Author: Buy2Greece

Greece is leading a rebound in European property demand. The country, which agreed new bailout terms with the European Commission this week, has seen enquiries surge.

Greece is now the 12th most popular property destination in the world, according to TheMoveChannel.com’s latest Top of the Props report. The country climbed four places in the rankings in July 2015, accounting for 1.28 per cent of all enquiries on the portal – up from 0.81 per cent in the previous month.

The country saw enquiries rise for the second month in a row, despite concerns surrounding its ongoing financial situation. In June 2015, worries over a possible Grexit saw overseas buyers lose interest in European favourites Portugal, France and Italy. Greece, though, remained popular, thanks to the euro’s favourable exchange rate, the country’s attractive house prices and its lifestyle appeal. In July 2015, that interest built momentum, with enquiries rising 70 per cent in real terms month-on-month to reach their highest monthly total since January 2015.

Greece’s growing popularity led a wider rebound in demand for European real estate, as investors overcame their caution surrounding the area’s economy. Spain remained the most popular destination in July, with its share of enquiries up from 6.68 per cent to 9.36 per cent. Italy climbed three places into sixth place, its share of enquiries expanding from 2.54 per cent to 3.14 per cent. France, after falling to a record low in the Top of the Props rankings, re-entered the Top 10, rising four places to seize seventh spot, with its share of enquiries increasing from 1.99 per cent to 3.06 per cent.

Portugal fell two places into eighth, its share of enquiries shrinking from 3.26 per cent to 3.02 per cent, but in real terms, the country saw its enquiries rise 3 per cent month-on-month. In real terms, Italy’s enquiries also rose 33 per cent, France’s climbed 67 per cent, while Spain’s jumped 51 per cent.

The return of buyers to Europe caused demand to fall for other destinations, including Australia (down three places into 13th), Cayman Islands (down nine places into 16th) and Thailand (down 10 into 14th). Other, more established destinations saw demand remain steady or increase. Brazil held onto fifth place, while Canada held onto third. They saw their share of enquiries climb from 3.42 per cent to 3.66 per cent and from 3.71 per cent to 5.35 per cent respectively.

Turkey and Cape Verde rose four places to fourth (3.99 per cent) and ninth (2.11 per cent) respectively. The USA also retained its second place, with enquiries up by 52 per cent in real terms.

TheMoveChannel.com Director Dan Johnson comments: “The Greek bailout crisis has been both good and bad news for European real estate. Greece’s struggling economy means that, like many recovering from recession, local demand for property remains low, but the weak euro against the strong dollar and pound has also boosted demand from foreign investors looking to take advantage of bargains. In June 2015, financial uncertainty spread from Greece to other European destinations. With the resolution to Greece’s bailout crisis taking its first steps in the middle of July, though, the following weeks saw previously shaken confidence restored among investors, with demand rebounding for Spain, Italy, France and Portugal.

“Greece still has a very, very long way to go for its economy and housing market to return to normal. Enquiries for Greek real estate on TheMoveChannel.com were 17 per cent down in Q2 2015 compared to Q1 2015, but July marked the promising start of an upturn, with the highest number of enquiries received by Greece in six months.”

The full top 40 destinations on TheMoveChannel.com in July 2015 are listed below.
Read more at http://www.themovechannel.com/news/topoftheprops/greece-leads-european-property-rebound-337/#JxHRKSYlpkT5Y55O.99

“This holiday home offers all the luxuries and amenities. I would really want to holiday here with our kids, but what a shame we couldn’t bring Xena along. They have a no pets policy”.

A lot of vacation rental searchers go through such moments where they love everything about the place – amenities, location, cost, etc but still they have to strike off the option because of zero tolerance policy of the management on the pets issue.

According to research, over 60% of US populations have at least one pet. Holiday home owners must understand that there is a very high percentage of population who wish to take along their furry friends when on a family vacation. Vacation rental owner who are flexible and accommodating on the pets clause, find it easy to get customers for their rental and overtime the pool of their prospective clientele increase, keeping their rental properties fully occupied during holiday season.

Myth Vs Reality

It’s a myth that properties who allow pets aren’t as profitable for the owner due to the damage caused by the pets. On the contrary, research has shown that in most cases there is limited or no damage at all when a property is let to renters with pets. Most pet owners appreciate that they are allowed to spend vacations with their pet and take good care of the property.

Pet owners are also willing to pay 20-30% higher rentals and greater security deposits. They are also more likely to repeat their visits as it is difficult to find another pet friendly property and it is inconvenient for the pet to change its environment each time. On the other hand, holding on to a vacant space and advertising for it is more expensive for home owners as compared to letting tenant who owns a pet. This means that home owners stand to make good profits when they allow pets in their home.

How to Make Your Rental Pet Friendly

You may use baby gates to demarcate areas where you would not like the pets to enter. Install easily maintainable spill proof floors; lock up low cabinets that have cleaning equipment and keep breakable items in higher shelf. These arrangements cost way less as compared to profits earned by retaining a long term tenant.

