Tunisia Off Plan - Your views?

[Rivermead Global Property]

Here are a few photographs from my holiday album, they are of the Marina in Port El Kantaoui, the flamboyant roundabout at the entrance to the golf courses and one of the golf course.

[Lsab]

Thanks Neil - great photos. Looking forward to more when you go again next month.

[rossantony]

Originally Posted by Elite Overseas Properties

Lsab - whilst I appreciate that you are happy with the agent you have been dealing with, it seems a little unfair for one company to be given the monopoly through this forum. There are a good many honest and reliable companies the potential buyers can use, such as ourselves who have been in the overseas property industry for nearly 20 years.

not to mention the wonderful guys who work tirelessly in our london office who have over 100 years of experience between them...

[Alaa fayad]

hi All, i,m asking about the real estate market in Tunisia,and what target of client go there
Alaa Fayad

[rossantony]

Originally Posted by Alaa fayad

hi All, i,m asking about the real estate market in Tunisia,and what target of client go there
Alaa Fayad

I went there with my girlfriend, we are 30 somethings. we stayed in boutique hotels, of which there are plenty, and never thought of staying in rented accomodation. there were a lot of families there, mainly french. also older people staying in the thalassotherapy hotels, seeking cures for there aches and pains. the few brits that we met had flown in on XL, who were staying in budget resorts, away from where we were staying, or were on package tours, so maybe xl's demise might make a difference in the short term.

I think that Tunisia needs a good up market villa development in an expensive/developed area that is a thalassotherapy spa retreat..that I would buy into..

[Tunisiacom]

Those kind of developments are welcome but your talking over 250,000£ + easy in any half decent area. The problem with Tunisia is that the season is a tight 3 months max unless your in Tunis and the ncie areas in tunis are no stranger to houses over 1,000,000 dinars which is 500,000 £ level.

It is a mystery in Tunisia how prices even get this high as unlike Morocco its not a system designed to make buying easy and if you ask the bank you get the stock answer 20% min deposit, reluctant to lend over 80/100,000 dinars and unable to lend mortgages where the payments are over 40% of the applicants salary (based on you banking with the bank).

Tunisia is wonderful I live and work here and literally I get paid a good wage even by UK standards and I refuse to pay the same for a house here (worse build standard and infrastructure) than the UK.

To put things in perspective I rent a house in Bizerte Corniche the house is valued at 250/300,000 dinars (125/150,000£) I pay 450 dinars rent (220£) per month. This is no sea view and during the summer this would rent for say double but this is two months.

In the major tourist areas your able to rent for more but you pay more in line with this also do not forget hotels are cheap in Tunisia and I often find myself looking for a apartment to rent and then end up staying in a 4/5 star for less.

If your looking to start a business then Tunisia is great as tax free and low wages/well educated staff.

For property speculation its going to have to be over 10 years as the market has gone up 150% over the last 5 years and is now falling in many ovedeveloped places. Also the £ has dropped now from 2.6 to 2.1 dinars.

Tunisias main issue is that there is a lot of liquidity in the local money supply and as the dinar depreciates your investment looses 3-6% per year in Euro terms. It also means that currently Tunisians pay more than foriegners for property even though technially on a circa 450£ monthly wage average this should be impossible e.g irrational exuberance/bubble.

[Lsab]

I have a friend who is looking for property in Tunisia - P el K area. She's looking for a villa that she could live in and start up a smallish English cafe in too. Perhaps you could PM me with your email address so that i could pass it on to her.

(You won't be able to PM me until you are an active member = made about 6 posts).

[Tunisiacom]

Tunisia is lovely that is for sure if you could get property with 10% yield (normal residential) then I would have bought loads already.

You cannot, your lucky to get over 5% we can all state crazy yeilds in beach side out of resort developments but you have to get the lettings and your sensitive to the tourism demand.

The fact is the prices relative to fundementals are the same as all other markets out of whack and Tunisia's lack of property market fall (which has started in Nasr, Menza and other built up areas) is mainly down to being the last to rise and being an illiquid market.

I love Tunisia I am not bad mouthing it I am sitting in my office looking over the old medina in Bizerte right now it's lovely the sun is out there are holes in the road and donkeys with carts and people want 100,000 euros for unfixed houses opposite.

Realistically 25k is fair for them max

[johnherbst]

All seems very good, but do your homework before investing your money in a foreign country, they've got their own laws etc...