IF you or a member of your friends and family are thinking about investing in US property, then get the perfect gift: Buying Property in the USA: A Foreign Investor's Guide.

As you know, it's the only book of its kind and is available as an ebook for just $9.99 and is the best guide for foreign investors buying US real estate.

Make 2014 the year you or your friends and family take the leap into US property investment and do it the safe and secure way, by capitalising on all the research and tips packed into our book.

Remember, among the priceless information inside is:

• DETAILED strategies of how, why and where to invest
  
• A SURE-FIRE way - by using our personal contacts - to open a US bank account
• UP-TO-DATE information about the state of the market and pitfalls and traps to avoid.

Get your copy here or on Amazon today.

Wishing you all the best for the holiday season,


Sam Daniels and Ken Sugiura

WOULD-BE investors in the US often here that with prices of US property on the rise, it's harder and harder to find good deals. Certainly that's true of places such as Atlanta and large parts of Florida, as well as Phoenix and parts of Texas.

But once in a while we come across with a deal like this pair of quadplexes that shows it's still possible to find 20% + net yields.

These two quadplexes in the attractive town of Ocala in central Florida are half-full with tenants and once filled will yield around 25%. What impresses us most about this deal is the rehab is all done and at least some of the tenants are already in place giving the buyer cash flow from the word go.

Couple that with the fact the seller is a reputable Florida company, Equity First, these quads would make a good starting point for someone wanting to get into US property investment in a reasonably sizeable way without the hassle of purchasing several individual properties.

Just when it looked like the US dollar was poised to strengthen sharply against the Australian dollar, yen, euro pound and other currencies, the US federal reserve threw a sudden spanner in the works in deciding not to taper its purchases of bonds and other securities this month.

That sent other currencies, particularly the Australian dollar, soaring against the US.

For those looking to invest in US property it provides perhaps another window to convert some money to US dollars in anticipation of making a purchase.

Make no mistake, the fed will begin to wind back its quantitative easing program (QE3), it's just a matter of when. Currency markets will soon absorb this fundamental truth and the US dollar will begin a slow march towards a more normal value against a range of other currencies.

For foreign investors in US property, this is a great chance to sell your local currency and get a bankroll established in US dollars.

-SD

YOU only need read the slew of recent articles in the global financial press in the last six months to get the idea that US property has arrived in the minds of large institutional investors as a worthy asset class.

Ever since gargantuan investor Warren Buffett said last year he would buy a couple of hundred thousand single-family homes if he could, the housing market has attracted renewed interest from both individual and institutional investors keen to buy property in the USA.

Buffett said he stopped short of doing just that because he couldn't figure out a way to manage the portfolio, but that hasn't stopped other investing giants.

Blackstone has waded into the US housing market and emerged rapidly as the leading institutional buyer deploying some $2.5 billion on 16,000 US investment properties.

“The market is moving much faster than anybody thought possible,” Blackstone's global head of real estate Jonathan Gray said in a recent article from Bloomberg. “Housing is much stronger than people anticipated.”

The company has been buying US property in Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Northern and Southern California; Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Florida and various other cities, according to the article.

And it's far from the only giant investment house that has been active with Colony Capital and other major players competing in buying property in the USA. The market is even the subject of analysts notes from JP Morgan and others these days.

So what does this mean for individual foreign investors buying property in the USA? Are there still opportunities out there?

Of course, but we think it means you need to be more careful about where you invest. Markets such as Phoenix and Atlanta may be approaching a situation where much of the capital upside is gone already and the yields have dropped to a level (sometimes under 10 per cent in Atlanta's case and perhaps less in Phoenix) where it might not be worth it for some investors. On the plus side though, having so much institutional interest there means if you do find a good deal (although it's getting harder) there's a high likelihood you can sell it for a profit a little bit down the track.

Other US property investors looking for future capital growth - and easier pickings at the cheap end of the market - are focused on Orlando and other parts of Florida. Our sources there tell us funds are buying too, but it's nowhere near the level of competition from institutional investors that there is in Atlanta.

Aside from Florida, the high value markets of Detroit, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Memphis, Las Vegas and others still offer opportunities for those able to find, analyse and execute good deals.

So don't let the big boys scare you off, grab a copy of Buying Property in the USA: A Foreign Investor's Guide and grab your stake of this exciting and buoyant real estate market. Chapter Four of the book takes readers through the real estate markets most popular among foreign investors.

The fourth in our series of podcasts also discusses the characteristics of some of these markets, although in slightly less detail than can be found in the book.


-SD

SURE it's a bit old (2011), but this good CNBC article on foreigners piling into the US property market lists the destination countries of these investors. Not surprisingly Canadians as the most numerous. They are followed by UK investors, Australians, French and Germans. We believe that the same survey done now would should a lot more activity from Brazilians and Chinese, particularly in Florida, and some decent buying from Japanese investors too.