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Arab Strap
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 246
Location: under your bed
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 Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 7:59 am Post subject: |
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| A very important point for non American posters is the exchange rate between the rial and the currency into which you need to convert your savings |
Sad but oh how true. I am based in the Czech Republic and cringe every time I check the Saudi Riyal/Czech Crown exchange rate.
My hopes of working a couple of years in the Magic Kingdom and then heading back to Czech to buy a flat with my ill-gotten gains are well and truly scuppered.
When I first came to KSA back in 2001 the Riyal was worth around 10 Czech Crowns, it's now fallen to less than 6.
Back then although I was earning less money than I am now (on paper) in terms of spending power in Czech I have less in my pocket..................and with the price of property sky-rocketing in Easten Europe especially Czech I can't see me leaving KSA any time soon.
By the way I wouldn't advise investing in property in Eastern Europe no matter how cheap and tempting Romania, Bulgaria et al may seem..........but that's another topic |
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wailing_imam
Joined: 31 Mar 2006
Posts: 580
Location: Malaya
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| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 10:05 am Post subject: |
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| The Prodigy - No, you also need an exit stamp from Indonesia (however, at well timed bribe at the airport can probably sort this out!). |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 10:08 am Post subject: |
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One of the Iron Laws of the Dismal Science of Economics : Teachers never get rich, even if they teach in Saudi and save every halala.
Last edited by scot47 on Sat May 13, 2006 10:23 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Bebsi
Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 958
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| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 10:16 am Post subject: Easter European property |
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| By the way I wouldn't advise investing in property in Eastern Europe no matter how cheap and tempting Romania, Bulgaria et al may seem..........but that's another topic |
Why ever not? Please give us the benefit of your learned opinion!
All the experts globally would say otherwise, and based on my own very positive personal experience...well, what more can I say 
Maybe AS, if you ventured into Eastern Europe instead of concentrating too hard on Czech Rep, you might do a lot better and get out of KSA sooner. Is your aversion based on your own personal experience, or some myths/hearsay etc? If the former, we'd love to hear about it, perhaps learn something from it. |
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Arab Strap
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 246
Location: under your bed
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| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| "some myths/hearsay etc'' |
more or less yes, you've far more knowledge than me on this matter.
I'm just thinking about the bureaucracy and the back handers to local government officials and the mafia, depending on dodgy builders and hoping and praying the Danube doesn't flood and wash away your investment.
My main gripe is with foreigners buying land and property in Bulgaria and Romania etc and pricing the locals out of the market (ditto South Africa)..............watch the prices climb when both countries join the EU and when the locals get wind of the fact that there's money to be made by selling off the family jewels.
Why Czech?, well that's where my Mrs is from, where I've spent the last 12 years on and off and where babicka is based. I can no longer relate to the UK and its citizens and find I have far more in common with the Eastern Europeans and Germans I meet in KSA.............also the beer is the best money can buy and I live around the corner from a boozer with, according to the Pilsner Urquel brewery, the highest consumption of pivo per square metre on the planet |
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Bebsi
Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 958
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| Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 9:13 am Post subject: Eastern European property |
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| I'm just thinking about the bureaucracy and the back handers to local government officials and the mafia, depending on dodgy builders and hoping and praying the Danube doesn't flood and wash away your investment. |
AS, as someone in the Romanian real-estate business, I can assure you that "backhanders" are not necessary in order purchase real-estate here. Nor are any Mafia conections!! Dodgy builders...now there's another matter, but if you know of ANY country in the world where dodgy-builders are non-existent, tell me about it. Incidentally, while foreigners cannot buy undeveloped land, only "built land", there are legal ways around this.
In addition, Romania has a Roman-law type of legal system, and property ownership is guaranteed under the constitution. Yes, there has been corruption, but this has not significantly impacted on real-estate investment, and Romania is a fully fledged democracy, one of the most liberal in Europe, in fact. I am not familiar with Bulgaria, but I can say without hesitation that I have every confidence in Romania to become a regional economic power over the next few years, and in Eastern Europe generally to thrive.
The Danube flood-plain is on average 10Km wide...the people affected by flooding lived in this area. If you buy a house in Transylvania or even Bucharest, with the Danube at least 70Km away, how can you be flooded. Like I said, myth and hearsay seems to abound in these pages.
