Hi Folks,

Bought an apt in AP2 18 months ago and recieved the following completion date list during the week, it might be useful to some!!
COMPLETION DATES:

- AP6 APARTMENTS: MARCH 2007.
- AP4 APARTMENTS: JUNE 2007.
- AP2 APARTMENTS: DECEMBER 2007.
- AP5 APARTMENTS: SUMMER 2008.
- RT1 MAGNUM: SEPTEMBER 2007.
- V1 VILLAS: JUNE 2007.
- V2 VILLAS: MARCH 2007.
- V3 VILLAS: SEPTEMBER 2008.

I deliberately went for a property that completes towards the end of the build, however for those completing early on (as above) I would'nt pannic.
Many B2L investors in the UK market buy to hold, they dont bother even letting out.
Patience will pay - off. This is a unique development and I feel rentals will be as good as they get with vacation property once the site is established.

Keep in mind that people have always invested where there is no yield, for example gold, paintings, second homes.

I assume you early guys got in when prices were very low so this should help make up for the fact no yield will be present for the next 3 years.

Hi!
It is with great interest I have read through most of the 37 pages in this thread, and I can’t believe people actually believe that the North Morocco will be a great tourist attraction!
I am from North Morocco but I live in a Nordic country and have with interest followed the hype of resorts in my country lately. I have been many times in Saidia, Oujda, Tangier, Tetouan and all the other major cities in North Morocco and let me tell you this. Have anyone of you who already have bought in Morocco actually talked with some locals? Or been there in holiday season and out of the season too? People who like to compare Saidia with Spain 30 years ago, forget to realise that there are some fundamental differences.
1) Spain became a member of the EU
2) Had a completely different government (corrupt yes, but not in the same magnitude as in Morocco, last summer while in Saidia I didn’t pay one single fine even thought I got stopped more than 3 times for speeding. I just paid 3£ to the police and they let me go and that’s the normal procedure in North Morocco. Its starts with the police and up too the highest level of authority.

That’s just to name some few very important aspects.

Forget that North Morocco will ever be that tourist Mecca sale people are trying to convince you to believe, it will not at least not within the next 50 years or so. North Morocco will not change just because of some tourist resorts. What North Morocco really need are political and educational reforms and industry.
All the Hype of tourist resorts in North Morocco, forget it. The bubble will burst as it is only a matter of time.
And the prices? Why buy, when I can build the exact same villa as seen in the pictures for 1/5 th of the price 10-20 km further to the east or south.

so do you think there are any parts of morroco that are a good investment? are you saying that there will never be any capital growth at all.Are you also saying that tourists will not be coming to morrco.I would certainly disagree with you there.If you look on the internet there are far more holiday options for morroco then there was this time last year

My post was intended for North Morocco in general and specially Saidia. Other parts of Morocco are very attractive to invest in because of many toursit attraction like Beautiful nature and historical sites. Another important aspect is that there are a tourist friendly middle class and upper class.

What should we understand? That the government and people in NOrth Morocco are corrupt and the people in South Morocco are not corrupt?
Morocco will be a tourist attraction in its entirety or will not be a touristic attraction at all.

Understand what you want I don’t care, but don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that the authority in South Morocco is not corrupt. I warned people who don’t know anything about North Morocco against sales people who try to sell them overpriced houses.
There is a big difference between North, central and South Morocco. People in some areas of North Morocco don’t even speak the same language as in the central part of the country. You obviously know nothing about the history of Morocco. Have you been in Morocco at all? Or are you one of those sales persons who get DVDs from friends?
Edit:
Just because a part of a country is attractive for tourists doesn’t mean the rest of the country is. I bet you wouldn’t see many tourist in East Turkey, in the Kurdish regions just because there a lot of tourist in other parts of turkey. It will not be attractive even if they built luxurious resorts in the eastern parts because of the lack of infrastructure and Kurdish separatists.

