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Direct inward investment by overseas property buyers is a fantastic source of income for any country in the world. Regions that are good at attracting the worlds real estate investors tend to benefit from increased tourism and investment to bolster their economies. My experience shows that increased regulation serves to put buyers off and punishing investment with taxation means that buyers will go elsewhere.

Trinidad & Tobago real estate was one of our most attractive international investment hotspots for people from the UK, Canada, and the US. I have seen in the last 18 months a complete reverse and now with the new property tax laws proposed 2010 seems to be more of the same.

The Trinidad government concerned with its Tobago land being purchased by overseas investors laid down new laws that restricted ownership. The global slowdown ensued and then crime levels rose making the beautiful Tobago one of the hardest places to sell to an international audience.

International real estate buyers  are allowed to buy up to one acre of property in Trinidad for residential use, as long as the transaction is paid for in an internationally traded currency, such as the United States dollars, said Nicole Ferreira-Aaron, a partner at M. Hamel-Smith & Co., a law firm based in Port of Spain. The same restrictions apply for leasehold properties. All foreign buyers must also give notice of their purchase with the Ministry of Finance. There is no special filing fee to do so, said Ms. Ferreira-Aaron; a buyer's lawyer handles the process.

Now owning a property in Trinidad and Tobago may be more expensive as the government seek to raise more revenue from increased property taxation. A new Property Tax Bill changes the basis on which taxes are levied on property from the annual rateable value (i.e. based on rates) to the annual rentable value.

Has the Trinidadian government shot itself in the foot for overseas property investment?  

Related Item

Fears for Trinidad & Tobago Real Estate Market

London prime real estate has severely bucked the global trend by continuous price rises throughout 2009 caused by international buyers and a lack of inventory. Investors seeking to benefit from this in my opinion need to tread very carefully. 

It seems that London housing is now bottoming out while London's occupational market is still very much struggling will serve only to bash consumer confidence.

I also feel also that with many sellers sitting on thier hands in 2009 London will see more properties for sale in London reducing the reason for the increase. International propertyinvestors may also feel that after sustained property price rises in 2009 London may no longer be palace to pick up a bargain.

As in all cases but in particular with Londons housing market past performance makes no guarantees for 2010  

Buying off plan or pre construction real estate has huge investment benefits, investors will pay way below market value for a property that is in the planning stage. It also can offer consumers a gradual payment plan that will see the purchase of a brand new property over a few years. Developers use investors the money to finance the build and to put in early profits into the projects. On the face of it its a win win situation however the amount of companies that have gone into administration has put international investors off this type of investment.

I believe off plan property is still viable investment if you tread carefully and secure vital information that you can verify.

Here are 15 questions you need to ask a property developer

1. What guarantees do I have that the developer for this new property will not go into administration
2. Will my deposit be placed in an Escrow account?
3. Tell me about the building company, what work have they done in the past?
4. Has the builder secured planning permission and local permissions for the project?
5. Are there any legal safeguards for investors in the case of non-completion or poor construction work by the developer?
6. If I decided to sell before completion of the project, would that be possible and would I be penalized in anyway?
7. How easy is it to buy and sell property in this country?
8. What if I decide to sell the property before completion?
9. Are there any other fees while the project is being built and what about after completion?
10. What do you anticipate the rental income to be once the facility opens based on current rates at similar properties?
11. What is the payment schedule?
12. What happens if the building is delayed?
13. What is the rental yield I can expect?
14. What are the tax and inheritance implications?
15. What is the buying process in this country?

 In all investments there is a level of risk the more risk the higher returns it is good to get a payment schedule that is linked to a developments progress this will help reduce risk.

When it comes to making a good decision it seems Simon Cowell knows it all. He is said  to be one of the most powerful men in the media and if he continues at his present rate he will rival even Oprah.

Simon Cowell loves Barbados(who would not) and so do lots of other super wealthy high profile celebrities but I wonder how many have provided a huge deposit on an off plan or pre construction property worth $30million (£18M). The huge deposit was for a luxury real estate development called Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residence.

Unfortunately work stopped on the project in February and there is no sign of work restarting imminently. Scaffolding stands rusting on the construction site of unfinished roofs and unglazed windows of the beach-front homes that have been earmarked for the super rich.

So concerned that the project might fail the Bajan PM Thompson is understood to have held meetings with frustrated investors in the scheme on a recent official visit to London, where he attended the World Travel Market trade fair. He tried to assure them that one of the largest development projects in Barbados is not in danger of collapse

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The Florida housing market is of particular interest to overseas property observers like me as it remains one of the most popular places where people would like to buy a second home.

I watched from the UK how the Florida housing market collapsed. We saw Florida home owners who were not in financial difficulty suddenly become competitors in the housing market with banks. This happened when banks offered foreclosed homes at extremely low prices, Florida home owners could not compete. Our website featured homes being offered to our international audience at vastly different prices.

Bank owned 3 bed family homes with a pool for half price. The solvent home owner had no choice but to default even though they could afford their mortgage payments. 

Florida home owners thought "why am I paying a mortgage of X when clearly my property is now only worth X amount"  This for an international observer felt like the housing market crash was not only started by the banks for the reasons we all know but also fuelled by the banks in more ways than one. 

