REAL VALUE » overseas

Condos for sale in Playa del Carmen

Marcus Assalone — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:09:51 +0000

I really hate the cold, I promised myself that one day I will start spending the winters in a tropical place. If you are I like me, I would like to share with you a development that can help us realize this great goal.

I really like Mexico, my dollar goes really far there, and whenever I visit, I feel like a millionaire. It helps that the Mexican people have alot to teach us here about service. It seems that when I want to buy something, anything and everything suddenly becomes possible.

The condo development I am recommending is in the gated golf community known as Playacar, Playa del Carmen and consists of one and two bedroom units in both a single level and a two level, loft style residence. All the units are spacious and open concept to let in the warm light. They come equipped with designer kitchens complete with a convection oven. The floors are gleaming porcelain. Each Master Suite comes with a walk-in closet and en-suite bathroom with high quality Italian fixtures. All floorplans have two bathrooms and air conditioning is provided by LG Art Cool ceiling mounted appliances. An additional benefit of the lofts are their higher ceilings.

Designer Kitchen

The pool, part of the Condo's common areas

The shared amenities includ a large pool as well as access to the beach and to all the amenities of the Playacar gated community such as 24 hour security, the Golf course, spa, aviary and more.

Floorplans

One Bedrooms start at $153,000 USD

2 Bedrooms start at $186,000 USD

2 Bedroom lofts start at $198,000 USD

Playa del Carmen is famous for having the best beach in Mexico. Located on the Mayan Riviera, it is the holiday destination. Look at this beach. It has white sand, blue water and a gradual slope into the Caribbean that creates the ultimate relaxing atmosphere. When you go into town, the Quinta Avenida is Playa del Carmen’s pedestrian only shopping district, featuring vibrant restaurants and boutiques. You will feel like you are in a very chic area of Toronto, or really you could be in any town in the United States.

Xcaret is a nearby amusement park featuring amazing Mexican cultural attractions as well as activities such as snorkeling and more.

Playacar is a gated community inside Playa del Carmen. It features luxury hotels such as Iberostar, Riu, and others. They also have restaurants, commercial areas, schools, hospitals, a luxury golf course and spa, areas of archaeological significance, an aviary, and all the amenities you would expect from a city. It has its own electrical power station and water purification plant to serve its residents. Playacar has a range of residential options as any city would. You can buy six bedroom mansions, townhouses, three bedroom homes, condo apartments, condo lofts, there are even vacant lots available if you are interested in building your dream vacation home. This community houses people from all around the world who have come here to spend their retirement or to buy as an investment. They rent their property to sun seekers. The streets here are all well manicured. When they designed this community they decided they wanted to use only the indigenous plant life. Most of the houses are equipped with swimming pools and air-conditioning for your comfort.

Playa del Carmen’s strong tourist economy makes this an excellent place to invest as rapid growth now means they have a full range of services available to the community. Once you visit, you will fall in love with the weather, the food, the music, the relaxing ambiance and the warm people. I would like to suggest that if you are going to buy a beach property, think about Playacar. Tell me what you are interested in and I will send you a full list of available homes to buy and also for rent. Buying is a good idea, but if you are going on vacation, renting from an investor can be an excellent option. You will get better value and a higher quality holiday than you would by staying at a hotel. If you have any questions about Playacar, Playa del Carmen, Cancun, or even Mexico please let me know and I will be more than happy to assist you. You can email me at marcus-assalone@coldwellbanker.ca or you can call me at 416 495-2362 and I will help you get on your way to calling Playa del Carmen your next home.

UK Property – a Tale of Two Markets

Isabella Woods — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:34:20 +0000

The UK housing market has seen some turbulent times over the last few years. Since the economic crisis that saw the UK Government bail out the banking industry, year-on-year house prices around the country have plummeted, with the exception being the nation’s capital. UK property is, and has always been, two different markets. According to the UK Land Registry, the government department responsible for keeping and maintaining the Land Register of England and Wales (Scotland has its own system), the average house price outside London is £159,999 ($251,294), while the average price in the capital is £340,308 ($534,487).

