Old Hippie Posted January 16, 2006 Report Share Posted January 16, 2006 Sorry dude, but the silicon valley boom in the 80's, and again in the 90's did help drive up the cost of real estate in this area. Shygye is right about the "creative financing" and people looking to get rich quick flipping properties also being part of the problem. However I will stand by the rest of my statement . "...So tell me, how come hosing demand/price continued to rise until very recently???.." Actually, housing prices continue to be high in this area (nation wide really) the rapid appreciation here is starting to slow. Simply put, real estate is a great investment, maybe the best investment for long term gain. There are tax benifits , and you can recoup your living expenses etc when you sell. Better yet is if you rent the property. Put a little down, let the renters pay your mortguage, an then the rest is pure profit...Additionally, there is only so much land available, so all of these make it a good investment. Additionally, Land never disappears, it stays where it is...not like stock prices etc...companies fold, investors lose etc...but no matter what, the land stays put... And yes, my opinion, or part of it is driven by emotion. My Condo is for sale, the whole damned apartment complex is now for sale. Yesterday was open house. 240 units for sale. There was a Taiwanese firm in here looking to buy up 10 units, they are bidding 20% over market value, they want to lease the units to the Taiwanese owned fiber optics company across the street, as corporate housing. Not to mention what other investment firms might be buying here...foreigin or otherwise. 240 units-10=230, less supply, and that drives up the cost of my unit proportionately. The price is almost $400K USD for a 1 bedroom condo, about 500 sq. feet. Basically, I can't afford the place on my current salary (cut 35% in airline backruptcy, and a 5 year wage freeze). Now, If I wasn't compeating with these investment firms, including the foreign ones, the cost would be less, and I might be able to afford it... The fact that a Taiwan firm is buying 10 units, in theory (maybe reality) means 10 less locales can buy them... the fact that the Taiwanses bid the cost up means the value of the remaining units is that much higher, pricing more people outof the market. O.k. 10/240 is about 4%, so if this panned out across the country, that would mean IN THEORY that 4/100 Native born Americans would POTENTIALLY be pushed out of the market... So, clearly people from outside the country buying real estate in the USA does have some impact on the market. maybe not 4% nation wide but it does have an impact. Now, go to Thailand, And let farangs go over there, and start buying land, and what do you think will happen? WHat would happen if the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans whoever went there and started buying up all the premium rice farm land? What if the start exporting all the rice? What does that do to the cost of Land? and Rice? for the Thais...? Sorry But I fail to see how you guys can say foreign investment has no impact on real estate prices... Very clearly, it does, and that is with all emotion aside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pe7e Posted January 16, 2006 Report Share Posted January 16, 2006 Any influx of jobs will drive property prices up, simple market forces at work here, just as bad news will drive them down ie closure of major employers in the area. The bottom line is it's the desire of the general populance to move to an area who drive prices up not governments or individual investors. The reason for the world wide rise in real estate values of recent years is a result of nothing more than a prolonged period of low interest rates which has made property purchase easy on the pocket. IMO poeple buying now will take substantial losses in the forseeable future as interests rates rise, as they must do. The real driving force behind the money markets, land price index and the worlds stock exchange indexes is a combination of fear and greed, and for that we are all responsible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted January 16, 2006 Report Share Posted January 16, 2006 "...Any influx of jobs will drive property prices up, simple market forces at work here,.." Yeah, basically what I ment by the Dot.com boom...it brought a lot of jobs to this area (San Francisco Bay area). "...The bottom line is it's the desire of the general populance to move to an area who drive prices up not governments or individual investors. .." I agree with that as well. But I would add, Any outside investor, pulling homes/real estate off the market, reduces the supply, and drives up the cost/demand of the remaing properties available. An example might be ...say I want to buy an apartment complex in Berkeley...ok say there are 4 for sale...3 Local guys want to buy... that would warrent one cost right? Now if 4 locales want to buy, the cost might go up right? Now, 4 locales and 1 foreign guy want to buy...what happens? demand up, cost up, possible result is, one of the locales gets priced out...right? As you stated, low interest rates made it easy to buy property. Some Markets in the USA, are traditionally very high return on property investments, SFO, New York...ok, so why wouldn't a foreign investor buy in a market that tradionally offers a high return? Can't blame him, he's allowed...it's just that we don't have the same luxury of doing so in most foreign markets... As I said, I have no problem with a guy who becomes