Easier To Make Money On Overseas Property, Expert Claims.

Prospective buy-to-let investors may be interested to know that a leading property industry website is advising newcomers to the market to consider looking at buying overseas property . According to BuyAssociation, the present financial climate means that there can be more money made abroad. According to spokesman Paul Collins, there are also more opportunities for making money through foriegn property investment in foreign markets than there are within the UK. He believes that it is "often the case" that capital growth and rental yields are more favourable in foreign markets than in Britain. "When people are buying property now they want it to make some money for them. And the opportunities for that are much more extensive overseas than they are in the UK in terms of capital growth and in a lot of cases in terms of rental yield as well," he explains. Mr Collins went on to advise buy-to-let landlords looking at overseas property to consider the benefits of ensuring interaction with the local population, saying: "We also need to remember that when you are buying a property overseas, you have to take the local population in to consideration as well, because you can risk a lot of overseas properties becoming cut off from the local community." "Often we see with these large developments that they are gated communities and the locals see that they don't really contribute anything to community life." According to the Association of International Property Professionals (AIPP), nearly £20 billion was spent by UK buyers on property overseas in 2006. The average price of a British-owned property was £98, 166.67. The AIPP also reports that the British Office of National Statistics (ONS) - which it says "has the most reliable figures" - reported 231,000 Brits owning property overseas in its last report, which was on the 2003-04 market. According to the ONS, the total value of properties held by Britons abroad was £23 billion, a large increase on the £7 billion recorded in 1994-95 . Being an increase of 228 per cent in nine years, this points to both an increase in property value and an increase in the number of properties that Britons own abroad. ONS figures for the average property value, calculated from EU statistics, were remarkably close to those estimated by the AIPP, coming in at £99,567.