Club services -  Overseas finding services

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This page explains both the H3 (USA and Canada) and F2 (Europe plus other areas) finding services.

Click here to go directly to the H3 USA Finding Service description (on its own page).

See also overseas handholding service H4, not covered o this page.

Introduction

Many of you will have dreamt of your own place in the sun, a retreat and investment. In the same way that property varies in price within the UK, it also does within each other country and between countries.  Some markets are well developed, some have a great deal of building going on so prices have been kept down, others have so much land that older properties are often just left to fall down and new ones built when needed.

We have three services that may be able to help you

• F2 - Overseas finding service
• H3 - A really spectacular service that finds property within the USA, for holidays or investments.
• H4 - overseas handholding service, not covered on this page.

So what sort of bargains can we find

The H3 service shows the most spectacular finds, be it a search on a budget or for luxury at a realistic price. For example on one recent search in December 2003, at a major tourist location in the USA the brief was to find a number of budget properties that could be used for holiday rentals. You will know that holiday homes rented out in the USA are popular and vary from £300 to over £2000 a week. So what was found, a great deal, some at exceptionally low prices. The lowest cost 3 bedroom detached home, that was sound, just requiring a little updating and decorating was $3,500 or £2,000. The best buy on this trip was a recently done up detached 4 bedroom house with garage bought for $8,000, which is under £5,000.

In Florida, as you will have seen on TV, people regularly spend £150,000, but the H3 service found a property on a complex, with use of pool and more for just $5,000. 

This service searches out the best deals, and many don't come through normal channels but come by identifying properties repossessed by banks and finance companies, where often they will take a much lower offer to get it off their hands. 

With the USA being many times the size of Europe, with different climates, interests and property styles, a safe place to own property and probably most peoples ultimate holiday home goal, this would be the best place to look when you are ready to invest outside the UK, unless you have a serious reason why you want to look elsewhere. 

The rest of this page covers the F2 service, while if its the USA that is of interest you can jump directly to the H3 service page by clicking here.

F2 - Overseas finding service

Renovation fortunes

On the TV series ' A Place in the Sun' many renovation projects have been shown often producing by our standards very large returns. For example a property in France involving a large mill building, and a number of other buildings, houses etc on the banks of a picturesque river was for sale for £55,000 but requiring quite a  bit of work.  The programme got a quote from a local builder for quite extensive work across all 4 floors on the mill to make it a magnificent property, it would cost about £90,000, but when they then went and sought the valuation it would then become worth, at local estate agents, they discovered, the mill alone would be worth over £500,000, with other buildings still to improve.

Over recent years we have come across many opportunities that would produce similar returns. In many cases, particularly in some of the nicest areas in France there can be up to 70% grants towards improvements.

These situations however are never as clear cut opportunities as they first appear, they are in another country, where you and I have less ability in dealing with local officials, planning rules may vary, time scales will often slip drastically, and costs may go up. In most cases we are dealing at a great distance with people often for whom English is not their first language, and who may assume we understand more about the way things work in their country than we do. It is therefore essential that we know the basics, know what questions to ask and that we define in witting in absolute detail all that has been agreed and every assumption we have made.

Given this and our enthusiasm to search for and find these gems and then put up with the different methods necessary to complete it, opportunities are available that far outweigh what can be routinely achieved in the UK. 

Capital appreciation

Property has been increasing and continues to increase in value. In many areas it is not very difficult to see which properties will increase most, as often it is the location with views that are now becoming difficult to find, as more land has been used. At other times it can be because new transport links have made the area more accessible or as a spin off  due to the increased popularity, as when a new facility or high priced area is developed nearby. In many cases the secret to identifying these is like the UK in detailed research and constantly keeping an eye on what is happening.

Finding properties for sale, like the UK is of course very easy, there are very large numbers of developers and agents who can each show you the bargain of the day. However comparing these and assessing what the future holds for each can be more difficult, unless you have a more detailed idea of the area and a large number of other contacts in order to check information that you are given.

Income potential

You also need to know not only what the letting potential of these properties are now but what it will be like as development continues. Unlike the UK, there is not a limit to the same extent as to what can be built in many areas. 

Within the UK many first think of properties in sunny places as holiday lets, however while this is a valid option, you also have many retired people looking for an economic and pleasant home, people working there and longer term lets to companies, some who may themselves be involved in holiday letting.

