well i must say it al makes sad reading... first Spain...then Bulgaria . ..now Dubai..all caputtt!
but a lesson all the same for all of us..maybe its time for us to get real,if we have a few bob bring it to the post office,credit union or similar and just be happy with the return..avoid the bubbles..sheiks and burning sand!
Pat
That's not necessarily the lesson; property was and always will be a good investment, subject to the right advice and some unblinkered thinking. Following the herd to the "next big thing" is not the way to go.
Over the last few years many people have made a lot of money from their property investments, but a greater number would seem to have lost a lot too.
It's a bit of a cliche to say that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is just that, but that sums up a lot of the problem. Promises of riches in Bulgaria, with rents promised where patently no rental market exists, should have made buyers wary. It's far too easy for a seller to add two years rent to the price and pretend that he can give two years rental guarantee, but if buyers had checked the actual prices on the ground they would have raised the right series of questions. They didn't, for the most part.
Likewise in Dubai, a tourist destination based on high-end luxury hotels, where on earth did buyers think that they would find tenants for twenty times as many apartments as are on the market right now, when it's not too easy to fill the ones that exist already? There are none so blind as those who can not see.
All this didn't just happen in foreign places of course; there are lots of very sick buyers looking woefully at "bargains" that they bought for "investment" in small towns and villages all over Ireland, all lying idle and costing money in repayments and maintenance.
Paradoxically, the people who will make money from property are the ones that are buying now, quietly behind the scenes, sticking to good areas and locations and buying at rock bottom prices. For instance, people are getting out of places like Budapest for no other reason than that there is a general panic out there, and canny buyers (mostly Israeli) are hoovering up bargains. The same is happening in London, with Irish buyers running for the door when there is no need; the local investors are quietly snapping up occasional properties at very good value. I know someone who bought a property in London a few weeks ago that is giving him an eight percent return from a gilt-edged tenant, just because an Irish buyer panicked. With interest rates falling, good property more than pays for itself and can even give an additional return from day one.
So, if you're in Dubai or Bulgaria, there may be good cause to panic, but that's not the case if you're in a good area in a good city where people need to work and live.
Swim against the tide, don't follow the herd!