There are many questions to be asked before embarking on a career in property investment in Ireland. Are you are really committed to making property work for you. Investing in the Irish property market is not an undertaking for the faint of heart. To really make a profit, one must sometimes be ruthless in dealing with buyers and sellers but ethical to a fault when it comes to jobs that often do to get a property in salable condition.

Many Irish investors employ property management agencies to manage the detail of property management. It is a good idea if you have a parent or rent a large portfolio of rental properties. Better still, however, is that if you keep your rental properties on the for years, they can become liquid assets in time. In other words, they can even pay for themselves several times over, if you invest for the long term rather than focusing on the moment.

In the current slow growth of value in the Irish market be a buy and hold investor. These investors are truly committed to their investment. Some of them choose to keep their Irish property as a holiday property while others opt to earn revenue by leasing property to other families or tourists, whatever their choice may be.

This is a great way for many people enjoy the home without absorbing all the expenses involved in the area of rental property to help cover part of costs, when the owners are not in residence. This is a fairly common practice in areas of high tourism demand, where people are often on holiday. These types of investors are what some call serious property investors, even though all property investors take seriously their purchases.

A serious commitment is needed to make property work for you. There will be ups and downs along the road. The stock market experiences rises and falls on a regular basis. Since you can not back up all your shares in a bad light to even more in the world of property investment. Property values usually increase gradually over time on average they have doubled every seven years since the start of the twenty century. The last ten years are an aberration and the current fall is a correction mechanism to the natural order.

This means that although the values of a property falter they will eventually recover. Those who own rental properties must also commit to making their investments work for them. Rental property are not a hands-off investment, since it must be maintained to remain in demand by tenants. You must also make a constant effort to maintain these properties filled along with some others who collect the rent each month and ensure the properties are not falling into disrepair or abuse by tenants.

Any property investment is intended to be a long term investment, it is important to be ready to make a commitment to profit or profitability necessary for your business to be considered a success.

Prices for Spanish property in September has fallen again giving an average 10% drop across the country, with variations along some parts of the Mediterranean coastline. 

Statistics from an official Spanish price tracking model, the IMIE index, shows that property prices have fallen from September 2008 to September 2009 by over 10%. 

According to estate agents in Spain, it is currently possible, in September 2009, to negotiate up to 70% discounts on 2006 quoted prices.  Other commentators are quoting that popular resorts along the Mediterranean have fallen between 30% and 50% from their peak in 2006. 

Data from the official Spanish price tracking model, the IMIE index, shows that property prices rose from September 2002 by 15-20% per year until September 2006 then started to decline to a lower 5% increase in 2007, then -5% in 2008 then -10% in 2009.  That’s the official figures. 

However my own experience and probably that of many others, was of buying in 2004 at €175,000 rising to €220,000 by 2006 then selling for €100,000 in 2009.  That’s a 50% plus fall.  The IMIE is a valuation index not market price.  So sellers be warned the market is still desperate with very few buyers.

2009 has seen the desperate flight of those on fixed incomes from the UK who have had to return home and many from Ireland who have lost their jobs in a massive surge in unemployment there, having to sell or mothball property.  Thus many sellers are being forced to sell to get something out of their property or in a lot of cases with negative equity simply walking away.  This has led to many banks repossessing property but holding onto it to see if the market returns slightly. 

The Spanish banks will probably try to offload many of those properties to take a loss in 2009 to try to make 2010 look better on their risk portfolio.  So expect a further drop in price when those cheap properties hit the auction market in 2010.

The French, German, Japanese and Sweden are the first to officially get out of recession. I spoke to a senior economist, and apparently the UK should rise above negative growth in the last quarter of 2009 taking it out of recession.  However the Spanish economy has a €50bn deficit and the prime minister has admitted that unemployment will reach 20% by the end of 2009, double that of Ireland and four times the UK rate.  He stated "Signs that the deterioration is slowing does not mean that a recovery is here or will be fast.  There are signs that the worst of the recession has passed, but we are still suffering an intense crisis."

So the bad news for those having to sell their property in Spain in September 2009 is that prices are still down and by more than official statistics for distressed sales.

According to a number of commentators and leading property portals there are signs of recovery in the international property market.  However, they do have a vested interest in trying to convince people to buy and sell in order to increase their web traffic or agent fees.  So is it true or is it hype that the foreign property market is showing signs of recovery.

I suppose the easiest way to identify the truth is to look at objective statistics, but then that’s probably a contradiction in terms as the infamous quote "lies, dam lies and statistics" bears witness to the manipulative properties of data.  For instance, an official Spanish property price source the IMIE index shows that property prices have fallen by only 15% from their 2006 peak to September 2009.  This sounds a little low given my experience and I’m sure that of a lot of foreign owners. In reality the Spanish market, along most of the mainland coast, is down 30%-50% on 2006 prices. It’s only when you read the small print that you find out that the official statistics refer to "property valuations", which bear no resemblance to reality in Spain.

