Global Property Guide - a good resource on global residential property investment

Global Property Guide
This is a one-stop website for global residential property investor.

Some highlights:
1. Interactive Comparison tool
Its Interactive comparison tool is useful.

Add to list the countries that you want to compare, click "compare" and it will yield a comparison table of
  • buying price,
  • gross rental yield,
  • rental income tax,
  • roundtrip cost,
  • capital gains tax,
  • buy-to-let income rating.

I try to compare Malaysia, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, USA, UK as these are the countries most Malaysian, especially Malaysian Chinese, will invest.

It seems that among these countries, Malaysia’s buying price (1366 USD/sq m) is lowest, gross rental yield (9.22%) is highest, rental income tax (22.42%) is 2nd highest, buy-to-let rating highest, roundtrip cost, capital gain tax not very high.

2. Countries/regions data
Its data on regions/countries is impressive.
Take for examples:
Malaysia
Singapore

"In depth" comes with overview, price history, rental yields, taxes and costs, tax on rent, buying guide, landlord & tenant, inheritance, living there, useful links, country statistics.

Regional statistics are abundant:
Sq M prices, rental yields, rents, price/rent ratio, price/GDP per cap, buy/sell costs, rental income tax, capital gains tax, price change 1 yr, price change 5yrs, landlord & tenant law, GDP per capita, GDP/cap growth 1 yr, GDP/cap growth 5 yrs, economic freedom, ec. freedom 5 yrs, competitiveness, property rights index, currency +/- value… Wow !

These indicators set me thinking what residential property investors need to look at.

3. Directory
It has directories of realtors, accountants, lawyers, foreign exchange, mortgages.

4. School of Profit
In its School of Profit, it has 2 guides that are insightful for residential property investors and real estate academics respectively:

  • Guides to making money in residential property investment
  • Guides to the academic literature

5. Rating

The website even has rating on countries, much like bond credit rater S&P, Fitch, Moody’s but it is on residential estate.

6. Real estate news
Its real estate news have a more local insights on specific countries.

7. Email subscription
There is a free email newsletter for subscription.

My genereal views:

I like the presentation of data of Global Property Guide. It tells you date of data used, sources of data, assumptions etc..

Beware though that the date of data may not be the most updated ones. Probably Premium Data subscription may have a more updated data.

Look at the assumptions too. Most of the times it is assuming the residential property investor is a foreign investor, for e.g. in tax, cost etc. If you are a local investor, you may need to adjust on that.

A great one-stop resource on global residential property investment indeed !

Crowdsourcing on knowledge, example : best source of business / investment news in a country


(This is the elaboration on Mahalo Answers that I mentioned in the comment of this post.)

For foreign investors, one of the major drawbacks is :

  • the investors are not familiar with where and how to get updated local news related to business/investment aspect of that country. He may be disadvantaged on information aspect.

It will be good if I can find these insights/resources from Mahalo Answers’s community. Hopefully there are locals that can point me to relevant information sources.

So I ask this questions in Mahalo Answers:
  • What is the best source (in English) of business / investment news in:
    Middle East, Australia, India, France, Germany, UK, Brazil, Russia…etc...(respectively) ?

Some of the questions are not answered, some yielded great, insightful answers, for examples:
India, UK, Australia.

The most insightful answer comes when I ask on Middle East.
This answerer saves me the need to ask similar question again, country-by-country.
A great "thank you" to him/her.

His/her answer is on EINnews.
Take a look at EINnews.

It provides access to breaking news, organized within 300+ countries (classified under Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Russia & CIS, Latin America, Africa, North America), regional, US states and specialised topics (in categories of industry, business & economy, government & politics, miscellaneous).

Wow, that’s amazing !

Mahalo Answers is also a venue to seek valuable local opinions/surveys.
Some examples that I have asked:

  • "For Mahaloians in US, have you observed "green shoots’ in US economy, in real life ?"
  • "For Mahaloians in US, will option ARM reset incur a big financial burden to your family ?"

I have also learnt a lot from others’ Questions. This widens my horizon.

Mahalo Answers has widgets that can be put on blog, showing Answers by me to others’ Questions. I have removed the "Mahalo Answers Widget" from this blog since this blog is already too cluttered. However, I still put up the widget on my Innovation For the Future blog.
You may check it out.

Gold price time series (dated back to 1950s)


Gold price time series is available in Deutsche Bundesbank website, yearly average, monthly average and daily rates.

Data on website

We can find:

  • Price of gold in London, morning fixing and afternoon fixing, USD;
  • Price of gold, Frankfurt Stock Exchange fixing, DM;
  • Price of gold, Dresdner Bank AG fixing, Euro.

These time series are amazing, with monthly average of price of gold in London, morning fixing dated back to 1950 !

US Public Debt and Statutory Debt Limit

  • How much is current US Public Debt ?
  • Is the US Public Debt near the Statutory Debt Limit ? How near ?
  • Where can we find updated information on these ?

Daily Treasury statement
http://www.fms.treas.gov/dts/

Example:
Nov. 17, 2009 Daily Treasury statement

Go to "Table III C – Debt Subject to Limit", look at the "Closing balance today", at items "Total Public Debt Subject to Limit" and "Statutory Debt Limit".

On Nov. 17, 2009:
Total Public Debt Subject to Limit is $11,982,556 billions (11.982556 trillions).
Statutory Debt Limit is $12,104,000 billions (12.104000 trillions).

The Statutory limits on Federal Debt are changed many many times.
We can see the changes from this file (This file is from White House’s website.):
Statutory limits on Federal Debt: 1940 – current

Amazing !
In 1940, statutory limit for Federal Debt is 49 billions.
Sep 29, 2007, it is 9,815 billions.
Feb 17, 2009, it is 12,104 billions.

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer:
The opinion post on this blog is personal and is not an inducement to buy or sell any investment products. The author of this blog will NOT be held responsible for any losses incurred due to the reliance on any content of this blog for investment decisions.