Hi fimsi, i'd be interested to hear your views on these items:

1. Fadesa is building a hotel school near Saidia to train many local residents that will no doubt be needed for the several upscale hotels being built in Saidia

2. Do you think Ryan Air and EasyJet would commit to the government to fly into Saidia and other points across Morocco if they didn't believe in the tourist potential and their bottom line?

3. Did you know that a Spanish developer at Saidia has nearly sold out their first release to eager Spaniards who see the potential of Saidia and northern Morocco

4. I see reports of new deals being struck between the government and different industries to bring inward investment and new plants/operations into Morocco -- positive or negative?

5. Have you seen the published tourist arrival statistics from the Moroccan Tourism Ministre on the increasing tourist arrivals over the past 5 years? (or are they also corrupt?)

I was stopped 3 times, got one ticket and parted with £5. You were done!

But seriously, I think your views of Northern Morocco are very negative. Nobody is saying that Saidia will become a cultural holiday destination. It will be a self contained resort with almost everything that most holiday makers want on site. Its climate is more appealing than all but the Southern Atlantic coast and the flight time is shorter. I haven’t heard anyone that has been to Saidia under their own steam say anything bad about the place, other than BigLog and yourself.

I don't agree with your comment about building similar for 20% of the price, but take your point that price is considerably higher than build cost. (Profits need made and we are funding improvements to infrastructure etc.) What we get in return for the premium is tremendous onsite amenity for holiday makers, business visitors and management of our properties.

1 What does that prove? That only proves that Fadesa believes in Saidia and have big planes for Saidia, but Saidia will still be a ghost town 10 months a year because there will still not be a basis for a tourist destination. Many reasons for this including not big enough local middle class that will rent the apartments and therefore low activity in the resort out off season which will make Saidia look like a ghost town 10 months a year.

2 I will see Ryan Air and other airlines with routes to Oujda before I believe it. Ryan air has talked about possible routes to Oujda because of the facts resort sales people have made them believe. When the final time come and they make some serious market analysis, they may decide other ways as Saidia alone will not make it rentable for Ryan air to have a route to Oujda all year around, maybe and only maybe for max 2 months a year.

3 Lol sorry I laugh but that’s a typical sales argument and the second phase is also almost sold out and I may be lucky if I hurry, right? And if it was true, that doesn’t prove anything else that a lot of Spaniards believed the sales people or are trying to make some easy money. It will still not change the fact that Saidia will not be the hype some sales people are trying to make it too. Don’t get me wrong though, Saidia is a nice place to be in nice weather almost all year around and it will definite be a nice place to have a summer residence as it isn’t that hot in Saidia as it i.e. is in Oujda (I cant be out in the sun most of the day in Oujda while Saidia is very nice because its very close to the sea)
The prices are too high. All that hype about renting out and people will kill to buy in 2 years from now etc etc is rubbish.

4 Those plans are for Tangier area the King has an ambitious and yet realistic plan to make Tangier as Morocco’s 2nd biggest commercial port and a free tax industry zone to attract European manufactures who plans to outsource. That will it becomes a success make Tangier as an attractive resort area but I will see the plans come to life before I my self will invest there. I have actually looked after some potentially agricultural land in the Tangier area last summer because if Morocco manages to attract European businesses that area even as far as 30 km from the centre of Tangier will become very attractive. I didn’t find anything of interest because it was too expensive. You will find that a lot of lands in North Morocco are way to expensive compared to the average salary in that area, because a lot of hash dealers buy all the land they can get their hands on for money laundering.