a citezen buying the property to live in it. But the idea of people getting off a plane, buying property as an investment, and leaving the country, when I don't have the same right/privilidge in there country is wrong. Fuck 'em, they shouldn't be allowed to do it. So, my question is for the guys posting in this thread who aren't from the USA. Can a US citezen go to your country and buy property? if not, why not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pe7e Posted January 16, 2006 Report Share Posted January 16, 2006 So, my question is for the guys posting in this thread who aren't from the USA. Can a US citezen go to your country and buy property? if not, why not? Yes a US citizen can come to the UK and purchase property and a UK citizen can purchase property in the US. I agree it would be great if I had similar priviliges in other countries who can come to the UK and purchase property without too much red tape. I would favour reciprocal arangements or they could go take a jump! :: At the present moment I don't think LOS is an attractive proposition unless you are resident there, there are far better opportunities in European countries where rule of law not corruption prevails and a less zenophobic attitude is present. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted January 16, 2006 Report Share Posted January 16, 2006 For a US citizen, they can buy, rent, sell property in many foreign countries. Japan, for one, as I own property there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangkoktraveler Posted January 16, 2006 Report Share Posted January 16, 2006 [color:"red"]QUOTE: "My Condo is for sale, the whole damned apartment complex is now for sale. Yesterday was open house. 240 units for sale. There was a Taiwanese firm in here looking to buy up 10 units, they are bidding 20% over market value," "240 units-10=230, less supply, and that drives up the cost of my unit proportionately. The price is almost $400K USD for a 1 bedroom condo, about 500 sq. feet. Basically, I can't afford the place on my current salary"[color:"black"] If I understand what you wrote, the Taiwanese are willing to pay almost $400K for a condo unit even though it appears the face market value is about $330K. But you would prefer a lower value then $330K. How much of a lower value would you want? Maybe $250K? If what I think I read is right, you would end up further ahead selling your condo or at least holding on to it and refinancing it, pocketing or reinvesting the extra cash, because the property is worth more. In this case, you actually benefit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lembeh Posted January 16, 2006 Report Share Posted January 16, 2006 >If property rights were opened up, the people who would be forced out of the market would be poor and middle class Thais. Large scale industrial farming would occur Why would the be "forced out" of the market? If they are *in* the market (i.e. property owning), then indeed their assets would *increase* in value rather than decrease. The argument of "large scale industrial farming" is not a convincing one. Numerous solutions to that exist and indeed many are already in place for other reasons, like foreigners are not allowed to work in the agricultural sector. However, simply put, if you gave foreigners the right to own property for their own residential purpose, the economy would receive a boost. Many, many people (such as retiree's etc) would dearly love to be able to own a propery in a legal manner(without jumping through the convoluted hoops that exist) in their own name. Its a situation that is deeply reflective of the institutionalized xenophobia/racism that is ingrained in Thailand. -j- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted January 16, 2006 Report Share Posted January 16, 2006 Thanks for the advice, but you got it wrong. I currently rent, don't own. The complex just converted to condos and is for sale. My Unit is almost $400k. The 2 bedroom units are almost $500K. The Taiwan group is offering almost $500K for the 1 bedrooms, and almost $600K for the 2 bedrooms...yes, If I already owned, It would be good to think about selling...trouble is, I'd still need a place to live...currently, rents in this area are falling. Many real estate experts (which clearly I am not) say the housing bubble will cool very soon, as these "interest only no money down" loans start to come to term, and interest rates go up... The added issue here is, the high "association fees" with this place, which would be about $350 a month to start, and go up every year...add this to the mortgague, and you are looking at a bill of rediculis proportion... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted January 17, 2006 Report Share Posted January 17, 2006 Japanese came to Australia, bought it up, we needed the $, so cool, tough love but good. 10 years later we buy it back. THailand the same, good influx of $ into Thailand, DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khwaimaisabai Posted January 17, 2006 Report Share Posted January 17, 2006 Hi dog, I seem to remember that many years ago there was a political party in the UK (not a serious contender for power) whose platform was that the whole country should be sold to the Japanese. The proceeds would be split among the population and evrybody would go and live somehwere else with enough cash not to have to work. A few detailed flaws in the proposition, I think. Khwai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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