When to buy investment property and the best places to invest * Portugal * Turkey * Thailand * Cyprus * Morocco * UK * France * USA * Bulgaria * Italy * Spain * Europe * Asia

There is no simple answer to the question on when to buy investment property because it will depend almost entirely on where you plan to invest, why you are buying and what you intend to do with the property. The property market in the USA is in freefall and that is going to have a knock on effect in the UK which will filter through to France, Spain, the rest of Europe and Asia. Obviously, you want to try and buy your property at the cheapest price but if that was really the case, you should have bought ten or twenty years ago. You have to put everything into perspective.

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For example; had you purchased a property in France twenty years ago, you would most likely have picked up a property for 15% of the current market value of today. Sounds like a bargain, but it would not have increased in any real value for the first decade. Your money would have been better invested in a bank account because the low rental income would not have been much more than the maintenance costs. Twenty years ago, people were buying property in France because they loved France and because it was easily affordable, they weren't looking for a long term investment because property prices had hardly moved in real terms since the war.

BUYING INVESTMENT PROPERTY IN FRANCE

However, in the last decade or so, France has become one of the property hotspots, demand has been enormous and prices have risen dramatically because of the high demand. Huge profits on paper but because most of these properties were purchased as holiday rental homes, rents have not increased dramatically because of an over supply and property owners who were letting twenty to twenty five weeks a year, now consider themselves lucky if they fill fifteen weeks.

Those people who invested in property in France in the last two years will have paid top dollar and most likely struggled to fill their properties outside of the summer holidays unless they were advertising with France One Call. Property prices are dropping in France at the moment, so those people who bought property with a mortgage are now exposed and could find it difficult to recover their original investment should they have to sell now. In the long term of course, their properties will rise in value, so those that bought with a long term view will be alright.

France was a market where people were buying up old farms and barns and taking on expensive restoration projects. There was very little new build development going on and whilst new builds have increased, it is still a comparatively small business. As these old farms were snapped up, the supply went down and demand and prices increased. France therefore remains a good investment opportunity in the long term because supply of these old properties will never increase. Just make sure you take advice from our property finders to ensure you get the best bargains.

Competitive UK mortgages

Euro mortgages

Cheapest removals to France

Removals to Spain

UK tradesmen

Euro Currency exchange

Discount car hire

Low cost flights

Property rental

INVESTING IN PROPERTY IN SPAIN

Whilst France was sitting in the Doldrums as far as property prices were concerned, Spain went on a building spree with golf course developments springing up all along the coast. Spain was the country where most people wanted to own a villa or apartment. With ore than three hundred days of sunshine, mild winters and low cost of living, property in Spain continued to rise year on year with property investors able to buy property off plan and resell it at a profit before the property was even completed.

Investing in property in Spain was a license to print money for the short term property investor and fortunes were made by a lot of people. Some once said "If you can see a bandwagon, you just missed it," and this is true with the property market in Spain at the moment. People continued to buy and property developers continued to buy up land and develop golf course and seaside developments without any thought of what might happen in the future.

Then three years ago, with the onset of cheap properties being built in countries like Turkey, Morocco, Bulgaria and the like, the demand slowed down and has almost come to a halt. However, most developers, still believing that they had a license to print money, have continued to build at the same speed. In fact, some even increased their building programmes almost as if they believed this would solve the problem.

The result is a huge over supply of properties and many speculators, especially those entering the market for the first time with zero experience and just a greedy thirst to profit like everyone else have caught a serious cold. Many inexperienced investors, believing the hype and not understanding the property markets bought properties off plan with just a £30K deposit, believing they could sell the property on for a profit before it was finished. Lack of demand, over build and now having paid too much for the properties, these amateur investors now find they have a property that is due for completion that they must now pay for in full.

Many now cannot raise the mortgage because of the property market problems in the UK or they cannot afford the whole mortgage and as a result have lost their deposit. These properties are now back on the market, compounding the over supply, developers are still building despite the fact that their companies have been down priced on the Spanish stock exchange and prices are still too high to kick start the market again.

Despite all this, if you have good advice from our property finders, I believe that Spain still provides excellent investment opportunities. It still has one of the best climates in Europe, golf is and will remain an incredibly popular sporting holiday, Spain is very accessible from the UK and there are going to be a lot of desperate investors and developers keen to off load properties at a discount. Just make sure you get sound advice and are in safe hands.

It doesn't matter if you are investing in the UK or abroad, the same basic rules apply. There has to be a demand either now or in the future and demand is driven by need, greed, rental demand and the ability to buy. If property prices become too high, the ability to purchase and or rent at affordable prices is curtailed and it is at that point that property prices fall. So where are the best places to invest in property and where will the next property hotspots be.

Where to buy investment property