5 Well that numbers do not tell the exact truth, you see many Moroccans who lives abroad are counted in the statistics, me included and you will notice (ask the Belgians they will tell you ) that Moroccans do get a lot of children and they are also counted for in the statistics plus still many Moroccans either get married out of Morocco or high educated ones are hired by western countries, when they visit Morocco in their holydays they are counted for as “tourists” so Morocco’s “tourist” number are very high and are higher each year. But of course there are western toursits in Morocco and the number is higher each year, but thats not North Morocco, and a Teorrist attack will quickly change that, as it did some years ago, the police actually killed to teorrists in Casablanca today, one manage to blow him self up first but never the less.
Morocco’s Economy benefits a lot from its citizens living abroad I think 20 billion $ last year, but these are not these kind of “2nd degree” “tourists” that the resorts are built for actually I think we aren’t even allowed to purchase anything in the resorts built in Saidia (correct me if I am wrong). There are actually some tourist areas in Morocco where Moroccans like me are not allowed to enter, only as a waiter or toilet cleaner of course. Imagine if that happened in UK .

To sum some things up, Saidia and the rest of North Morocco are not ready for tourism, not at all. Saidia can be a nice place to visit, yes and the weather is nice and the same are the people. Very friendly and you don’t meet any hostility towards westerners, even my grand fathers generation who fought against the Spanish occupations and saw a lot of there relatives killed by Spanish soldiers. That said I don’t believe in Saidia or any other part of North Morocco as a tourist destination at least not yet. It is a fine place to have a summer resident even though the area is not tourist mature yet, but the prices should have reflected that, instead the sales people have compared it to prices in Spain and made people believe it’s cheap, which it isn’t as you can’t compare Spain to North Morocco. Just cross the border between Melilla and Nador in North Morocco and you will get a first hand impression of what I mean. There is a world of differences.

Fimsi I welcome your alternative perspective, its no fun when we all agree with each other!

Here's the bottom line:

We wanted a villa as an investment and for personal use.

First choice was the quiet part of South East Menorca. £400000 would have got us a 3 bed villa with pool 200 m from the rocky shore.
No real beaches in the area, just small very crowded strips of sand. A few ok restaurants here and there.
No golf course - so rentals off season would be pretty much non - existant.


Saidia:

For less than 1/2 the price of Menorca we get a similar villa, however this time there is a massive beach on site.

Golf - to support rentals we get 3 on - site golf courses.

Marina - for the wow factor and pure pleasure of watching the boats.

Management - unlike Menorca we get dedicated on - site management and rental provision so its less hassle.

Facilities - another draw is the level and amount of leisure facilities which I think will draw people out of season in a way that the menorca property just wont.
Indeed the water parks in Menorca are crawling with chavs, and located in very depressing looking areas full of industry and cheap chinese take aways.

IN A NUTSHELL SAIDIA OFFERS AN ALL ENCOMPASING QUALITY EXPERIENCE WHICH IS PRETTY MUCH A ONE OF A KIND.


BTW - A well known UK motoring journalist on the radio reported he had to pay French Police 2 bribes.

Some of the worlds most prestigous tourism accomodation was built in poverty stricken Carribean islands. On eminute your in a 7* hotel the next in a back alley full of dead dogs.

Indeed I am very informed when it comes to a new island destination called Great Exuma. Beleive me when I went 3 years ago the place was extreme poverty, no facilities nothing, yet even by that time beach fronmt properties were changing hands for millions.

Remember there is a lot of money in S Spain and some of that will quite happily relocate to Morocco where there is less er Government intervention into Tax affairs etc etc

Worrying to see suicide bomb attacks in Morocco - tourists and tourist complexes would be obvious targets.

http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/1172.htm

Dogbox has a very good point on the development of remote areas where previously there was no development at all.

For instance Cancun, Mexico. While it has now become a bit of an overbuilt horror due to completely unrestrained planning, it was built up from absolutely nothing. It was completely inaccessable with neither motorway nor serious international airport. Culturally, the Yucatans were peasants, with a multitude of Mayan dialects being spoken.

