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Berlin beckons buy-to-let - 1 June 2007

Investors in property looking for overseas bargains should head to Berlin while they can, according to overseas investors David Stanley Redfearn...

Company spokesman, Andrew Goldthorpe, said that Berlin is unusual for a capital city in having much lower prices than elsewhere, which means that it offers some exceptional deals for investors at present, reports Assetz.

He said: "Investors tend to think that as a major capital city in Europe, it's going to be very, very expensive, but it's not the case at all." In fact, he states, property is uncommonly cheap.

"You can still pick things up over in Berlin for under €35,000 (£23,800). So, as you can imagine, quite a few people are very interested in that, compared to a lot of other capitals."

Another factor which should attract investors, Mr Goldthorpe noted, is the size of the market. Home ownership is lower in the capital than elsewhere in Germany, which means those buying property will seldom be first-time buyers.

"Eighty per cent of the property is virtually rented out so that also attracts people because there's a massive rental market," Mr Goldthorpe states.

Prices will rise over time, so get in now!

Of course, it cannot last. A report in the Financial Times this week has revealed that property is now booming in the city, which one might expect to push prices up over time.

The cold war situation which left the city split by concrete and politics gave way to an end to subsidies and a collapse of industry, with the east in particular unable to complete with the more efficient and technologically advanced west.

Unemployment rocketed. Even now, the paper notes, the growth rate for Berlin, at 1.9 per cent, is a full point behind the rest of the economy.

Yet in other ways Berlin is flourishing. Since the wall came down it has become the capital of a single Germany once more, with the influx of government and its machinery, not to mention a new international profile.

Investment ‘booming’ in Berlin

Investment has poured in, the Financial Times noting that this has particularly been the case in the last 18 months. Retail expansion is also taking place, with the paper noting that such developments as the new Alexa shopping mall are following, not leading, the property investors.

As retail site developer Karl Wambach of US property group Hines told the paper: "Retailers are more cautious than property people."

The newspaper report suggests that low wages, an inevitable consequence of the city's economic struggles of the 1990s, have drawn in many back office and call centre services, while tourism is booming.

Of course, these developments, along with the property boom, would all suggest that growth, wage inflation and consequently property prices are now only going to go one way.

Mr Goldthorpe certainly thinks so. He states the market simply has to grow: "It can't stay at those prices. It is a major European capital."

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