INTERNATIONAL
of the ski capacity in Norway and Sweden, directs well over half its total rentals to the domestic market. While Thomas Cook also runs ski holidays in Sweden, Smith believes Skistar, with its large domestic market, is a better partner for managing UK investors’ properties. Roy believes that Sweden is a
sweden
to-let investors find that rents are not high, social housing sets the rent levels, so yields are depressed, and the rental market is tightly regulated. The supply of property in the cities is tight, new housing completions were lower in the last decade than in the early 1990s, and that’s forced property prices up while yields fell. On the other hand rural
properties are often available for relatively low prices, particularly in the south and west of the country. Second home ownership is widespread; many Swedes decamp to their rural cabins in the summer, though the facilities can be rather basic. Some cabins cost as little as £20,000, though more desirable locations prices are higher, on the island of Gotland, for example, properties start at £75,000. One UK agent offers Swedish ski
properties. Roy Smith of Grosvenor Overseas says, “We were looking for a short haul destination that didn’t have a lot of political risk.” While Egypt and Morocco were hot markets with huge amounts of development available, he didn’t like the fault lines already apparent there, and his avoidance of Egypt now looks remarkably prescient. Instead, he says, “We went to Sweden with an open mind” and found a ski resort development in Klövsjö that ticked all the right boxes. “The home market is important
to keep in mind when you’re buying overseas,” he says, and that’s something Sweden does offer. Skistar, which operates 80 per cent
54 JUNE 2011 PROPERTYdrum
Rural properties are often available for relatively low prices, particularly in the south and west of the country.
great place to invest in, “Sweden is very clean, very wholesome,” he says. “Swedes may pay more tax than anybody else I know, but they get a lot for it, the schools and the roads and so on are all well looked after.” He also points out the attractions of the resort; it’s a family orientated resort, but it has black ski runs to challenge the expert skier, and ski passes are cheap, at less than £100 covering another three adjacent resorts and a shuttle bus around them. Klövsjö also offers fine summer
2/3 bedroom log cabin for sale for
€219,000 in the Finnish winter resort of Yllas. It comes with two bathrooms and a sauna.
hiking, though it’s much less frequented by Swedes in the summer, so a UK investor could take a summer holiday there without diluting the rental return on the key skiing season, which runs for six months from late November till Easter. Roy Smith says investors could get an 8-12 per cent return, twice that of a UK buy-to-let, one of the two-bed/two-bath properties that start around £150,000. As for finance, that’s not a
problem, SEB, the main Swedish bank, has a foreign department
which can arrange mortgages at 70-85 per cent loan to value. The big downside? He says
alcohol is too expensive, “Whenever we go, we put a bottle of gin in one case and a bottle of whisky in the other.”
Finland First for Posh Property
Finland, perhaps the least well known country, is paradoxically the best represented property market in the UK, though again it’s not buy-to- let but tourism orientated properties that are the focus of attention. Even though rents are unregulated, and leases easier to terminate than in other Scandinavian countries, yields of only four per cent in Helsinki don’t make buy-to-let a particularly attractive proposition. Posh Property currently has
properties at the Paljakka ski resort on its books. Charlotte Jackson, sales director at Posh Property, says, “These are purely investment properties, we’re not really selling to keen skiers. It’s a joint venture with the Finnish government, because there’s not enough accommodation in these areas for skiers.” Properties in Paljakka begin at €129,000 for a one-bed apartment in a timber-built mini-lodge, built on
finland log cabin £100,000
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