So it is a breath of fresh air to know that there are property investors out there who are happy. Looking through the property forums it is hard work, however, finding the good news but it does exist.
A thread on the propertycommunity.com forum shows that property investments made a few years were generally sound and investors are happy with what they have bought. So perhaps the doom and gloom is only a passing phase.
One investor in El Gouna, Egypt, is very happy and reports that lots of other Europeans living in the area are too.
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The thread also addresses the issue of quality and it would appear that some projects are excellent in terms of finishes, interiors and even furniture. One project even finished six months early which is a nice contrast to the complaints that developments are often overdue.
Even forum members are fed up with the doom and gloom. One post on the same website starts: ‘When will you all STOP???’. It addresses the issue of pessimism about the Dubai property market. Poster Mashh claims that a lot of what is written about Dubai is based on rumour. He says that many banks in Dubai are lending and that people are looking to buy.
It opens up the issue of whether or not bad news headlines and people continually talking down a market can actually make that market worse. And it raises the point that those who are continually talking down a market are those who want to see things slide and then snap up bargains as panicked investors seek to sell even at a loss.
Although there is a lot of negativity on this post it does indicate that in three or five years time the global downturn will be forgotten and optimism will have returned as the property markets recover.
Dubai may be once place to find a bargain right now with prices reported to have fallen by up to 50% in some areas, but Florida is another area popular with foreign investors where it looks like prices ate bottoming out right now, according to the propertyshowrooms.com forum.
There seems to be a lot of interest from UK investors in the Florida market at present. Northwest Florida, an area that seems to have been overlooked, is mentioned as having potential for investors, not just because prices are low in the state, but because it has a new international airport underway and has been described as the best investment in the US by influential Money magazine.
A lot depends on whether you are a long term or a short term investor. Those trying to make quick money are the ones trying to judge when the property market in a particular country has reached the bottom and buying in a small window before they start going up again.
But a lot of buyers in some parts of the US seem to be long term property investors, as is mentioned on the bigggerpockets.com forum. One poser reports that a real estate agent in Southern California, a state that has been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis, sold 57 homes in 2008 and has already sold 10 in 2009. The buyers are property investors who are buying for their future retirement. They are buying now and plan to use the property as a holiday home or to rent out for fived to ten years and then retiring.
The post goes on to discuss why these people are buying now and why they don’t wait until the real estate market bottoms out. But it is like asking how long a piece of string is?
Many would say the scenario outlined in California is a sound investment. But it isn’t going to make the investor a quick buck. But perhaps what the current global property downturn will do is put an end to the kind of rampant speculation which has caused the kind of boom and bust that can be seen in Dubai.
Trying to buy at the bottom is a foolish strategy, poster points out. Good property investors buy on the way down and sell on the way up.
One professional property investor points out that he is saving and amassing as much cash as he can at the moment in order to buy foreclosures as near the bottom as possible and then have enough rental income for the rest of his life. But it still does not answer the almost unanswerable – how do you know the bottom has been reached? The real answer may be that it is a matter of opinion and you have to choose according to your own feelings.
And as another poster says – if you try to time the bottom of a property market more times than not you will miss out.
