(if you don't already receive a monthly announcement that our Cyprus newsletter has been published, you can sign up to our list here)

In This Months Issue You'll Find:

A Message from Jackie for January 2010 (and a small note from Kim)

How to Make Your Overseas Buying Dreams Come True This Year

Transferring Money Internationally for Dummies by Charles Purdy

Who is Joe Goodwin and why should you care?

2009 – The Dark Age of Property by Kim Brown

Getting good deals on flights overseas by Carol Dunning – OGC Writer

Do you have the Guide yet?

Come Carnival with us!

Happy 2010

Hello there - happy New Year! I hope you had a great festive season, it seems like it was ages ago now.

We spent Christmas in the UK visiting friends and family and boy, was it cold! Unlike Cyprus - which was basking in a late heat wave. It didn’t do us any good to hear that our friends were still in their flip-flops, shorts and t-shirts during the day, while we were wrapped up in thermals, scarves, gloves and boots. Luckily, we escaped the worst of the snow and ice.

So what’s been happening over here in Cyprus? The January sales have been on, with discounts of up to 80% in some stores. Nothing like the UK sales though - where I spent an absolute fortune! Ah well, you have to sometimes, don’t you?

But getting to the sales over here was another matter. The road works for the new main drainage system in Paphos (groan) are getting worse by the day and so are the diversions. Actually, it’s now become quite comical. Sometimes things get so bad you just have to laugh at them, don’t you? For instance, a few days ago the main local supermarket was abandoned because no-one could get to it. The contractors simply dug the road up - and that was it, no access for anyone! We’ll all be glad when this project is over.

Talking about roads, for those of you that aren’t aware, Cyprus vehicle road tax is due on 1st January and 1st June every year. Unlike the UK, we have until 2nd March to get our January tax discs. Can you imagine that happening in the UK? It’s been published in the local papers that the police will start their checks then, not before. See what I mean about everything happening “slowly, slowly?” I have to laugh sometimes, but it’s such a lovely way of life, giving us 8 weeks to sort this out. And vehicle licenses here are so cheap – my little car only costs 48 euros a year to tax! Unbelievable.

Moving on, if you are thinking of buying property here, now is the time to do so while the deals are still there. An announcement has been made in the local press that prices have bottomed out and will not go any lower. Cyprus is definitely going more upmarket with new marinas, more golf courses and some very high-end properties – and, when prices do start to rise, you will have a very sound investment. And, if you haven’t done so already, remember to purchase the Cyprus Buying Guide – it’s crammed with information you may not be aware of and will help you avoid any pitfalls.

Smoking was banned in public places from 1st January and, surprisingly, there seems to be public approval. It’s wonderful now, to be able to eat a meal in a restaurant and not disappear in a cloud of smoke from the person behind!

And finally, the new Paphos International Airport, which has recently had its first birthday, has been voted “Best Resort Airport in Europe” by the passengers of Thomson Airways. I have to say, it is a hundred times better than the old airport – you’ll know what I mean if you came here before the new one was open. We went from an old dinosaur to a state-of-the-art facility!

Well, January is pretty quiet in Cyprus, there’s not much happening right now. Enjoy this month’s newsletter – I have an article on how to make your property buying dreams come true and a bit about the ins and outs of transferring money abroad made easy.  I also introduce you to Joe of the OGC Resource Centre, chat about booking your trips through Opodo and talk about the upcoming carnival before signing off for another month. And remember - any questions about moving to or living in Cyprus just email me, it’s always great to hear from you!

