The situation in the Moroccan property market perfectly sums up the simultaneous exhilaration and frustration that individual property investors can feel.
On the one hand, the hard numbers that come back from the Moroccan economy are very encouraging. It has been reported by the tourism minister of the Moroccan government that the tourism numbers in Morocco were up 13% in 2007 from 2006. The minister also went on to set very ambitious goals for Moroccan tourism over the next three years that should have foreign property investors frothing at the mouth because of the possibilities that will emerge if the goals were even partially met.
When the actual property markets themselves are looked at, the same encouraging image comes forth. With all of the growth in the Moroccan property markets over the last little while, it has gotten to the point where the Moroccan authorities have actually begun to actively engage foreign property investors in order to get them to put more money into the Moroccan property markets. With both supply and demand accelerating at a torrid pace in the Moroccan property markets, good things are in store for people that make property purchases in that country right now.
And really, it is that part that leads from the exhilaration to the frustration.
Like every other country in the world, Morocco has seen the effects of the global credit crunch. To investors in the Moroccan property market, the immediate effect is that they have found it much harder to get loans from financial institutions based within the country and while it is certainly still possible to do so, some investors have become very frustrated with the new wait times and higher standards for approval that many banks are now utilising when it comes to lending money.
The interesting duality currently present in the Moroccan real estate market is a microcosm for the world.