Financing or Purchasing Foreign Property

Financing foreign property is becoming popular nowadays. It may be for holiday dream home, permanent residence or just a typical investment which one could buy and sell later on. But for whatever reason, the market for property investments in some parts of the world has grown already.

France, Portugal, Cyprus and Majorca and Spanish Property market are seen as the traditional and previously most popular markets in foreign property investment. The next major investment property location is predicted to be Brazil with its amazing beaches. It is also where property and land prices are very low at present. Florida in the US is still popular for investors.

Meanwhile in the Middle East, the market in United Arab Emirates particularly in Dubai rose significantly. This is attributed to the changes in property laws done by the government which attracted lots of foreign investors. In Asia, Malaysia is considered to be the property investment top destination with its new developments which can be purchase at considerably low prices. In the Caribbean, Bahamas, Belize and Dominican Republic are some of examples where one can find his dream property especially for some tourists. Because of the tropical weather and world-class beaches, these places became the couples’ favorite destination. Some other locations where there are property investments open for foreigners are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt and others.

While owning a foreign property investment is a dream come true for some people, there are however problems that they usually face. In some countries like the US, there are property taxes making the real estate value go up. When prices fell, these taxes do not automatically decrease quickly and one is forced to pay the original assessed value. However, there are still countries which lack property taxes and this is an advantage of purchasing foreign property. One example is Ecuador, where an investor will not pay any real estate taxes. In other countries also, the cost of labor and land prices are lower and this means that properties can also be bought at lower prices including the maintenance cost. Despite the current economic situation, US dollar has still a lot of value and investor can still purchase more including properties in other countries.

Meanwhile, it is important that investors should take into consideration the country’s economic and political stability if they want to purchase the property in that location. In some cases, foreigners are not given fair consideration and government confiscates their properties especially if they are not aware of the local real estate laws. Crime rate may also increase and therefore a foreigner may have to hire persons to secure his property.

Investors have the right to decide where they want to invest their money and purchase a property. However, there should be a lot of research that should do and a real estate lawyer should be consulted before entering in a transaction in order to protect themselves and their investment.