Within 10 years, the Mexican government put a complete infrastructure in place and now it is a thriving tourist destination. Granted, it has its fair share of cultural attractions within an hours drive but many of the visitors never even go to see these - they are simply there for the beach. From a corruption perspective, I have seen far worse corruption in the Yucatan than I have ever seen in Morocco and I have traveled independently overland land and by boat in both.

From an investment perspective, Cancun would have been a fantastic buy when it was at the stage that Saidia is now. The tourist industry has learnt a lot of lessons on overbuilding so hopefully we won't see the same level of overbuilding on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco that has occurred Cancun and the Southern coast of Spain.

Cancun also had the North American tourist market on its doorstep. Morocco has, er, Algeria.

And Morocco has Europe.

It's just as well, cos that's all you've got so far. Maybe we should all be looking to buy in Greenland next.

Saidia is fool's gold. 12 months on there is no tunnel, no Ryanair flights, no golf courses. There's no Brad Pitt, Jude Law and no sighting of the Beckhams.
Why won't you guys acknowledge that there is a risk involved investing in an arab third world country?
Buy a villa for 180k and rent it out for £4,000 per week? It just doesn't happen, no matter how glossy the brochure.
If you've bought in Saidia it is a punt, and a leveraged punt at that.

The tunnel is irrelevant and formed no part of my decsion process. If it comes its just icing on the cake.

No golf courses - c'mon Myutley I'd expect better from you. Golf courses dont sping up overnight. This resort is sheduled to be fully operational 2010/11, so no point having the golf infrastructure built until nearer the time, afterall the builders and thier lorries would have less space to operate in were there to be pristine fairways in place this early.

Low cost flights will come but again not until the resort is pretty much finished although I do hear the flights may begin sooner.

Rent - I merely pointed out in the past that we always use villas and it is very common to find modest villas attracting rentals of £4000 per week in the high season. A typical smallish villa in SE Menorca will set you back about £1500 per week (cheaper in the chavvy bit) and thats not in a beach and golf resort.
Tourists will pay high prices for the Saidia experience without doubt. Little racist Englanders may distinguish between Arab and Spannish property, but in the fullness of time most people wont make the destinction when it comes to booking a holiday.

In my case Id settle for an annual income of £12000 (7% yield) but I suspect it will be greater once the resort is in full swing.
There is a strong case for the rents be a good deal higher than this for the LJDF villas, in a few years we can report back.

My motivation to invest here was underpinned by the massive amount of leisure facilities being offered which unlike most other prospects will have a capacity to extend the season perhaps even to a year round result.
There is nothing else like thios resort out there, and in my book UNIQUENESS COUNTS.

THE GOOD OLD 'RISK/REWARD' BALANCE.

Marge, every investment carries a downside. If I invest in Spain on a golf and beach resort Id need to spend 4 x more, would have missed 'the easy money', and would be up against masses of competition for rent and resales. To my mind this is'nt investing, its money storage.

If I invest in Portugals Silver coast I have the prospect of cold wet winters and no resort to compare with Saidia on the facility front.

I do invest in all sorts of assets and each has a downside. I even invest in good old British property although much less so now as the risk of a poor return is too great now.

The downside of Morocco is increased terrorist risk. The plus side is I get to pay 4 x less than I would for a COMPARABLE resort in Spain (in fact there is no comparable in terms of facilities and offering), and the prospect of the longest season this close to the UK thanks to the weather and vast facility range.

As Ive always said we must accept this risk.

DOES ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT A BRIT FIRM CALLED 'PROLAN' WHO ARE SEEKING PARTNERS FOR A MOROCCAN DEVELOPMENT?

Minimal knowledge I'm afraid. They are a new outfit that require both investor and bank funding. Potential reward for investors is higher than buying off-plan, but so too is the risk. (New to property development, new to Morocco, don't have deep pockets - though can buy the land.)

Tried going on their site (www.prolan-invest.com) to check above was accurate and find out more, but didn't have any joy.

Hello !!