A note from Kim:

How are you doing?  I’ve just entered my third trimester and my bellybutton is about to pop out – yikes!  I’ve found out that I’m having a baby girl and the name I like best is Sienna – what do you think of that name?  Sienna Madison Brown?  The first two names compensate for the ‘popular’ last name – yes?  Anyway… everything seems to be going fine.  I’m a bit nervous about the whole labour thing but I can’t back out now – can I?   I have, however, started to go a bit stir crazy.  I use to go to Cyprus every 3-4 months and it’s been such a long time since I last visited my favourite country.  My mom is going to fly over for a month once I have the baby – I wonder if it would be possible to take a new born on a trip to Cyprus?  It’s probably not advisable!  Well – as soon as I can get back, I will be there.  Right – Jackie is doing an awesome job with the Cyprus Property Buying Guide newsletter, so I’ll let her get on with it.  Big love and have a happy January/February. 

Kim

Kind regards,

Jackie and Kim

Cyprus Buying Guide
The Overseas Guides Company Ltd
0207 898 0549 (call us!)
Cyprus@overseasguidescompany.com

How to Make Your Overseas Buying Dreams Come True This Year

But how do you do this? Here are some top tips that might help:

Research, research, research!
I can’t stress this enough. So many people (and I don’t mean this disrespectfully), leave their “brains on the ‘planes”, fall in love with the sun, sea and sand and are totally oblivious to anything else. They agree to just about anything and everything, sign wherever asked and then wonder why it all goes horribly wrong. Follow the Cyprus Buying Guide and avoid the pitfalls.

How about the language – do I need to learn it?
This depends where you choose to live. If you are in a remote village where you are amongst primarily locals, then I would say the answer is “yes” – at least have a basic knowledge of Greek. Otherwise, in most areas, English is widely spoken.

Location
Now - on to where you want to live.  By the sea, the mountains, in a village, in a city? This is a big decision and one that needs to be made very carefully. You need to decide what is important to you and how far you are prepared to travel – particularly if you are going to need to work.

Do you want to live near the shops? Is being not far from a hospital important? Maybe you need to be close to a school? You might want complete isolation. But perhaps you might feel more secure in an Expat community – unless, of course, that’s what you are trying to get away from!  There’s a lot to consider.

To Rent or to Buy?
So, you’ve chosen your ideal location – but should you rent or buy? There are pro’s and con’s for both.

If you rent, it gives you the chance to make sure you’ve made the right decision on location and type of property. You can move when you want if you’ve made the wrong choice.

But if you buy, the investment is yours. You aren’t paying a monthly rent. You can do what you want with the property and you have a growing asset. However, if you want to change location, you will have to sell.

This needs to be very carefully thought through.

Have you done your sums?
With the decision made to either rent or buy, how will you afford to live?

Find out all your costs first. A word of warning - Cyprus currently has the most expensive electricity bills in the whole of Europe, as there’s no competition for the main provider. Hopefully though, this will soon change.

Remember, you may also need to factor in the costs of running a swimming pool if you are going to have one - and air-conditioning bills too. Plus, I must mention you will need heating in your property in the winter. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you differently!

This is only touching the tip of the iceberg. The key to your dream of owning a property in Cyprus is research and planning.

If you have any questions, please email me, I’ll be pleased to answer them for you or give the OGC Resources Centre a ring on 0207 898 0549 for any help you may need in buying a property, or fill out the property form on:

Transferring Money Internationally for Dummies by Charles Purdy

When I was 27 my mother purchased me ‘Cooking for Dummies,’ and at first I took it as a bit of insult [especially as I wouldn’t say her cooking was “cordon bleu”].  Okay my cooking wasn’t great but I was still alive after ten years away from home. After flipping through the book, I actually learned quite a bit. Without it I would still be wrestling to peel hard boiled eggs – rather than painstakingly picking the peel off, if you run cold water over them for a few minutes (after boiling them), the shells slide right off with almost no effort! 

As for international payments…making money transfers from one bank to another bank overseas isn’t exactly rocket science. There are, however, many ways to do it ineffectively and lose quite a bit of money in the process. The standard manner to send money to or from the UK is to visit a bank, request that a certain amount of sterling or euros are converted and then instruct the bank on where to send them.  During this process there are three main areas where people go wrong. They include: getting poor exchange rates, paying unnecessary fees and finally failing to order currency at a good rate now for purchase in the future. Let’s look at each one of these individually.