Taking into account bias and misleading statistics it still appears that most countries are still on a downward spiral.  However there is a small glimmer of hope for all those optimists among us.  Mainly it has to be said in those countries that appeared to come out of recession first or were not that badly affected by it.  There around ten countries which have shown a modest growth in property prices in the first half of 2009.  These are Australia, China, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Indonesia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. 

The largest growth was in Israel with growth of 8% on 2008 prices. Switzerland was next with a 5% increase and China with a 2% increase.  The rest were marginal increases or arguably temporary blips.

This all sounds very encouraging but contrast this positive spin with data that shows that other countries, which are more popular investment sources for the UK and Irish investor, are still falling.  Latvia tops the pole a thumping 60% year on rear fall for 2009. The next worst fall was Dubai, a very popular spot, with a fall of 49%.  Other substantial drops include Iceland, Bulgaria and Singapore all dropping over 20% in the first half of 2009.  

Other popular investment spots such as the US are down 5%, whilst Spain was still down another 8%.  On the up side Portugal is slowing to an encouraging 0.4% decrease.  However, with the UK falling by 17%, Ireland by 8% and the main property drivers of the US still down 5% and Japan still in freefall at 13% only an eternal optimist would predict a complete bounce back any time in 2009.

In summary are there signs of a recovery in world property prices.  The key indicator of improvement is the market’s momentum, thus the question is has the number of countries that did better this year, than the previous year, increased.  As ten countries improved their year-on-year performance to in the fist half of 2009, compared with the previous year, then it might be argued that there are signs of an economic recovery.  However, I will not be celebrating until the UK and Ireland slow down and there are definite signs of recovery along the Med.

The Marbella fiasco started during the boom of the early part of this century when builders and local officials colluded to avoid planning laws and when the corruption was exposed in 2006 almost 20,000 properties were found to be illegally built. This was widely reported in the Spanish and English speaking expat publications and caused a confidence loss for the Spanish property market.

On 29th January 2010 Marbella’s local authority and the regional planning authorities agreed an amnesty for most of the illegal developments around the Marbella area. This still left a number of developments where UK and Irish investors have property in limbo. Legal action is being taken by some owners and developers but the authorities are retaliating by threatening to demolish the sites, not part of this new amnesty. The issue could continue to put a cloud over the Spanish property market for years to come.

Does this mean that the tale of the Marbella property fiasco will finally come to an end and all those with illegally issued building licences, who have been worriedly waiting to hear whether or not their properties have been legally recognised, will be shortly put out of their misery? It is understood that developers have had to pay compensation to the regional government but the amount is undisclosed. The Marbella local authority had said that only property developers would be expected to pay and that expats who had bought properties in good faith would be exempt. However, the regional government is reported to have said that all owners of the illegal properties would have to pay.

Other news for the Marbella area includes the announcement that Taylor Wimpy is to invest over €8m in a new development in the area. This will provide in excess of 50 homes and is targeted for completion by 2012. Wimpy state they sold a total of 175 new homes on the Costas last year which is why this new development is surprising, when developers and sellers are struggling to find buyers. Is the the first sign of recovery in the Spanish property market.

Recent statistics on property enquiries puts Spain in first place with nearly 20% of enquiries according to a leading property portal’s research. France came second with 14%.

Selling Spanish property direct to the Russian property buyer is no easy task but the Russian buyer has been one of the few who have not been adversely affected by the recession. This is a tricky market to sell into and has stumped most agents. Are new websites in Russian required. Are local agents required to resell. The most successful have been those who have translated their websites into Russian or employed Russian agents on the ground in the Russian property market.

Top tips on selling into the Russian Property Market

1. Translate your website or join a listing website that translates its site into Russian.
2. Be patient, it takes time.
3. Employ a native Russian speaker to help with the language, there are a lot more around the UK and Ireland than previously.
4. Russians tend to buy overseas property for ‘prestige’ reasons so the more expensive the property the more likely it may be sold.
5. It may be a cliche but Russian buyers are supposed to buy more with their hearts than their heads so image is everything.
6. security is highly important to Russian buyers so show photos of the alarms and grills and walls which might otherwise put UK and Irish buyers off.
7. Russian buyers like to talk to the organ grinder not the monkey so engage personally as the seller ready to negotiate.
8. Russian’s are wary of scams so be open and honest and try to build an honest relationship with the prospective buyer.

Thus in summary develop a Russian language version of your property ad and advertise as widely as possible.