Currencies

As you will discover quickly, if you have not done so already, the banks are rather greedy as to the amount they will take for converting  money from one currency to another and even greedier about charges for cashing cheques drawn in other countries. Many UK businesses have discovered that you cannot take small payments that are processed through banks for lower priced items like books, as the charges exceed the value of the payments.

While moving  a deposit from the UK to cover an overseas purchase may not be able to be avoided, you may be able to avoid the main payments by taking a mortgage in the local currency and then making sure that the income and expenditure relating to the property is also in that currency. If on the other hand your rental income is going to come in within the UK, you may find it more economic to keep all transactions here, and lose the initial conversion. There are specialist companies who can help move currencies with lower charges, and you will need to know about these.

Mortgages may also be available at considerable reductions in other currencies.

In addition to fluctuations in the value of the property, you also have currency fluctuations to contend with and the constant need to service the mortgage in whatever currency you have chosen.

Conclusions

From what you have seen above you will appreciate that in some cases you will need a great deal more help than in others.

The Clubs Overseas Finding Services- F2 and the super H3 service for USA property

The H3 service - USA property finding is better defined on its own page. The description below is far more general covering the world.

The amount of work involved in finding you the ideal property to fit your requirements will vary considerably. Selecting a new development from the many available and negotiating to get the ideal unit and at the best price, is a fairly straight forward operation for the the club to help you with. Compared to the UK, the cost of doing this is proportionally higher as property is often lower in price, and costs involved in travel, accommodation and time higher. We may also need to get local or other experts from legal advice to translators. These are greatly reduced on an individual purchase basis where a number of properties are being sourced in the same area at the same time. So much so that we are in some cases able to find properties on the same basis that we can UK properties. 

This is limited to some types of new members, so in some cases there is a qualifying period of membership required, see the rate card for details.

There is a registration fee of £2,500 to register for the F2 service, but no registration free for the H3 service that has a completely different charging structure.

As we identify a number of requirements in an area we will find out the options available and where we can use local people to get more information for us. Once this has been done we will launch a  buying trip to find the ideal properties. This will be done within Greater Europe on a similar basis as the UK finding service at 3% of the budgeted price, but also has the actual costs of travel, hotels etc charged, but this can often be bundled up so a number of members share the costs and a number of properties are found at the same time. If you do not want to wait for us to go to an area to handle a number of requirements we will undertake a special operation for you at 5% of the budget. We would of course always hope to make you a saving of several times this charge. For areas outside Europe we negotiate a price to cover additional costs and time, and the fact that we will not be able to batch up requests.

The service involves sorting out what it is you require, identifying properties to look at and going out and inspecting, photographing and collecting information. We will then if you wish handle to offer, and hand it over to you, a solicitor etc as you require. It does not include the same level of follow up and hand holding as the H3 service for the USA, nor the same degree of local research. It is therefore considerably more than you would normally expect to get from an estate agent or property finder but does stop short of the H3 service provided for the USA.

Development opportunities are far more difficult to undertake on a formula based budget, as often it is necessary to do a great deal of research, make trips that turn out to rule out the suitability, and often require experts of various types to be consulted and both builders and a manager to look after the development to be found. Where this is done for a franchise just the actual expenses are charged, but in other cases it may be possible to work out a formula, that will involve a share of the profits, if you don't want to bear all the up front finding costs. The other alternative is for it to be done on the basis of full expenses encountered plus 5% of the eventual value of the property after improvement has been made.

The actual method used to organize this is very similar to the UK service, and we would suggest that the start point would be to proceed as for the UK service but in defining your requirement differently.

If you do not feel your requirement can be met by these services, then please let us know why and how you would like to proceed and we will look at the possibilities.

Articles on purchasing properties in different countries are in production and will eventually appear elsewhere on this web site. We may also undertake local area studies in a similar way to the UK area studies, while we have people undertaking buying trips.

If your interest, is more for your own use than as an investment you may also like to look at the Holiday Property Club, that uses many of our services to provide free holidays for its members. Our club services, sources all the properties for them. 

Strategic partnerships are covered in detail on their own page. However it is worth noting here that by the use of strategic partnerships, we are able to arrange a great deal more, cover a far greater geographical area and help members in many of their searches to find investment properties worldwide, without necessarily using the finding services. Within the finding services we often can use strategic partnerships and these as well as helping us to find ideal properties often throw up a commission share with the agent that can cover the majority if not all of the fees you paid to us.