Fly to Let Guide Overseas Property Podcast with Peter Conradi and Matt Havercroft

After a short break, the Nubricks Overseas Property Podcast series is back. We began Series One, talking to a whole host of overseas property professionals and industry insiders with the aim of recording their take on the prospects and trends affecting a variety of international property markets.

In Series Two, we want to get to grips with the reality of being an overseas property buyer and look beyond the marketing hype. Our first podcast in this series revisits the theme of Fly to Let, which takes the concept of buy to let and takes it beyond domestic borders to see if the growing trend for overseas property investment is all its cracked up to be.

In podcast 23, Adam Samuel is once again joined by Matt Havercroft, Editor of A Place in the Sun magazine and Peter Conradi, Property Editor of the Sunday Times and author of Fly to Let Guide to discuss the truth behind the phenomenon of Fly to Let and in reality how worthwhile an investment in overseas property really is. Matt and Peter describe the reasons why Fly to Let has become so popular; from low cost airlines, buyers becoming more adventurous and rising house prices in the UK. Peter explains that the fly to let investor is not just one type of person, anyone from retired couple with plenty of money to first time buyers are taking the plunge.

The potential to make easy lucrative returns has been a marketing cornerstone of overseas property however creating a successful Fly to Let property is a little more complicated in reality and the following useful points were made:

Doing your research is key, Matt states “Research is King”, pointing out that many buyers simply don’t take into consideration which target market they are aiming to attract for rental purposes whilst Peter believes correctly targeting your property towards the right local rental sector is fundamental, offering the thought that city property has potential to attract not only the blue chip rental pool and/or affluent locals. To see how a Fly to Let investment stacks up in reality, both felt, that buyers need to be realistic about the rental returns achievable and fully investigate actual rental periods and pricing taking into account all of the property costs from maintenance, rental service charges and ongoing mortgage and tax charges.

Adam felt it was important to ask the question “Do many investors really see cash flowing property?”. Matt explained that in his experience some investors had done very well but others have not taken all factors into consideration and their expectations have not been realistic.

We discussed the different types of markets available for buy to let, namely the traditional summer and ski holidays and covered the pros and cons between them including countries further afield such as Thailand and Egypt. This lead nicely onto the impact of people buying fly to let property on the environment and what effect green taxes on flights would have on people ’s decision to travel abroad and the value of building eco friendly property overseas.

If you agree or disagree with any of the comments made by Adam, Matt or Peter, why not have your say by clicking the ‘Comments‘ link under the title of this post.

The podcast has been removed as it is now out of date.

Length: 00:32:57