With the pound and euro continuing to strengthen relative to the dollar, your hard earned cash can now stretch very far indeed. If you wanted $60,000 in late May it would have cost you around €45,000/£40,000. Now it will cost €40,000/£36,500. That’s quite a difference.

 So a weak dollar is great news for those seeking to purchase US property from abroad, but as many of our readers working in the financial industry will know, the prospect of a consistently weak dollar is of real concern to finance ministers, company bosses and traders around the world.

If one were to listen to the US authorities the message is pretty much the same every week, “it is very important for the US to have a strong dollar“. They haven’t been taking much action to backup that message though.

As any first year economics student will tell you, a weak currency boosts exports and restricts demand for imports, thus improving the economy and lowering the trade deficit. This might suit the US in the short term but it certainly doesn’t suit the EU or Asia, both of whom want to sell their goods and services to the US as cheaply as possible to kick start their own economies. 

The other big worry revolves around the strategies big countries like the US, Britain, Germany, Japan and China will pursue to withdraw the massive assistance they’ve been providing to prop up their economies. That’s a story for another blog though.

Kind Regards

Colin Murphy

Torcana.com

- We either locate buildings with tenants in place (most of Florida product) or we collaborate with local management companies to source new ones quickly (most of UK product).  

- We advise on purchase strategies and negotiate bulk discounts on behalf of high net worth investors

- We liaise with accountancy experts to ensure returns are filed properly and with title and insurance companies to ensure contracts are processed quickly and efficiently

- We help you obtain financing (where applicable), open bank accounts and obtain tax numbers.

In short, we are a very research and service orientated company.

For more information, please see www.torcana.com.

Kind Regards

Colin Murphy

Director

Torcana Ltd

A new trend seems to be emerging in certain property circles. Several times in the past six months I have seen evidence of hardened investors who have always pursued an offplan investment strategy considering a radical change.

 

The profitable strategy of the past decade is fairly simple on paper – find a reputable builder, reserve an apartment in a great location which will be built in 2-4 years time, negotiate preferable payment terms and wait for capital appreciate during the construction stage. Definitely not as easy as it sounds, but hundreds of thousands of people have been doing it successfully.

 

Times are changing though, and these same hardened buyers are now pursuing a new strategy with equal vigor – instead of offplan apartments or condo hotels in emerging markets, they are snapping up completely finished properties in developed markets at discounted prices.

 

Why? The credit crunch. Developers are struggling to sell excess stock, which means they are under pressure from the banks that financed them. This forces them to drop prices dramatically to stimulate supply and boy are they doing it. I’ve seen prime urban properties in very wealthy cities selling cheaper than an offplan resort in an area with a fraction of the income per capita.

 

The property section in Torcana.com has plenty of examples for any who have time to look through them.

 

Kind Regards

 

Colin Murphy

Torcana Ltd