London has survived the economic turmoil over the last few years, which has seen the rest of the nation’s house prices fall by almost 10% from their 2006 high. Prices in the capital have continued to creep up, albeit at a fairly slow pace, and any investor looking for property in the UK needs to understand the extremely diverse market and the importance London plays in house prices in the other regions. Property around the country varies by over 300% and the farther from the nation’s capital you go, the lower the price. The lowest prices can be found in the North East, where high unemployment, poor infrastructure and lack of investment have seen the average house price dip below the £100,000 mark. And things are only going to get worse.

Housing boom

UK house prices boomed from the late eighties and many housing experts agree that property was just too unaffordable. Of course, as mortgage lenders were offering 100% mortgages with nothing more than a few hundred pounds required to secure a home, easily available on 0 credit cards, nobody minded the high prices. The banking crash changed all that. Now, first time buyers need to find 10 to 15 percent of the asking price before they’ll even be considered for a mortgage. The result – cascading property prices throughout the UK as fewer and fewer homes are being sold. The reason London has survived is pure economics. London is the heart of the UK economy, with all investment banks, the stock market and other financial markets crammed together in the city. Its growing population of 7 million is continuously jostling for room in a city, as a result, many London workers commute to the capital from the nearby Home Counties, which is the reason these areas have such high property values than those farther away from the capital.

Falling Prices

In the last twelve months, average property values rose by 2.9% in

Photo courtesy of David Iliff‏

London and its bordering counties, but everywhere else they fell, with the North East, the region farthest from the capital, experiencing the biggest drop of 6.9%. But London isn’t immune to falling house prices, with many analysts predicting a slow down and probable fall. So where does that leave potential property investors looking to make money? The answer is not easy. The market throughout the country is tumultuous and with trouble in the Eurozone, future predictions are almost impossible to make, but there are some tantalizing prospects for the clever investor.

Infrastructure

Anyone thinking of buying property in the UK needs to look at London and recognize the importance the city plays in house prices throughout the country. Because of London’s limited size and limited number of houses, governments past and present have been trying to find a way of easing the burden on housing by encouraging more growth outside the city. One recent project that is possibly set to alter the housing landscape outside the capital is the proposed High Speed Rail Link (HSRL) that will connect the capital with the country’s second city, Birmingham. Birmingham is nestled in the West Midlands at the heart of the country, some 100 miles from the nation’s capital. However, with the introduction of the new rail link, Birmingham will be less than 50 minutes away from London, allowing far more freedom for London workers to move away from the city.

Currently, the average house prices in the West Midlands area is at an average of £176,576 ($277,330) but by 2025 when the rail link is fully operational, these prices could rocket, meaning any West Midlands property purchased now, could provide a worthwhile investment for the future. And it’s not just the West Midlands that will benefit. High speed rail links connecting Birmingham to Manchester in the North West, and Leeds even farther away could see dramatic increases in average property prices in these cities too, albeit it, perhaps not as extreme.

Housing Prices in China Stabilize

Marcus Assalone — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 01:40:07 +0000

The Chinese real estate experience in the past few years has been one of growth, increased growth and now, recently stabilized house prices. Here we give a history of those years.

Welcome to Shanghai, China, the financial capital of the country. It is also a hub for commerce, culture, industry and tourism. Shanghai is a major player in the international market and has the largest shipping container port in the world. A first time buyer looking for a home near Shanghai would not find one they could afford within an hour’s commute of the city. It is one of the most populated cities in the world, but here we can study in great detail the Chinese experience.