Getting Bad Exchange Rates
Similar to buying produce in a tourist location abroad rather than a village shop, buying currency from a bank is more expensive than buying it from a currency specialist. A bad exchange rate is simply paying more for the currency than you can get it elsewhere. You wouldn’t go buy vegetables in one shop if you knew that you could save €5 by getting them elsewhere! The issue with currency is that you won’t simply save €5 – you could save €1,000’s by shopping around. For example, some currency organisations save clients up to 4% over using the bank. This means that an instant saving of €4,000 can be made when moving a large sum of €100,000 by using a specialist rather than a bank.

Paying Unnecessary Fees
Everyone knows that the banks like to charge fees – overseas you might get charged for withdrawing money or writing a cheque.  Many banks even charge when you deposit money. Again, by using a specialist currency organisation, fees can be eliminated or reduced. Specialists know how the systems work and they know the most cost-effective way to move money. Many expats abroad move their pensions from the UK overseas every month or quarterly. Fees in the UK can amount to £25 for each transfer (that’s £300/year in fees alone!) – why pay that fee if you don’t have to?

Order Currency Now for Use Later
There is one product – called a Forward Contract – that can assist people massively.  Imagine receiving your pension or a regular payment overseas every month and then imagine that every month the value of it decreasing due to sterling weakening against the euro. This is precisely what has happened over the past year and it’s totally avoidable. Currency specialists can help their clients to reserve the rate today and purchase it in the future – this means that if you get €1500 from your UK pension in month one, you can continue to get that same amount for the course of the year! Those that didn’t purchase Forward Contracts last year sadly watched their pension values decrease by over 20%.

Transferring money internationally is not a difficult process; however it’s easy to get lost and led astray by figures and doing things the ‘traditional’ way. There are choices available and substantial amounts of money can be saved by enquiring about alternatives to the bank. Currency specialists are regulated by and must be registered with Customs & Excise. Due to the fact that specialists buy large amounts of currency each day from their bank, the bank passes significant savings on to them that they fail to pass on to their own clients. By using a specialist you’re still effectively using the regulated banking system but getting a much better service and, often, a substantial saving.

Why not claim your FREE report from www.RegularPaymentReport.com on how to save money on payments to and from the UK?

Dear All,

Thank you for your speedy transfer to my bank account abroad, it was done the day after I sent funds to you.

I must say you provide an excellent service and would recommend it to my friends. Not only did you inform me by e-mail about the state of the currency market on a weekly basis, your regular phone update proved very useful. It’s not often that one comes across such an efficient company that does exactly what it promises and on time too. I will definitely use you again for future foreign currency transactions,

Sincerely

Ralph Long   15/01/10

To get an update on the Euro exchange rate, request a quote at:
www.SmartCurrencyExchange.com/quote.aspx

News from The Cyprus Mail

Who is Joe Goodwin and why should you care?

Joe is one of the friendliest people in the Overseas Guides Company office, with a thirst for knowledge and an enthusiasm for his job that is utterly infectious.

Joe has a passion for music and started playing drums in various bands at High School, hoping to become a drummer in a professional rock band, earn mega bucks and have crowds of young ladies screaming his name!  It took him until the final year of university to realise that this was not going to pay the bills, so he moved closer to his next goal:  that of owning property around the world, including north Finland (Luosto perhaps?), Northern France, Southern Spain, Nuremberg Germany…

And how better to do this than to live vicariously and help Overseas Guides readers to achieve their property goals?  Arming himself with a BA Hons. in Business Management and Entrepreneurship acquired at Staffordshire University – “a great Uni but one that lacked a buzzing nightlife scene” to quote Joe, off he set to big, bad London and the bright lights to talk to people about their property hopes and dreams.

