Plugging Into the International Living Switchboard

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Remember the old movies showing international telephone exchange operators plugging and unplugging hundreds of wires into a huge board of world connections?

Sometimes I feel like that opening my inbox in the morning…hands flying from one e-mail to the next, constantly plugging into different locations on a huge global network and listening in on conversations from our correspondents around the world.

This morning was no different. Here’s just a sampling of the traffic today:

Steenie Harvey is snooping around Italy again. There is something about the place she can’t get enough of…probably has something to do with the food and wine. Or it might be the property prices in the little hill towns she’s visiting—remodeled houses for $42,500 or fixer-uppers for $22,000. Those are the kinds of prices that get Steenie’s attention anywhere, but to find them in Italy…well, leave it to Steenie to find the best pasta on the planet and head-shaking property bargains.

Steenie also says she’s planning on playing Marco Polo. Not the game…she’s actually going to visit the old Silk Road once trodden by Marco Polo. Apparently, the place she’s going still hums with the wheeling and dealing of exotic goods…rugs, carpets, leather goods, metalwork, carvings, weavings, embroideries…just the kind of booty that Marco would have caravanned back home to trade. That’s Steenie’s thought as well. You can buy low here, she says, and sell high in the U.S. And you have a leg up on Marco…you don’t need a camel caravan. Whether you’re thinking of filling a suitcase or a shipping container, exporting to the U.S. from here is apparently no problem.

Leigh Fergus reports that she may have discovered the only leaseback development
in Paris. We’ve talked about French leasebacks a lot over the past few years, so you regular readers know that the French leaseback program is a way to create a guaranteed income stream from property…probably the closest to a sure thing you’re likely to find in the international real estate game. The program is meant to help provide accommodations for the more than 80 million tourists who visit France each year, but Paris doesn’t need the extra hotel rooms, so leaseback program opportunities are rarely found inside the city. The only rental guarantee program in the most visited city in the world…that’ll get your attention. Leigh’s digging into it.

Leigh’s also talking about a new program in France, similar to the leaseback program, to encourage more tourist beds. The rumor is that if you rent out your apartment to tourists, the government will cut you a check for 50% of the purchase price. Leigh is on the case...

And Ronan McMahon, our quiet Irishman and director of Pathfinder Real Estate, checks in to say that he’s on his way to Berlin to check into property prices there for his Real Estate Trend Alert readers. He says property prices in the German capital haven’t roared ahead like they have in the rest of Europe...but the rental yields have rocketed.

The IL switchboard never rests…which makes it hard for me to drink my coffee before it goes cold some mornings...but that’s a good thing. We’ll keep tracking Steenie, Leigh, Ronan, and everybody else and keep you well posted.

Dan Prescher
Publisher, International Living