BigMike

It was only the other day I was considering the plunge into Properties in Abu Dhabi. Its hard to see if they aren't just trying to milk the money out of investors over there tho. Its definatly worth a few good ours of research in my opinion, I mean some states in the UAE are doing better than others market wise, but they all generally perform better than here right now. If I wore allready an overseas investor my eyes would be pointing in that direction. I don't however blame the intentions of democracy and governance... i blame poor implimentation and imcompetance of our democracy and governance. I beleive it was our government that allowed the country to accumulate debt and borrow more money that we could handle.

My advice is dn't have 50k sitting around in a bank at all. Why would you need quick access to 50k. I'd grab one of the bargains going round right now as all the first time buyers are out of the bidding. Then get renting, you may find your money quickly working for you. I've do however use both Halifax and Nationwide for my Business accounts and would vouch for either of them.

My theory is that our slightly obscure desire to live in houses rather than flats in UK, which in turn requires more land, as there is less land readily available its demand is relatively higher, and hense the price of buying it is greater...This is one influence on house pricing. Also if many people want to own homes, rather than rent them... more flats would be built, which is generally more economical that a country crammed to the brim with 3-4 bedroom housing, so the economy would strengthen and the housing would become cheaper here. I also think that because our our banks allowed so much borrowing the housing industry had been enjoying large chunks of it. ever since labour took power, my old man, a property developer, has been making more money each year. Luckily for him he invested into rentals so he's avoiding this recent flop now and retiring. Because of the fall in house prices we can pick up around a 15% return from letting refurbed houses out.

I think there is often a problem caused when a letting agency deals with the tennants and the landlord with the property. Last year I had endless problems with the way my tennacy was handled in my final year of uni aswell... :angry: Basically it was all down to the LL and agency not comunicating. After 1 whole year of living their I finally graduating without ever meeting the LL once. One way to avoid any misunderstanding is to ensure that you do a though itinery of the property just before moving in...they should be doing this anyway wether its furnished or not.

Hi all, been lurking around for a while, been in the property rental business for a few years now and am interested in getting into some offshore rentals. I'm sure its gona be a new learning curve for me.