireland are in negative equity. Just because the rest of the population didn't make the news does not make them the minority. Allowing pretty much everywhere in the world is experiencing a property down turn I am guessing you bought on the moon, OR like the people above you bought a long time ago..

Its their own fault if people gambled and lost. In many cases such as Berlin its cheaper to invest the money elsewhere in a bank account and rent whenever you want to visit.
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Not sure what this means. I cant seeing anyone buying in Berlin for personal use. 99.9% of buyers there are investors so the high yields in Germany are attractive
 
Ceatharlach said:
Not sure what this means. I cant seeing anyone buying in Berlin for personal use. 99.9% of buyers there are investors so the high yields in Germany are attractive
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Germans rent their homes mostly while having a few hundred thousand in managed funds or bonds etc. They dont need to own property as a status symbol. A poor property purchase can be compared to someone who buys a fancy car on hire purchase just to show off. They have the bling but underneath theres less substance to their finances than appearances suggest. Plenty of people would buy in Berlin for personal use and enjoy that interesting city but we can give the example of Spain also. Apartments in Spain have (in my experience from talking with people who have them) given very poor rent and once a local in the Costa Del Sol rents its difficult to get them out. Renting an apartment for personal use in the Costa Del Sol for a few weeks per year at cheap rent rates and investing your cash elsewhere even in a high interest bank account would be a far better, more productive and safer use of money than paying for the thing whole year around. If youre buying for personal use anywhere then you cant really rent with much satisfaction so people buying property for the sake of it thinking theyre on the pigs back when really theyre making a poor investment without actually thinking it through rationally is the problem.
 
"How on earth do you quantify that?? Only people who bought in the last 6 years in Ireland are in negative equity. Just because the rest of the population didn't make the news does not make them the minority. Allowing pretty much everywhere in the world is experiencing a property down turn I am guessing you bought on the moon, OR like the people above you bought a long time ago"..
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The moon!! I just didn't buy at inflated "Paddy"prices. Yes, I did purchase within the last 6yrs but purely for long term investment and in areas where the rental is long term as opposed to seasonal ie. I expected a realistic return as opposed to pie in the sky rents & capital appreciation. Some countries did not have the same boom as we have so the downturns are not as savage as Ireland.

The old fundamental of investing in property was that the rental income would repay the mortgage as opposed to expecting capital appreciation of 20%pa. I went by these principles and I am not dissapointed.

As to the previous poster the difference with property investment is that you cannot get mortgages to invest in bonds or funds.
 
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