With all the bad news of the credit crunch making headlines daily, is this really the right time to be looking to invest in property anywhere – let alone in an area where you may not have a lot of knowledge?  Is now the right time to pack it all in and change you life completely?  This is the question facing many – especially those who are loosing jobs.  If you have a capital injection from say a redundancy, now might be a better time to invest abroad than a planned time.  After all there is nothing to go back to, which will make it easier for you to get over the initial blues of being away from every thing you will miss.  Moving away with out a return ticket to tempt you is far more likely to force you to integrate quickly, and to put in the hours you need to make you investment in your new life work.  
The answer and your own choices will I guess depend very much on your personal circumstances.  It has to be remembered that the Credit Crunch is just that – a Credit Crunch – so if you do not need credit, then now is probably one of the best times to invest, the reverse is true if you need to find finance on top of your options.  With bank foreclosures rising across the world, and tight restrictions on the availability of new capital, the simple thing is cash buyers have power like they have never had before.  People that have over stretched themselves over the last few years are now looking to get out of investments and are often willing to take almost any price. 
So where to invest – well you need to remember the basics rules of the game have not changed.  Location, Access, and Return are still the golden 3 rules for investors, but also now with the market where it is you can afford to be picky on what you want, I would suggest that you write down everything you want and stick to your own critical requirements, if you want a pool insist on only seeing properties with an existing pool or space that you can believe will hold one.  Gone are the days where we all nodded in agreement when then agent told us that there was plenty of space for a plunge pool - at the expense of the sitting area. 
Location will always be the critical point for any property, and now more than ever great locations are going cheaper.  Location was one on the main reasons for the push of the bubble, but it is also where most of the pain is.  People that borrowed heavily to afford that sea view, now need to get rid of it fast to cover the hole in there own budgets.  This is leading to a drop in prices driven from the top.  The knock on is that all prices are now falling in all price ranges, so our advise is work out what you can afford, and look at the moment at every thing 10 to 15 % above this.
The second rule of Access is becoming more important, with airlines failing and routes being slashed, areas that were once well connected from your local airport may now be a 3 or 4 hour trip to or from your nearest connection.  The best defense against this is to look out for the locations that are served by more than one airline – this will not only help to keep the price of travel reasonable, but also means that the route is more likely to stand up in the event of a single failure.
Return is the one rule that is causing all the problems at the moment.  If you are looking purely for an investment property, the answer is that you might well struggle in the short term.  With prices still falling, is now the right time to take the plunge?  What about in six months – will the prices not be better?  The answer is – no one knows, but in the current market there is no real hurry.  Having said that things could change quickly; whilst I do not believe that there is any chance that because the market fell overnight it will be restored over night, but it should stabilize in the next few months.  Growth will then return towards end of 2009, but be warned this will start substantially lower than it was.  I guess what I am saying is that expectation that property prices will return to double digit growth levels in the next few years are wildly out.  I am sure it will happen (it always seems to) but it will not be for a few years yet.  What does this mean – buy some where you want to enjoy for the next 10 to 15 years, not somewhere you are hoping to make a quick buck.
Ok so that is the big picture, but what about after purchasing your property?  Remember that in most countries that have had major property booms over the last few years – now have an over supply of building contractors, this means that you can afford to negotiate quite hard in this area as well.  Restoration projects are likely to be good value for the next few years, but also remember – as the property market starts to return to life, if you bargain to hard on your contractors, as soon as there is other work to do they will be off – job half done or not – and on that note, I am off now as well – but remember if you have a comment on this or any other part of our site, let me know at andrew@andrics.com.  If you have questions or suggestions, let me know and I will do my best to answer them.  Check back to see what is changing