Property question - Would you ,or wouldn't you?

[henpecked]

Well still on a mission to buy 'somewhere' to add to the portfolio. These two are both in Ireland (my family are from Dublin)
Have the chance of THIS only to first fix, been left for a while, middle of nowhere (how I like) 1/2 arce on the shore of a expansive loch.

Or

THIS

City centre location, 3 beds, built 2006. Only problem is site fees are E1400 pa.
Would go for the apartment,if it wasn't for the high fees. But there again, its maintenance free and you dont have to worry about pikeys when its not let out.

Any ideas? Flying out Monday to have a view.

[lutonlagerlout]

ireland is cheap for a reason hen
there is not a lot there
i would look for somewhere with an established tourist trade and flight connections
you need it rented 30 weeks a year
my mates place in donegal was empty most of last year,the germans and yanks have stopped coming
ireland is an expensive country for a holiday

i would say spain ,france or italy
IMHO
LLL

[Kuts]

I also hear Spain is the place to buy. Ireland is rediculusly expensive now.

[henpecked]

I see what your saying, but have gone down the Spain/Italy route. Its partly logistical and partly legislation. Cant be bothered to struggle with another language or trips across the continent for that matter. I have a brother in the Costa Del Sol,so looked at buying in Granada, nice 4 bed in a 4000 or so village. But when you sat down and did the figures, it didn't add up. Even with a native speaker doing the donkey work over there.
The apartment is 10 k from a major airport, 5 minutes walk from a Uni ,so it worse come to worst, I can let it out long term.
Just wanted a 'view' on what you guys thought, a mortgage wont be an issue, so its just keeping up with site fees. Spoke to the agent earlier, he said theres a roof terrace too, so think I'll go with the flat.
Funny thing was, he said it was 'freehold' unusual for an apartment, I thought, but will thrash it out with him when I go over Monday.

Thanks for the input LLL.

[ilovesettsonmondays]

spain is really hard to make any money renting . my mrs has an apartment between fueng and marbella . hard to find anyone to rent places there, spain is fecked. lost a lot of equity in it over the last few years

[henpecked]

Its 'sh1t or bust' ATM, so if your looking for a bargain, there will be a downside.
I know what you mean ILSOM. My brothers place has dropped from a peak (and I mean peak) of E550000, down to 375000, hes still is looking at realistically selling for 325000. He is trying to sell at the minute and set up a 'Thai' beach bar :0 ??? Dont ask...... and hes not having alot of luck.

The rental market is depressed over there,but you have to look at the fact people cant afford to buy,so renting will be the only option.
Im looking at holiday lets to begin, then scoping out the place for long term if the holiday lets dont materialise.
Fingers crossed, dont want to sit arounfd too long as Greece looks like its 'too big to fasil' then when that comes out, the Euro will strengthen and I lose out.
Worked it out today, if it rises by 2c, I'll save £500 on the deal

[Pablo]

Stay away from the Irish rental market Hen it's beyond saturated especially the holiday home side of it. That first house may be cheap but it's going to be very expensive to finish it off and you'll have to pay someone to cut the grass and keep it tidy. We go to Downings in Donegal and Kinsale in Cork every so often and the homes we rent have more than halved in price at peak season and there's always plenty to choose from. The cost of everything else though is still fu#kin ridiculous. Rental wise Scotland is a good investment just now Edinburgh is always strong as is Aberdeen but the best place is Inverness it's cheap and there's huge demand for good places due to all the Industry heading up there for turbines and oil also lots of new factories and a new uni being built. I've a friend who has dozens of houses up there and they're rarely empty more than a fortnight.



Edited By Pablo on 1337371390

[ilovesettsonmondays]

hen , my mrs and her sister sold propertys over there for a few years . her sister sold her estate agents over here and set up there. they made good money at the time infact silly money .if you ever want a chat with the mrs about buying something over there as in pros and cons then no probs . if your buying something for tourists dont buy anything stuck in hills etc, need to be close to beach at least and restaurants etc and being not miles away from airport helps.