“Working in a sector that you are passionate about really helps when working late and going the extra mile to find solutions to our readers’ problems” grins Joe and adds:” Of course it will all help for when my dream of owning property abroad myself becomes reality!”

Joe loves building relationships for potential property buyers throughout the buying journey and is always enthusiastic about receiving updates:  “It’s essential to keep up-to-date and to expand our knowledge of the most recent developments and to learn of others experiences - that’s the way I can keep on helping buyers.”

So...why don’t you give Joe a ring and update him on how YOU are doing?  He will drum up all the help and support you need to make your property dreams come true this year!

To speak to a member of the OGC team, please ring Mon-Fri, 9am to 6pm on 0207 898 0549.  The OGC Resource Centre are available to you – free of charge – to offer recommendations, assistance and at the very least help to point readers in the right direction.

2009 – The Dark Age of Property by Kim Brown

Kim Brown, OGC Director, has a column in the UK publication Overseas Living and I thought I would include an article she wrote for their special supplement:

Last year will go down in history as being a dark and bleak year for the overseas property industry.  The ninth year of this new millennium started with a weak pound, greatly reduced lending facilities and a world wide panic regarding the future collapse of world economies.  In January, I vividly remember the discussion my business partner and I had – all our plans for expansion and growth were thrown out as we agreed our only plan of action was to avoid redundancies and survive the year.

The early months of 2009 brought unfortunate stories about British overseas property buyers having to find an extra £20,000 to £50,000 to pay for their dream property.  Many buyers started their dream purchase in 2007/2008 with a favourable exchange rate.  Sterling was over 1.25 to the euro and over 1.90 to the US Dollar but by January 2009 they decreased by 16% and 22%   respectively.  This meant that those that did not secure or fix a rate of exchange spent month after month watching the cost of their property increase in cost.

Emails and phone calls flowed into The Overseas Guides Company pleading for help.  Many buyers couldn’t raise the necessary funds and not only lost their dream property but also their deposit money too.  The sad aspect of the whole situation is that property buyers could have fixed a rate of exchange in 2008 even if they didn’t need to buy or use the money until 2009.  Hindsight can be a depressing thing.

Aside from the weak pound, the banking world was thrown into total chaos and loaning facilities were drastically altered or removed altogether.  For example, many buyers in Cyprus purchased a property assuming they’d get a loan for 80 – 90% of the value of the property, yet the loan to values changed to 60/40 (60% loan to 40% cash).  Imagine dealing with an exchange rate that has increased the value of the property by 20% and then having to find an extra 20 to 30% to meet the requirements of the mortgage?  Could things get any worse?

To compound problems even further, estate agents and developers started to go under talking client deposits and their dreams with them.  Many overseas property ‘professionals’ failed to carry insurance with the result that some property buyers found themselves left high and dry.  Some were left with debt, others with a part-built property and some discovered that ownership of their new home had been transferred to the banks to pay off the developer’s liability. 

Some Brits found themselves in the unfortunate position of being between house sales – they couldn’t sell their UK property and couldn’t meet their obligation of paying for the overseas property.  Those that made the sale of their UK property a condition of the purchase agreement were okay but those who didn’t were forced to completely on the sale.

Yes – 2009 will be remembered as the dark age of property.  The good news, however, is that positive signs have been report and analysts remark that the worst seems to be over.  

If you haven’t purchased overseas yet, you’re in a very fortunate position to learn from history and safeguard yourself.  What should we take from 2009?  Once you buy a property overseas, make sure to secure an exchange rate immediately so that the value of the property does not increase in value (Check out: Smart Currency Exchange Ltd the second you decide to buy overseas).  Regarding mortgages – get the facts.  Know that an offer in principle can and will change.  Find a way to secure the amount needed so that changes in loan to values will not affect you.  When selecting a developer or agent, research what happens if they go bust.  Will you get all your money back?  Finally, if you need to sell a property in the UK to buy one overseas, make the overseas contract conditional on the sale of your UK property to safeguard yourself.

