Hi

I'm trying to do some research on property in India and want to know what your experiences are. Where are the hotspots and what kind of prices should you expect to pay and average yields etc.?

Many thanks

Jack

Property prices have appreciated in India approximately, 850% over the last 5yrs. Cause they were coming up from very very depressed levels and were off from the 1995 peaks by about 40%, coupled with the devaluation of the currency, foreign property buyers had effectively lost 60% of the capital values in INR terms over the last eight years, (ie, 1995-2003), the lowest low seen in the prices were around 2003-2004, and whoever invested in the markets at that time, made close to 850%, we did.

Our investments from 1995 all went bad and sour. hence we have learnt that if you invest, pls do so with respected developers and never buy off plan, cause the building may simply never be build, if you buy from unknown developers.

Todays Scenario. If you are foreigner, I don't think you can buy INDIAN property. You also can't directly invest on the retail level in the stock markets. If you are an NRI, then you can, same goes for property purchases. However you will have to go to India and play around with the regulations to issue you a Income tax card, b4 you can make a purchase and after the purchase is made, upon sales, you will have another issue on how will you remit your monies back?

Capital gains tax is almost 35% and the only way to exempt from this is to sell one house and then buy another one, therefore, you can simply not exit the market and take your money without paying capital gains tax, hence the reason why they have black/white money transactions, where white refers to check payment and black as cash payment.

If you want to Invest. Only one place, to be prudent. Mumbai.

Market in mumbai is very very quite, while prices have dropped everywhere close to 35-45% over the course of the last one year. Mumbai is stable, with very little property transactions occuring.

Rental to property value ratio, makes mumbai expensive. Watch the stock market moves lately and if there is a bottom. I think it may be time to buy up again.

I am an international property investor and you can PM me for exchanging of ideas.
cheers