Your Guide to Foreign Property Investment

Foreign property investment is a completely different ballgame when compared with investing in the local market. Many local real estate investors end up losing millions of pounds, because they think that investing in the foreign property markets is similar to investing in the local markets. If you are thinking of making a step up to the international property markets, there are many important things that you need to keep in mind. The following guide will give you a brief idea of investing in property markets of different countries.

Understand the Importance of Information

Almost every skilled investor knows that information plays a vital role in the property markets. Even a small rumour could cause a huge problem in the markets, and property values will decline or rise sharply depending upon the source. Information plays a very important role in foreign property markets. Since you are investing money in a different country, political instability and other issues can have a huge impact on property values. You should subscribe to popular investment magazines, such as The Investor by JLL. These magazines provide important real estate information about different property markets from around the globe. You can browse investment opportunities and see how the property markets are faring.

Decide Upon a Strategy

One of the biggest mistakes many foreign property investors make is that they don’t decide upon an investment strategy. Almost every successful investor has a few rules and principles they follow while investing money in the property markets. For instance, if you want to follow a long-term investment strategy, you need to look out for up and coming development projects in rising property markets. For instance, Bangkok is one of the best places to invest money. There are plenty of development projects underway in Bangkok that you can invest in. Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand are three of the best countries for investors who are looking to buy property for the long term.

Short term strategies are designed for people who want to play a low-risk game. You should only buy property in projects that are managed by reputable developers in order to mitigate your risk. Short term strategies usually come with lower risk and lower returns, whereas long term strategies can provide significantly high profits, though the risk is considerably higher.

Talk to Local Realtors

You should do extensive research before buying any property in another country. One of the best things you can do is get in touch with local realtors in order to find about any upcoming projects that might impact the value of property in the neighbourhood. Local realtors will give you a very clear idea of whether the property is worth buying. Many foreign investors have close contacts with different realtors. As soon as a viable property comes on the market, the realtor will give you a heads-up. The key tenet of investing in the real estate market is to buy when the market is at a low, and get out as soon as it begins to rise.

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