[henpecked]

Didnt think of Scotland, Pablo, well I did,but the weather put me off (and it reminds me of the ex ) Is it the devolution thats attracting the talent?

Thanks Setts . Will keep it in mind, but I find Spain is still too high for whats available, there's vistas of empty, unfinished apartment blocks and still the prices are high.
The property down by the beach is too expensive by far, I 'could' get the cash together, but didn't want to over stretch myself on a let.
The appartment is in the City Centre, so its lively and you have most things to hand. Will go over and have a look, might put me off, but I do like it and the wifey has given it a 'thumbs up' and as my nick shows, shes told me what way to go

[ilovesettsonmondays]

one way to look at it hen if spain was booming , my mrs would not be sat on sofa in essex now ???

[lutonlagerlout]

my missus is irish and her and her family havent been home for 6 years

because its too blinking expensive

maybe hang on till the euo goes pop hen

once greece goes spain portugal ireland and italy will follow
domino effect
countries with no real industry another than tourism and financial services are fecked

i am 10 k down this week on the stock market with more pain to follow
believe me when greece finally goes pop the euro goes into freefall
obviously as a gambler you can take a chance
but ireland has more bedrooms than people
it dont take a rocket scientist to work out whats wrong there
if the euro goes bad more people may travel to the eurozone but when interest rates rise as surely they will, thousands here will lose their homes
personally I wouldnt buy to let abroad
loads of pain stories
money was all made in the 70-80s
LLL
IMHO

[henpecked]

I probably will hold on. The Euro does look shakey to say the least, its a bit of a gamble, but the guy might give me a corkingg deal, he seems keen so I'll take a few days over there, there are a few in the toen to look at,so my time wont be wasted.
The Euro sure is resilient, its been holding out against a fall for a while, like you said,once it goes, it will fall a long way

[mickg]

I had a conversation 5 weeks ago with a woman who lives on a Greek island who had come over to see her daughter and she said the billion's given in the bail out had made no difference to the mentality of the Greek people and they had started to uncover the drachma machine getting ready to come out of the Euro and that's before it was on the news

Britain could be plunged into credit crunch II if Greece leave the euro

[lutonlagerlout]

I know a fund manager and he says greek default has been factored in for some time
countries like Greece Italy Portugal etc have a very different culture to the nothern european countries
it will affect our export big time as the same with the swiss franc last year people will be seeing the pound as a reasonably safe haven
so it would make it very cheap for you to buy abroad
I was offered a cottage in ballinamore for 6000 euro at xmas
no electric gas etc just water
spoke to locals and they said the tourists have gone now,no work nothing
if you buy a place for 25000 euro now hen that costs you £20 k
next year that same place might cost 15k due to currency fluctuation

a mate had a villa built in kissimee in 2003 when it was $1.50 to the pound
when he sold it in 2007 (lucky him) it was $2 to the pound so he made 50 k just on the currency fluctuation

on the other hand the estimable nicholas van hoogstratens property philosophy was thus

if you can buy a place for less than it would cost to build its always a good investment,my personal feeling is location is all
IMHO
cheers LLL

[Carberry]

I had a conversation 5 weeks ago with a woman who lives on a Greek island who had come over to see her daughter and she said the billion's given in the bail out had made no difference to the mentality of the Greek people and they had started to uncover the drachma machine getting ready to come out of the Euro and that's before it was on the news

Britain could be plunged into credit crunch II if Greece leave the euro

I wouldn't put much value in anything the daily mail has to say.

Greece fiddled their figures to get in to the euro, then went nuts borrowing against Germany's credit rating. Recession hits, Greece's debt is revealed and nobody thinks they can pay it back so they increase interest rates which means they definitely won't be able to pay it back.

The european central bank pumped 1 trillion in to the economy (propped up european banks) in their long term financing operation (LTRO) which was 36 month. The banks used that money to buy government bonds so they're basically supporting each others debt with bugger all.

The bailout money given to british banks which was suppposed to stimulate the economy didn't see british hands either. They were supposed to pass that money on to the public through mortgages, business loans etc they never did though.