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| My main gripe is with foreigners buying land and property in Bulgaria and Romania etc and pricing the locals out of the market (ditto South Africa)..............watch the prices climb when both countries join the EU and when the locals get wind of the fact that there's money to be made by selling off the family jewels. |
Apart from the questionable economic logic of this statement (foreign investment is giving these economies a huge boost), would this not be an excellent argument for expats buying property in such places? Yup, prices will climb massively, which is why I would invite anyone interested in a good real-estate investment to seriously consider Romania.
As an afficionado of Eastern Europe, AS, why anyway would you want to put people off buying property here? It is a very counter-productive thing to do. I love Eastern Europe, and if I didn't have economic confidence in it, I wouldn't have established two businesses here.
If anyone, BTW, wants more info on Romanian real-estate, PM me. |
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Bebsi
Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 958
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| Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 11:47 am Post subject: Eastern Europe |
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I DO agree about one thing, Czech beer is the best in the world 
We have some good beers here in Romania, but they certainly wouldn't compare with Czech. Our wines however...now that's another matter We've got wonderful vineyards here, and some of the wines produced are comparable with established French, Italian and Spanish wines. They just haven't been marketed, and of course, the Romanian wine industry took a hammering under communism. I would recommend...when on hols from KSA of course...Dealu Mare Special Reserves, Feteasca Negra, Castel Bolovanu and Prince Mircea.
Better still, why not come here? For any expats looking for a relatively cheap European holiday destination, with fabulous nightlife, cheap booze, beautiful women (my opinion, anyway), exquisite mountain scenery, a real party atmosphere on the Black Sea coast, and oodles of history, Romania is seriously worth some thought. If you are a history buff, with an interest especially in medieval history, we have enough castles, monasteries, churches, forts, walled cities and palaces here to keep you going for twenty lifetimes.
Oh, the sun shines here a lot too, and we generally get long hot summers.
For more info, perhaps Bebsi can be of help by sending a PM!! As this was not the original thread, if anyone has more public Qs about Eastern Europe, maybe a new thread could be started about viable holiday destinations for KSA expats. |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Wed May 24, 2006 11:33 am Post subject: |
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Property 'investment' is pretty dicey anywhere. However if you want a nice place to live in and a property at reasonable price you could do worse than come to Bulgaria.
Look at
www.skavivascot.hit.bg
for the first step. Look top left for EN and click on that for pages in English. |
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Bebsi
Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 958
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| Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 12:11 pm Post subject: Romania for "wildlife", while you get rich in the |
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Property investment is not a certain bet, no, but it's as safe as you can get. Unlike companies, which can cease to exist, or commmodities, or bonds, etc, real-estate is solid...it's something that you always have. Land cannot cease to exist, unless you do, of course!!
Romania, Bulgaria, anywhere in eastern Europe is very good, but Romania is now recognized by most of the analysts as one of the best property options anywhere, with massive growth rates, huge capital appreciation (27% on average since 2003, but some parts have seen increases of up to 250% since 2004) and for holiday home seekers, a massive variety of choice. The two best performing sectors are land and inner-urban commercial space. I know where you can get a 24% rental return in Bucharest, and if you add 25% capital gains, in two years you've doubled your money.
In terms of holiday homes, you can get a lovely place for about 50K euro. Transylvania for castles and medieval towns, Prahova Valley for mountains/skiing, Bukovina for spectacular scenery and unparallelled wildlife, Black Sea coast for a different kind of "wild life" (great party opps in summer, believe me )...take your pick of a beautiful country.
The UK TV series, " A Home of your Own", recently rated Romania No. 1 out of 29 countries, being the EU 25, Turkey, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania. They estimated that a 100K investment now could easily be worth 550K in 10 years or less. At current growth rates, this estimate is conservative. At present, major western European investors are jostling each other to get in here. Anyone out there with PetroTEFL dollars to spare, could do a lot worse indeed!
Anyone interested, PM me for more info. |
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Van Norden
Joined: 23 Oct 2004
Posts: 409
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| Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 1:30 pm Post subject: bubbles |
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Property investment is not a certain bet, no, but it's as safe as you can get. Unlike companies, which can cease to exist, or commmodities, or bonds, etc, real-estate is solid...it's something that you always have. Land cannot cease to exist, unless you do, of course!!