My name is Rumen I am Bulgarian citizen and I am working as a construction supervisor. If you have any questions about Bulgarian building process or you need an agent who can assist you in purchasing any type of property, construction, remodeling or someone protecting your personal or business interests I would love to help. At that moment I am helping a UK lady building her house near the town of Pleven situated in the north part of Bulgaria.

You can contact me at rumen_peichev@abv.bg
http://bulgarian-way-home.free.bg/index.html

Regards, Rumen Peichev
Pleven, Bulgaria

Are you claiming that Pleven is as exotic as MOrocco??

Any views on this please;

I note a couple of Hibiscus villas back on market for £240,000, similar plot size to mine, on the inner ring of VVT8.

If anyone is able to, let me know if these places sell for a figure near to this.

Dogbox. you should contact thes lady called Popcorn. She runs the owners group and has her ear to the ground so to speak.

An invaluable source of information!

secamp@tiscali.co.uk (hope thes is ok to post??)

This site was very busy and now seems to have died, where have you all gone?

I dont know about everyone else but im just getting bored of waiting - the off plan idea always seemed attractive purely because of the capital appreciation while the resort is being built but now its obvious there isnt much (if any) appreciation and essentially we've had 4 years to wait from when we first purchased !4 YEARS!
still - only 2 years to go before we can go on holiday eh!

agtisch where did you buy? was it Saidia?

How did you guess! HA!

Surely there is a getout clause if they take longer than they say, oh hang on that was only if the problems are beyond their control, they always are

Saidia was over priced from the start, however the price of other resorts seems to have caught up

Royal Sports Moroc
3 bed villa £265,000
4 bed villa £317,000
5 bed villa £348,000

Al Houara
3 bed penthouse £410,000
villas from £1000,000

Tanjah
Penthouses have just gone up by £52,000 and are selling for £176,000

Tinja
? (anyone know yet)

People had the wake up call and came to their senses.

......or possibly the arguments have been done to death!

I suspect we have a group that has bought (includes me) who have nothing to add these days, building is starting and not much will happen now until early 2009 except the odd scare about building quality, plagues of locusts and terrorist threats blah blah.

Another group that did not buy but will keep an eye on things and maybe buy when the resort is more established. These more nervous types will ask questions periodically.

and the lastgroup who never buy anything anywhere ever and keep finding reasons not too buy. This is fair enough of course as this is housepricecrash.co.uk. They will turnup for a quick gloat on a piece of bad news and disappear if any positive news enters the discussion.

It was ever thus and what makes this forum so useful helping build an informed decsion.

I'm with Euroscooby, the arguments are well trodden so now we wait.

I feel more confident now than at any time as a result of more recent holidays which bought into sharp focus the value of Saidia in terms of end user experience.

We got talking to some Brits in Sardinia last week and they (without any prompting) were saying how difficult it is to find a QUALITY holiday that both adults and children can enjoy. One couple said they had tried the Forte village in Sardinia but it was'nt up to much.

There is a huge a pretty much unmet demand for large facility laden beach resorts. Considering Saidia has vastly more to offer in terms of on site facilities than the nrom, and throw in the fact it has the largest marina in the Med and a 6km beach plus multiple on site 4 and 5 star hotels and that this is the King of Moroccos baby (he was there for 2 weeks in August checking up on everything) the only rational conclusion is that the invest is good.

I think us property owners will face a wall of rental demand which may even come from large tour operators wanting to rent the properties from us. Saidias just dont come up very often.

AND AS FOR 'FOREIGN PROPERTY IS OVERDONE', NONSENSE;

I have experience recenlty of both Menorca and Sardinia and I can report that the nice beach areas are crammed chock full with people. There simply is'nt enough to go round. Add in Saidia style facilities marina and golf courses and the demand is even greater.
Morocco wont be overdone for at least 20 years.

There are enough ignorant people in the world. Well informed people will always know where to go in holidays.

Who is going to take there kids to a Saidia next to Algeria, I wouldnt.

