Buying Advice

[apollonine]

I wondered if anyone on here has bought their own place in Florida ?
We are considering buying a villa and have been in touch with one or two UK based companies who all seem similar. Has anyone been lucky enough to do this and got any recommendations, good or bad, for companies that help with this sort of thing ?
I'm planning a (solo) trip sometime in June to see whats out there so could do to get an agent sorted before then !!

Thanks in advance.:cool:

[rusty30]

We have looked into this a few times and our conclusion each time has been, you need to have AT LEAST £30-50K cash upfront and you will need to be able to cover your mortgage payments if you have no rentals at all.

There are two way to go with buying a villa - first, you buy it as a second home, with no view to renting it out.

Second, you buy it as a "business" and start your own rentals business. It is virtually impossible to do anything inbetween.

Do NOT be taken in by builders or management agencies that guarantee rental income. Yes, they might get you some rentals, but not at a rate that will cover your mortgage!

The most useful advice I got was from the forums at:

www.orlandovillas.com

I strongly suggest you pop over there and talk to owners to get idea of what you are letting yourself in for!

We have decided against it for now, but it maybe for you.

Do plenty of research and dont get carried away with any "deals"!!

Good luck!

[dismum]

My advice is always ask yourself one question .If i get no bookings for 6 months
can I afford to keep two homes running along side each other without any extra income ?
If the answer is no don't go there yet .If the answer is yes then think hard , sleep on it and think again .

Don't believe any comoany that rpomises you a guaranteed rental -they rarely work out and if they do the rate are bad so you end up topping the account up every few months.

The rental market is getting saturated with homes and the prices are geting silly .It is fine putting a down payment of 10-20% at todays exchange rate but what if your home isn't due to be built for two years and the exchange rate changes a lot?

It is a big step and on that cannot be taken lightly.Do your homework and do the maths -carefully .

[Anne]

If you do a search you'll find some other detailed threads about this that should help as well.