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Spoken like a true real estate salesman!
Land might not disappear but, if you buy at the top of a bubble with a big loan, your equity might. At best it will be an unprofitable investment.
Companies can go bust but you don't put all your eggs into one basket/stock like you generally do with property.
Here are some interesting articles about the global property bubble and buying-to-let abroad:
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/economic-papers.php |
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Bebsi
Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 958
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| Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 9:14 pm Post subject: Spoken like.... |
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| Spoken like a true real estate salesman! |
To start with, I am not a real-estate salesman, I run a company which represents real-estate investors, through sourcing, consulting, estate management and project management. It would be contrary to our interests for our clients to pay through the nose, or to make a bad investment.
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| Land might not disappear but, if you buy at the top of a bubble with a big loan, your equity might. At best it will be an unprofitable investment. |
You must be a big property magnate, VN, to have an insight such as this. Let me add more to such rare wisdom:
If you flush your money down the toilet it will get soggy and then disappear, and if you leap into a Piranha-infested river, you will surely get bitten. Of course, the secret to not getting hurt in such a blatant manner is not being blatantly naive. Investing in property in a developed market where it has already reached saturation point, especially on borrowed money, amounts to the same naivete and carelessness. There is nothing wrong with borrowing to invest, but yes, discretion, care, caution and some insight must be exercised.
A 50K purchase in Eastern Europe today is far more likely to be worth 200K in 5 years' time, than a 150K investment in a mature western market that has already reached a watershed.
In any case, a shrewd investor doesn't usually buy to let, he buys to realise capial gains, with the rental income just being a nice sideline.
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| Companies can go bust but you don't put all your eggs into one basket/stock like you generally do with property. |
What about those who leaped from buildings back in '29, and to a lesser extent in '87? Those who, on the other hand, invested in real-estate, just had to wait a few years for their real-estate, an asset that remained in actual existence, to recover in value.
Furthermore, what about Enron? Greencore in Ireland in '91? Give me a half-acre in Hell's Kitchen purchased in '82, anyday! Or a few acres of virgin Costa Del Sol or Algarve land bought in the late '70s/early 80's.
In any event, big real-estate investors also spread the risk where they can. Someone buying three properties in Eastern Europe for 150K instead of one for the same amount in, say, the UK, can hardly be accused of failing to spread the risk, surely?
To my knowledge, the average property investor does infinitely better than the average amateur stockbroker, playing around with stock market figures that he doesn't even begin to understand.
Any investment carries a deal of risk...allow me to enlighten you with a big revelation, VN: there is rarely such a thing as easy money. If you want big returns, you must take big risks. If on the other hand you want a safe investment, where in all likelihood at least your initial investment will be safe, nothing beats real-estate, Ask the experts: I mean by this, those actually working or dealing in real-estate and NOT impoverished journalists, whose only experience of investment is buying lottery tickets, writing missives of doom and gloom.
Real-estate, if done prudently, is one of the safest investments anyone can make, while still offering excellent opportunities for reaching targets. On the other hand, it has its attendant risks if care isn't taken. Just like crossing the street, really!! |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 5:02 am Post subject: |
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| When I think about Real Estate as an investment I remember that (true ?) story of the man in the 1930's who was sure that a major world conflict was coming. He determined to escape from Armageddon and looked around for a house in aa nice tropical location. He bought a place on the island of Guadalcanal. |
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Bebsi
Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 958
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| Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject: Armageddon...how much$$$$ |
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| He determined to escape from Armageddon and looked around for a house in aa nice tropical location. |
Well, yes, I've heard that story too, but ponder this one:
Many people left mainland USA as WW2 started, in order to escape Armageddon. The speculators who bought their houses cheaply, must have been rubbing their hands in delight by war's end, as of course mainland USA was one of the few places not directly touched by the conflict.
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| He bought a place on the island of Guadalcanal. |
Look at how much Guadalcanal real-estate cost by the 1960s...and how much is it worth today?
The moral of the story?
Don't be too obsessed with safety, take some risks, think long-term and then sit tight |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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And what is real estate worth in the Solomons now ?
I concede that a house is quite useful for living in but if I want a gamble I will try Goodwood. |
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jonks
Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1240
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| Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Scot, I sincerely advise you to buy property in New Zealand. |
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