Quite literally 'jesus christ!' - that is such a narrow minded view of the world.
Have you seen where cyprus is to palestine/israel? property there is booming.
I could go on to mention many around the world - but quite simply this is why we have borders.
The fact its near algeria is irelevant.

There were big reservations over the safety of the airlines flying the new routes into Oujda airport. It ended up with the King having to persuade them to fly in.

Also there is a bit of water between cyprus and palestine/israel

Blimey that does come across quite narrow minded. Not sure anywhere in the world is 'safe'. Certainly the UK is not.

So if you were to go abroad where would you take kids?

euroscooby

WAKE UP

That is a lazy reply Jesus of nazareth.

I know.

Lets move on to more interesting things. Have you seen the Tinja site map.

http://www.emaar.com/morocco/

Where is the marina?

My wife is from Morocco, and is actually from that region (Oujda).

I have mentioned countless times what is being said on here, and she is NO Neg-head.

She knows Moroccan mentality better than anyone on here.

I've been to Saidia (taking the kids), would I go there again ?? Not if I didn't have to.

Saidia’s location is poor in that respect (near border with Algeria.) It will make the resort an easy target. However, I wouldn’t expect there to be anything like the trouble that some would have us believe and you have to balance out that negative with the fact that this is the only Plan Azzur development on the Med (less windy than Atlantic and little Johnny is less likely to be swept out to sea.)

I’m just back from a visit to Marrakesh and Essaouri, but it was of limited use due to being ill. I’ve previously said how everybody I knew that had been to Essaouri loved it. It is easy to see why. Situation isn’t as dramatic as that of Port Lixus or as pretty as some other developments, but it would still be my pick of the Atlantic Coast Plan Azzur resorts – both to holiday and invest in.

BigLog. Your experience of holidaying in Saidia town, when the neighbouring Med Saidia resort is just a building site, is hardly reflective of what tourists are likely to experience when the resort is complete. You know this yet you throw out that same ill made comment periodically.

Mediterranea Saidia is not the same as Saidia. This has been explained many times before and isn't that difficult to understand. Saidia is a Moroccan seaside town (currently being done up - and I quite liked it as it was, though admittedly my visit was short). Mediterranea Saidia will be a mega tourist resort.

No-one, not even you Big Log, has been there. It isn't built yet. Those of us who have visited have seen a building site.
Why are you so intent on denigrating it all the time?!!!

I'm denigrating Dogbox's claims.

If NO ONE has been there (as it is still a building site), Dogbox should stop making illogical comparisons with places that do exist. He should also stop this Ramping.

I agree comparisons are difficult, however just because something is difficult that does'nt mean we should have a stab.

My comparisons seek to tease out the difference in end user experience as it is this and this alone that will count.

We all compare every day - restaurants, films, cars, computers, TV Channels, Banks and yes holidays.

It is facile to suggest comparisons have no place on a property discussion forum.


Your wife does not have a monopoly on evidence. Simply living near to a site does not give her any more or less insight than others have.

surely biglog is missing the whoel point of off plan buying?!? if it was finished and we knew what it looked like the prices would be alot higher! We have decided to trust the artists impressions/scale model etc and go for it. I HAVE been and if the rest of the resort looks like AP4&6 which ARE finished then its gonna be great!

Agtisch. Haven't heard anyone rave about AP4 or AP6 before. Must admit, part of me is wandering if you are pulling our legs! I didn't see anything wrong with the Fadesa apartments when I was there. Sure they are more closely packed than on the RT plots, but even within AP4 and AP6 there are buildings that are further removed from others with pleasant pool views etc. Many top floor flats have golf and sea views and while the exterior is perhaps a little bland, I've heard on the forums that they are being tarted up with Moroccan touches.

I ment that AP4&6 are among the 'cheapest' of what is on offer on the resort and to me they look great so all the other (more expensive) properties you mention should be even better!