Copy of an article in which there is much truth. Sometimes one has to accept the personal responsibility for imprudent investments.

If you believe all you read in the media, unscrupulous agents and property developers that renege of their development promises are almost entirely to blame for the misfortunes of overseas property buyers.

Good news rarely makes headlines and the media will always seize on tales of human misery and offer up easy scapegoats based on overly simplistic assumptions.

The coverage of the overseas property bust in the mainstream media has been totally one sided.

Yes, there have been far too many cases of agents of “misrepresenting” developments and employing aggressive sales techniques without offering cooling off periods. And yes, numerous developers have gone bust building properties on the flawed assumption that the overseas property boom would last forever.

But the fact is that more people made money in the boom that lost it in the bust that followed it.

Many of them were lucky and just got their timing right, but many others did their due diligence and made sound decisions. Unfortunately the facts don’t always make good news copy.

Some overseas property buyers were misled, but many more were not. Their judgment was merely clouded by greed and they took huge risks, without examining the consequences.

If you sign a contract on a property (or the purchase of any asset) you are taking a risk and you have to prepared to lose as well as win.

Contracts must be honored on both sides or the whole capitalist system falls down.

Call me heartless but it is good to see coverage today of a developer winning a case against a defaulting buyer. You seldom see this, yet thousands of buyers have defaulted over the past few years pushing firms in our industry over the edge.

If you buy off-plan you are sharing the risk with the developer in the expectation of financial gain. If it goes wrong, pleading ignorance or poverty is not enough to renege on a contract.

Responsibility lies not just with the industry but also with the individuals who wrongly assumed they were making one-way bets.

The media should recognize this but it may be sometime before we see the headline: “I’m a stupid idiot admits overseas property buyer”.

Source: Global Edge

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