How to Buy Overseas Property Safely - Turkish Connextions

WHERE TO BUY ABROAD?
W
hen considering whether you should
buy a home overseas you should
always fi rst ask yourself why you
are buying it. Identifying this clearly
from the word go will make decisionmaking
during your property-hunting easier – and
prevent you avoid making a costly mistake by
buying the wrong property.
Few of us can afford to buy a holiday home that
is a bad investment so by asking yourself some simple
questions at the outset, you can spare yourself some
heartache – and thousands of pounds too.
First up, don’t assume that somewhere you like
visiting will automatically be the ideal place to buy
– though it could be a good starting point. For a start, if
you want to rent it out regularly you need to be sure that
plenty of other people will share your taste in location;
whilst if you are planning on relocating there yourself,
a few summer weekend minibreaks will not provide a
fully rounded picture about life in that town or resort.
So what are your motivations?
Differentiate between a property that is going to be
6 AIPP CONSUMER GUIDE
purely for your own personal enjoyment; one that
is also going to need to be rented out for part of the
time to pay for itself; and something that will earn
you as much money as possible because it will be
your pension pot, or an income stream.
Investment the main aim?
The latter – a pure investment – will need to offer
scope for capital appreciation combined with high
rental income yields.
So research how it will produce cash – don’t forget
that on top of rental income and capital appreciation
there is also capital gains by adding value – by
renovating, converting or extending a property.
Emerging or depressed markets will generally offer
greater capital appreciation, and for this reason Spain,
Florida, Greece and Turkey are currently popular, but
the recent boom-then-bust has taught us to look at
the long-term view, not for instant profi t.
The global downturn has also shown that buying
in the long-established markets can be a far safer
bet that the so-called emerging nations of Eastern
Europe, North Africa or the Far East. Five years ago EU