Dave,
Thanks for your comments.
I picked the US over NZ because you could do better web research. I think NZ still has quite a few bargains left, but you have to be over there to find them. I also think that Aussie money has inflated the whole market significantly and because in population terms the country is so small, most of the markets are terribly thin and vulnerable. I would have preferred to do NZ, but I wasn't finding bargains on the web.
The UK market was more web-savvy, but again had gone through an investor led price explosion. I looked at quite a number of areas but the ones that were still offering anything were looking dicey, and most of the returns were negative.
Only in the US did I find bargains that outweighed the perceived risks. It's all about risk/reward ratio and for me, the US was it. It was a case of what I found, not what is there. I'm sure some of our Kiwi forumites could boast of some pretty good bargains even now.
As for good areas over bad - bad areas had lots of empty shops, lots of boarded up houses, depression and aggression in the way people carried themselves, lack of halloween decorations (yup, seriously) and lots of new cars (again, seriously). If you could (a) breathe and (b) provide a social security number, you could get a car for nothing down. Brand new chevy.
Good areas had none of the above, except the cars, and there you saw more of a range of cars. Lawns were kempt, about 1 house in three had a sign promoting a political candidate and not too much was for sale.
You could get a feel pretty quickly for the worse areas of town, and it wasn't good. I got near the war zones by accident and I kept driving - the one thing you DON'T do is stop the car. I found my way out, but I was sweating.
Plus, lots of guidance from my team and plenty of advance research.
Bob
Thanks for your comments.
I picked the US over NZ because you could do better web research. I think NZ still has quite a few bargains left, but you have to be over there to find them. I also think that Aussie money has inflated the whole market significantly and because in population terms the country is so small, most of the markets are terribly thin and vulnerable. I would have preferred to do NZ, but I wasn't finding bargains on the web.
The UK market was more web-savvy, but again had gone through an investor led price explosion. I looked at quite a number of areas but the ones that were still offering anything were looking dicey, and most of the returns were negative.
Only in the US did I find bargains that outweighed the perceived risks. It's all about risk/reward ratio and for me, the US was it. It was a case of what I found, not what is there. I'm sure some of our Kiwi forumites could boast of some pretty good bargains even now.
As for good areas over bad - bad areas had lots of empty shops, lots of boarded up houses, depression and aggression in the way people carried themselves, lack of halloween decorations (yup, seriously) and lots of new cars (again, seriously). If you could (a) breathe and (b) provide a social security number, you could get a car for nothing down. Brand new chevy.
Good areas had none of the above, except the cars, and there you saw more of a range of cars. Lawns were kempt, about 1 house in three had a sign promoting a political candidate and not too much was for sale.
You could get a feel pretty quickly for the worse areas of town, and it wasn't good. I got near the war zones by accident and I kept driving - the one thing you DON'T do is stop the car. I found my way out, but I was sweating.
Plus, lots of guidance from my team and plenty of advance research.
Bob