Quantitative easing is not the same as printing more money, although this is also an option open to central banks such as the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.

Quantitative easing on a large scale occurs when a central bank issues huge amounts of short term bonds, which in turn enables them to buy back their own long term bonds.

By doing this, bond yields and therefore long term interest rates will decrease.

Ok, so what will that do?

Well, that would drive mortgage interest rates down and potentially kick start the property market.

The downside for US importers is that this will also weaken the dollar – which of course, is an upside for investors seeking to purchase American property using GBP and EURO.

Issuing and then buying back your own bonds – sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?

I guess it does a little, but if you think about it, it is actually very similar to a regular person increasing their bank overdraft and using the extra money to pay back more of their mortgage.

It made sense for the Bank of England and Fed Reserve to do this, because interest rates were close to zero and mortgage rates for those trying to invest in property or get on the property ladder were often as high as 6-7% which was causing huge friction in the stock markets.

As noted above, one of the side effects of quantitative easing is that it drives down the interest rates on their 10 year bonds, which are often linked to mortgage rates.

Decreasing long term mortgage rates effectively puts more cash in peoples pockets which will hopefully encourage them to spend more…

Please feel free to leave any comments.

Kind Regards

Colin Murphy

Firstly, as you will notice below - we are now offering single family homes (a detached home with driveway, garage, backyard etc.) in Orlando in addition to the condo’s we have been promoting (an apartment with common areas shared by owners).  As with everything involving property, there are both advantages and disadvantages to purchasing these property types, which we will be very happy to discuss if you’d like to get in touch with our office.

USA Financing Finally Available for Buy-to-Let Investors

We have also made something of a mini breakthrough in relation to financing in that we have finally found a mortgage loan officer who actually knows how to successfully process mortgage applications from foreign buyers. His name is Mark Shore and he works for The Bank of America in Orlando. Please click here to download a PDF with his full contact details and a brief description of the types of mortgages available to foreign buyers.

If you are interested in taking advantage of the high discounts on bank owned properties but have been waiting for finance before proceeding, then my advice is to contact Mark and fill in his loan application form so that you can be prequalified in advance.  You can also download a full information pack on Foreclosed Properties in Florida here.

Shortly Launching Distressed Property in the UK

As those of you who are in regular contact with us will know, we have been keeping a very close eye on the UK market over the past 6 months. As expected, in early 2009 we noticed a marked change in local developers’ attitudes. After digging in their heels for a very long time, many are now willing to discount quality stock very heavily in order to generate the essential cash needed to keep their businesses afloat.

While it is pretty much impossible to predict where the bottom of the market is (although several authoritative indexes indicate that we’re almost there), it is my belief that the next three months will see many developers at their most vulnerable, which means we are entering prime buying time.

London is the first place we will be concentrating on (we are looking elsewhere too), and despite the fact that their financial services sector is on life support, the factors that made London one of the world’s foremost property markets have not changed - it is still a highly desirable place to live with a shortage of available land.

A huge number of developers are cancelling future projects and mothballing half built sites, which will cause a very substantial undersupply once the UK economy begins to recover (and my gut tells me it will recover sooner than most European countries, including Ireland).

As a full service agency, we will not just be sourcing prime residential property developments, the first of which will be launched to our database imminently. We have also formed partnerships with lawyers, tax advisors, management companies, mortgage brokers and local agents who intimately know the micro markets we will be dealing with.

Bulk Buyers

We also deal with bulk buyers and can access very substantial discounts on prime properties for volume purchases (often as much as 50% BMV). These types of projects will not be advertised on our website or mentioned in mailers because they are commercially very sensitive. However, you can email investments@torcana.com or call our main office on 01 4433 991 if you would like to discuss further.

Make no mistake - this market is moving fast

That’s it from me this week. Ironically enough, it is looking like the worse a recession gets, the faster the best value projects will move. A couple of times this week, some of our high net worth investors narrowly missed out on amazing bulk discounts because they were 24 hours off the pace.

Kind Regards

Colin Murphy