Now a repeat of the situation is about to happen in Spain where the vast majority of property is now bank owned. Spain is one of the most popular places to buy a second home for people from the UK. We now have home owners trying to sell whilst the banks are offering similar properties at 50% lower prices and we know the banks will win.   

Do you ever wonder as a real estate agent professional why your website fails to rank? or why all the effort you put into promoting your real estate fails? Well I am going to suggest that it could be the plague that is eating away at your website . This plague could well end up with you running a dead website one that has been lost in the search engine results pages.  

Hi I am Nicholas Marr CEO of a Global Property Marketing Compnay and I am behind several successful real estate websites all aimed at international audiences, one has been ranked in the Global Top 20 Portals in the world (www.Homesgofast.com) . We have achieved this without huge budgets but with one thought to anything we do "Content is King" 

The plague that I refer to is very hard to avoid in the real estate industry. It is duplicated content!

It always surprises me to see how real estate website owners under estimate the danger that exists by promoting duplicated content. Some are blissfully unaware that the Google axe may fall on their website without warning.  

A Confession

A number of years I experimented with creating websites from the same content from another of my websites. The success was overnight with our main websites highly ranked alongside another websites that contained duplicated data. The high lasted for about 2 years until Google's axe fell down and penalized the websites severely. All page ranking was lost and the algorithm that I had ignored comes to pass.

 So what is duplicated Content?

Duplicate content refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely matches other content or is appreciably similar. Google says that duplicated content is where it is deliberately duplicated across domains is an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Search engines believe that practices like this result in a poor user experience as users sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results.

Playing with Fire!

This danger cannot be under estimated and today many portals are playing with fire by being unaware of duplicating content. Google does a good job of blocking this type of content and selecting the original source to show in the search results.

Are You Treading the Dangerous Line With Duplicated Data?

Carrying substantive blocks of content that is duplicated is an easy thing to do. Property portals by there very nature promote property details on behalf of someone else i.e. real estate agents. The agent's property listing details would probably already be indexed by Google from an agent's website. Soon as the portal promotes that listing they are instantly promoting duplicated content. Syndicated content that is displayed on multiple websites also risks being blocked and property feed data is particularly vulnerable to being blocked.

The Danger Lurks in Mergers and Acquisitions

Running two websites as I learned with the same content is clearly another way to get one of the sites dropped. This is a huge risk when for example consolidation occurs and the merger takes over a competitor website. All may seem well for a while but as the spiders get to grips with the two websites one will be dropped like a stone as soon as duplicated content is confirmed. Competitors may also report duplicated content.

 Danger of Websites that Scrape Your Data

If you find that another site is duplicating your content by scraping (misappropriating and republishing) it, it's unlikely that this will negatively impact your site's ranking in Google search results pages. If you do spot a case that's particularly frustrating, you are entitled to claim ownership of the content and request removal of the other site from Google's index.

Are Google Warning Shots Being Fired?

Real estate websites with large amount of content such as MLS that have not been indexed should see this as their first warning sign that all may not be well. Its may be time to put in the remedies and stop dicing with the dangers of duplicated content.

Nicholas Marr

Nicholas Marr is the CEO of Marr Internationala global property marketing company behind overseas property portal at www.Homesgofast.com and UK private sales website www.TheLittleHouseCompany.co.uk

A poll of 1100 international property investors has resulted in the US coming in third place for investment in 2010.

Brazil is on every international real estate investor's lips right now. The Olympic effect has seen investment from all over the world and entry into this market is easier with low property prices. France is not a surprise as it's a firm favourite with UK buyers with a huge variety of property and importantly a relatively stable housing market. The USA property market is offering armchair investors superb investments, as an example we're promoting 3 bed houses which include paying tenants for $20,000. Florida is a buyer's paradise with brand new luxury homes going for the price of a cramped studio apartment in the UK. Recent news from the region indicates that Florida prices have bottomed out and the only way for prices to go is up.   

Overseas property investors will read with interest the results of a survey conducted by the International real estate website Homesgofast.com. The survey results include some surprising omissions and put Brazil, France and the USA as the top places to invest in 2010   The prediction comes after 1100 overseas property investors were asked to compile there top ten places to buy abroad in 2010. The respondents were asked to take into consideration the following factors in deciding their top places to invest in 2010   These factors were: 

• Housing market entry prices
• Potential capital growth
• Types of property available
• Ease of purchase for international buyers
• Stability in the region
• Accessibility by international travellers
• The attitude of government towards overseas buyers

The survey results show that Investment Property in Brazil. France and The US showed the most potential for 2010 with Brazil coming in first place. The top ten regions produced some surprise omissions. Despite an abundance of distressed property available in Spain  investors did not place the region in the top ten. Another region that would have been previously featured was Dubai which also failed to make the rankings. Thailand had also failed to make the list this year with investors it seems put off by political instability. New kids on the block for investment potential were Malaysia, South Africa and Abu Dhabi.   The top ten rankings look like this:  

Homesgofast.com Top Ten Places To Invest In 2010  

1. Brazil
2. France
3. USA
4. Egypt
5. Turkey
6. Greek Islands 
7. Australia 
8. Malaysia 
9. South Africa
10. Abu Dhabi