Previously, we spoke about China’s success in creating manufacturing capacity, and with it the creation of better jobs and increased wealth. The key to their success is that their currency, the Yuan (Renminbi) has been pegged artificially lower than its true market value, pegged to the U.S. Dollar. This creates a situation where Chinese goods look more attractive to U.S. consumers than domestically produced ones. Chinese factories get more orders, and have an opportunity to grow at the expense of U.S. producers. The market turmoil of 2008 was a symptom of the global economy slowly adapting to this great transfer of wealth from the United States to China. The realization that the U.S. has lost its greatest source of revenue, that is the discretionary spending of the now waning middle class.

This growth has fueled the Chinese economy, which naturally has caused corresponding increases in the value of real estate. China has become awash in money from investments, as well as income from their trade surplus.

In early 2009, world markets were coming to terms with failed banks like Lehman Brothers and government bailouts of corporations. General Motors, a former industrial powerhouse was one of many massive corporations that were of concern. Fears of what could happen under a cascade of failing enterprises touched everyone. Even China was not immune to the crisis. They injected over 500 Billon U.S. dollars into their economy in the form of stimulus, and lowered their benchmark interest rate in order to protect their economy, just like everyone else around the world. You had a robust manufacturing, low interest rates, abundant cash flow, great growth potential, and favourable exchange rate, everything was going China’s way, of course there would be tremendous growth! Economic growth that made its way to real estate prices too.

In 2009, the average home price in the largest cities of China increased 3.9% some of those cities saw 1% increases in a single month. By December of 2009 there was concern that owning property was becoming out of reach of ordinary Chinese people and there was a real fear that there could be a real estate bubble forming. The government soon created a new restriction on the buyers of second homes. Buyers would have to come up with a down payment of 30% for any home over 90 meters square and a 50% down payment for any home under 90 meters square. The ability to apply for a loan for a third home was suspended.

Government Corporations wanted to get in on the money that was being made in Chinese real estate. Companies totally unrelated to the industry began sprouting a real estate division and then developing residential complexes. Shipbuilders, oil companies, chemical companies, defense contractors, telecom companies, with no experience, with their huge cash reserves began bidding against each other for vacant land that wasn’t even in a highly demanded area. This poorly contrived system eventually resulted in the construction of homes that still are vacant, cities that are over built. In some cases the builder would build the residential and commercial buildings of a brand new city and also all the infrastructure like airports. These new cities had such a low population that businesses there would have no hope of developing a customer base to support the various enterprises. Thanks to these bidding wars, in 2010, the average home in China increased 10.3%

In January 2011 Shanghai, and Chongqing started charging a property tax to dissuade ownership in these heavily demanded cities. They also raised the benchmark interest rate three times. However, the one policy that I believe is the true cause of China finally being able to reduce the high growth has to do with their banks ability to lend money. They increased the amount of money the banks have to keep on hand out of total deposits. This policy reduces cash flow in the economy because it reduces the amount of loans the bank can issue. This one policy more than any other, in my opinion has finally slowed Chinese growth, but it does so at the expense of private enterprise. Banks must now keep 21.5% of all the money they receive from depositors on hand and cannot be used as a loan.

This begs the question: is the result worth the price? It may be that this policy hurts the Chinese economy. Many businesses require loans, loans that they could only get at private lenders with high interest rates (10% per month!) Once the owners realized they could not keep up the loan payments, they decided to close their business to escape these loan sharks.

The future for real estate in China: You will see very little to no growth while the restrictive bank policy exists, but the government can remove this at anytime, and we will have the booming, growing China back. The one thing that China has in its future is a growing middle class that will lead to a corresponding growth in the economy and also real estate. The government cannot legislate its way out of that. If they want to slow their growth I would float their currency a bit higher, not too much, and find a balancing act with a lower bank deposit rate. Slower cash flow will only impede regular Chinese people with their private enterprises that help the economy be more efficient. They need to let private enterprise prosper if they want to grow their middle class. Tight money does favour the government corporations, but that is not where the future of China is. It, like in all nations of the world rests in the hands of the middle class.