If you want to read the article’s Kim writes for Overseas Living then go to:
http://www.overseasliving.co.uk/news/expert-opinion/

Getting good deals on flights overseas by Carol Dunning – OGC Writer

I have just returned from New York.  When I decided in June of last year to spend Christmas in the States I must confess I was in a bit of a quandary:  Did I book early in the year in the hope of getting a secure reservation over this busy season or did I wait until the last moment, hope to get a seriously rebated seat and risk not getting a booking at all? But then…what if, in these uncertain times, my airline of choice had strikes or, even worse, went under in the intervening months?

Well, the holiday was too important to take a chance on: did I really want to spend Christmas alone in London? So I turned to my old and faithful friend, Opodo.  Ever wondered what the name means, by the way?  Well, its based on "OPportunity tO DO” – I’m a veritable mine of information aren’t I!

Let’s face it, there are endless sites on the Internet where you can book all your travel arrangements, but I prefer to go with tried and tested companies – ones that I have used often before and been happy with – so I went ahead and booked. I did take the precaution of getting a few comparison airfares in advance, but none beat Opodo. 

All went well – I was surprised and delighted to get a reminder text from them the day before I left with date, time AND weather update for the following day – that’s what I call really good service. Fortunately I didn’t have to use the insurance policy I purchased through them but I did phone in with a few queries about it before my departure. Calls were taken personally – none of those endless, aggravating telephonic messages – and emails were promptly responded to and, all in all, I was a very happy travel bunny.

Why don’t you give them a try on:

Cyprus Property Buying Guide

If you haven't already purchased our excellent FULL Guide...why not get a copy today?

The completely educational guide covers the start to finish process of buying a property in Cyprus. Every step is outlined starting with the initial idea to buy in Cyprus all the way through to areas, how to buy land, investment options and many top tips. This guide is for anyone thinking about or currently in the process of buying property or land in Cyprus.

To get your copy go to: http://www.CyprusBuyingGuide.com/guide.htm

Come Carnival with us!

You really must come to the Carnival!

It's soon to be party time all over the island, so get your costume out, dress up and join in the celebrations which start in the middle of February. No matter where you are, be it Nicosia, Larnaca, Limassol, Famagusta or Paphos, there's a great time to be had by everyone!

In Paphos, the carnival falls on Valentine's Day - so a double celebration this year! And boy, does Cyprus know how to enjoy itself when the carnivals are on.

Traditionally, they start before fasting commences for Easter, on the Thursday of “Meat Week”.  This is the last week the faithful followers can eat meat before Easter.

The carnivals last for ten days, during which time the streets are beautifully decorated in preparation for the Grand Parade - when the Carnival King finally enters the town! Then the fun really begins, there are huge confetti cannons going off, dancers in beautiful costumes, floats and the streets (and you) end up absolutely covered in coloured paper and streamers. It's a fantastic atmosphere, you really must try and come!

Everyone can join in, but it’s customary to wear a colourful costume - which you can either make yourself, or buy from a supermarket - anything goes, from butterflies to bees, superman and superwoman, dragons, ghosts - you name it… 

On the big day, very excited children appear from everywhere, either on floats or walking in their stunning outfits. The schools in particular make a huge effort on this occasion - and the atmosphere is electric!

Not quite Rio de Janeiro but nevertheless, fun and fantasy for everyone - come and join us!

Happy 2010

That’s it for this month!  All the very best of wishes in the New Year, and may all your dreams come true.  And if we can help you make that happen we will be truly delighted:  just call me or the OGC Resource Centre on 0207 898 0549 and we will do all we can to help.

Warm regards,

Jackie (and not forgetting Kim!)

Cyprus Buying Guide
The Overseas Guides Company Ltd
0207 898 0549 (call me!)
Cyprus@overseasguidescompany.com

(if you don't already receive a monthly announcement that our Cyprus newsletter has been published, you can sign up to our list here)