I was wondering if anyone had any experience of whether and how occupational pension schemes invest in property - be it commercial or residential, overseas or UK.

Also if institutional investors go for overseas property as part of their portfolio - if so, what do they look for?

Thanks in advance

Alistair

Just found this forum and was happy to see something on Cyprus. My backgound is that I am a British Cypriot!
Well thats what my parents said as I was born in Akrotiri (RAF) and saw the troubles there when I was 8 years old.

We are going for a week in Feb to look for houses and was wondering what west of Limmassol was like now. I understand what Cyprus can be like, nothing is ever the same as it is on holiday,or many years ago ( I have been to Cyprus since) but would like a permanent move. Seen some interesting houses in the area, via the web and so going to have a look. Looking to invest in health and sunshine. Can't take the UK weather anymore.

Any comments much appreciated.

Hi Britcyp,
I too am a Cypriot living here but considering a move back... to answer your questions I would start by saying that most of the coastal plots have been bought up by developers. If you want to live in or near a town, you're likely to pay the premium to a developer. You could try and buy land a little further out of town, or inland which would be cheaper and then employ a contractor to do the build.
West of Limassol, most of the towns are inland. Until you get to Paphos. You could try Pissouri or Kouklia but it's mainly hotels there, I think.
If you are retiring there, I would suggest going into the mountains a little. You'll get beautiful views and wake up to the smell of alpine! Agricultural plots are good because although you can only build on 10% of them, this puts off developers and you can still build a sizeable house on say 4,000 sq m of land.
I did some research for land on buysell's website -

http://www.buysellcyprus.com

- although I'd advise buying land directly from the locals!

Talk about hijacking a thread! I guess it was prolly accidental.

Anyway in response to the first poster. They don't tend to invest that much in property, those that do would generally do commercial/industrial UK property. Don't think any institutional investors really go for residential stuff. Not sure about what they would look for overseas but what that countries institutional investors look for would probably be more important.