Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa August 2013

USA BY SCOTT PICKEN Opportunities in the USA Don’t miss out O n our recent trip the sentiment has changed so fast and the market is now in a full recovery. Even though many of the economic problems remain, the American’s are a lot more positive that the economy was recovering. The job numbers have recovered (best since 2008), the Dow Jones has gone above 15 000 and most importantly the economy is growing. It is certainly the leading developed economy at the moment and is leading the optimism in the markets at the moment. According to the Wall Street Journal more than 50% of Americans believe that property prices will now rise and that the worst is behind them. The Case Shiller Index is up over 10% across the whole country for the last 12 months. However, the most important thing, which has changed the market, is that Wall Street has moved onto Main Street. The hedge funds from Wall Street have now moved into buying US property in a big way and are really driving the demand,driving prices up and yields down. Funds like Colony Capital and Blackstone have deployed billions of dollars into residential property in the USA. 50 August 2013 SA Real Estate Investor Atlanta continues to deliver the best overall returns, Orlando has the best capital growth and Memphis is the best income market for returns. Our partners in these markets are world class and continue to impress our clients with their professionalism. The interesting thing is that we have researched over 14 markets including Las Vegas, New York, Phoeni x, San Diego, Chicago, Detroit, Orlando, Miami and Boston, to name a few. We have spent over R1.5 million on travelling to all these markets, but the greatest thing is that along with our partners, our research has stood up as the markets we are investing in are getting the best returns in USA, and continue to be the best performing markets in the whole country. This is the advantage of working with the company who has helped more people in South Africa invest internationally than any other company (over 2000 international investments to a value of over R1.6 billion) and also working with the best partners in the USA. Unfortunately many people have been caught by surprise by the quick weakening of the Rand. We find this so frustrating. We only work with the best partners and in March we organised the biggest American event ever in South Africa. We had all our partners out from the USA and also the best from South Africa. James Paynter, our expert on the Rand and someone who has had an accuracy of more than 80% of where the Rand is going since 2005, explained to all our clients what was going to happen to the Rand. He told people in March that the Rand would be between R9.38 to R9.90 in the next few weeks, R9.50 to R10.50 in next few months and R14 to R21 to the dollar in the next few years. At the event it was below R9 to the dollar and now it is R9.83. Those that t ????????????)????????????????????????????????????)??????????????????????????????????)???????????????????????????????)???????????????) ???????????????UM????????????????????)????????????????????????????????????????)??????UM????????????????????????()IM=UI L)%AL?%????()??????????????((

Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa August 2013 | Page 52