WHERE TO BUY ABROAD? W
hen considering whether you should buy a home overseas you should always fi rst ask yourself why you are buying it. Identifying this clearly from the word go will make decision-
making during your property-hunting easier – and prevent you avoid making a costly mistake by buying the wrong property. Few of us can afford to buy a holiday home that
is a bad investment so by asking yourself some simple questions at the outset, you can spare yourself some heartache – and thousands of pounds too. First up, don’t assume that somewhere you like
visiting will automatically be the ideal place to buy – though it could be a good starting point. For a start, if you want to rent it out regularly you need to be sure that plenty of other people will share your taste in location; whilst if you are planning on relocating there yourself, a few summer weekend minibreaks will not provide a fully rounded picture about life in that town or resort.
So what are your motivations? Differentiate between a property that is going to be
purely for your own personal enjoyment; one that is also going to need to be rented out for part of the time to pay for itself; and something that will earn you as much money as possible because it will be your pension pot, or an income stream.
Investment the main aim? The latter – a pure investment – will need to offer scope for capital appreciation combined with high rental income yields. So research how it will produce cash – don’t forget
that on top of rental income and capital appreciation there is also capital gains by adding value – by renovating, converting or extending a property. Emerging or depressed markets will generally offer
greater capital appreciation, and for this reason Spain, Florida, Greece and Turkey are currently popular, but the recent boom-then-bust has taught us to look at the long-term view, not for instant profi t. The global downturn has also shown that buying
in the long-established markets can be a far safer bet that the so-called emerging nations of Eastern Europe, North Africa or the Far East. Five years ago EU
6 AIPP CONSUMER GUIDE
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