Steven Toumbas, an equities investor from London, has always wanted to own a second home in the US. “America is the engine for the world,” he says. “Everyone wants to have a holiday home in Florida, or an asset in New York. It’s the place to be.”
Real estate has historically been viewed as a local phenomenon. Builders and investors for decades prided themselves in their ability to find the best “location, location, location” based on their local knowledge. It is among the least “tradable” of products, in the sense of being physically unmovable, even though it can be bought and sold both domestically and internationally. This combination of local knowledge and predominantly local tradeability was the primary reason why discussions of globalization in the 1990s and earlier, overlooked the real estate industry as a possible participant in the ongoing phenomenon of increasing global economic integration. Although an occasional headline would be grabbed by a foreign purchase of a local landmark (New York’s Rockefeller Center, Arco Plaza in Los Angeles, and even the Pebble Beach resort), the business itself remained largely local, with US firms dominating in US markets, and foreign firms in foreign markets.More on Globalization and the Real Estate Industry: Issues, Implications, Opportunities
More on Globalization and the Real Estate Industry: Issues, Implications, Opportunities
The first-time buyer crisis has been one of the major issues of the housing industry and recent events have ensured it is not about to go away. Nor, as a result, will the scapegoating.
We ran a photo series recently on the Palms Dubai development. And something came to our attention that we hadn’t really noticed when we’d been researching the article – there are no people in the photographs. Now that could have been just a factor of timing, but further research has shown that somewhere in the region of 90 % of the development has been sold to property speculators who have no intention of living there. Whilst this is certainly an ambitious project, we do wonder what the long term effects both on the local marine wildlife and also the human immigrants, if any.
Home buying for most people is one of the largest financial transactions they will undertake in their lifetime. Although you may own a house in your own country, buying a property in a foreign country is quite a different matter. Many people, who would like to purchase property in Greece, find that the Greek real estate market can be a mind-boggling experience. At first the property purchasing process seems to be a very complicated one. Approaching the problem of buying a property step by step shows that it is not that hopeless.
More on Buying Property In Greece: 10 Top Tips to help your house purchase go smoothly