To make the stay more convenient for guests with pets, you may keep food and water bowl for pets, some chew toys and waste baggies. These arrangements will not only make things convenient for pet owners but also help to keep your rental clean and safe.

A good way of ensuring that pet fury is not hurled towards the property is to keep handy information for pet parks in the nearby areas that can be used by tenants for energy dissipation of their furry friends.

A pet keeping agreement should be signed between the home owner and the tenant so as to keep things clear in black and white as to what is acceptable and what is not.

Checks should be made at the end of the stay to ensure that the terms of the agreement are adhered to and no damage to the property is done.

The landlord must have an insurance against damage done by pets or take a chunkier security deposit to accommodate the risk undertaken.

Just the way it is difficult for a holiday makers to find a good property that is pet friendly, it is difficult for property owners to find guests who would stay for long and also repeat their visits. The equilibrium of this gap can be reached by keeping your no pets policy flexible and making your property pet friendly. This simply reduces the stress levels on either sides and makes the society that much happier.

In a sign that overseas property business is picking up in the UK, leading consumer show A Place in The Sun Live, is adding extra capacity to its shows.

Sony’s latest camera drone prototype is capable of taking off vertically and flying like a plane. The drone made a brief appearance in the film Die Hard 4.0 is the product of Sony’s joint venture with robotics startup ZMP. It resembles the short takeoff and landing of Lockheed Martin F35 fighter jet.

These camera drones can fly further and faster than traditional hexacopters. A joint venture called Aerosense, it uses the imaging technology of Sony, sensing and networking from its smart phone range providing robotic expertise which helps them to fly.

These drones will be used mostly for measuring, surveying, observing and inspecting and will also help in accidents caused due to human errors.

Drones will be used as sensors which will help to sustain stable flights and will become cheaper with technological advances. They are emerging as viable business and consumer products.

The television and film companies are using civil drones for high powered photography and can bring aerial floating action shorts within controlled environment.

Numerous delays by start-up airline SkyGreece resulted in a huge fury among the hundreds of stranded passengers and most of them vented their frustration on the social media channels.

The enraged passengers reacted as the airline founded by a team of Greek Canadians, including a Greek Orthodox priest named Fr. Nicholas Alexandris have failed to appease their customers. Some of the delays went as long as four days, according to the customers. The social media attack forced the airline to take down their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The airline said nothing except that the flights are delayed due to ‘operational reasons’. The troubled passengers are now venting their anger, frustration and disgust on a new group called SkyGreece troubles.
According to the Facebook posts, the priest, Fr. Nicholas supposedly answered one of the stranded passengers on Skype and regretted about the entire scenario. The enraged passengers believe that the airline is playing blame game and avoiding the imperative measures to end the woes of the consumers.

The Facebook posts suggest that the passengers are camping outside the Athens Airport waiting for a confirmation from the company. There are rumors about bankruptcy circulating on the Internet, however, the airline is yet to announce anything of that sort.

Angela Pozaritis, daughter of a Canadian lady stranded held the airline responsible and demanded financial responsibility from SkyGreece stating, “This is a petition list press “like” if you feel SkyGreece should be financially responsible for everyone’s ticket. They should be responsible not only for the safety and well being to and from Toronto and Greece, but we should be reimbursed our money back.”

Setting a precedent for delayed EU passengers on all airlines, Manchester County Court said Ryanair could not cut the time a passenger has in which to claim from six years to two by adding a clause to its small print.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that delayed passengers in England and Wales have six years to claim, but Ryanair says passengers who book with it accept their terms and conditions, and therefore the claim limit is two years.

Citing the six-year rule as “unnecessary and unreasonable” Ryanair said that it would appeal against the decision.

If Ryanair had won all airlines may have been able to impose a two-year time limit on all existing and future flight delay claims.

Passengers can claim between £180 ad £440 for a delay of at least three hours, depending on the length of the wait and the distance to be travelled.

Wilmslow, Cheshire based legal firm Bott & Company, represented the two passengers who brought the case against Ryanair. The firm say compensation could amount in up to £610m of past claims for Ryanair.

In a statement, Ryanair said, “”Since we believe a six-year time limit for submitting such claims is both unnecessary and unreasonable, we have instructed our lawyers to immediately appeal this ruling.”

As the end of summer nears, hotels in major North American markets are focusing on capturing bookings for early 2016 as opposed to last-minute travel deals, according to data from the August 2015 TravelClick North American Hospitality Review (NAHR).

“Savvy hoteliers and smart travelers are playing the long game, according to the latest TravelClick data,” said John Hach, Senior Industry Analyst at TravelClick. “While there are some short-term dips in demand, capturing strong advance bookings is a best practice for opportunistic hoteliers to increase RevPAR well into 2016. However, it will be interesting to see if and how the recent stock market volatility impacts short-term and advance bookings.”

Twelve-Month Outlook (August 2015 – July 2016)

For the next 12 months (August 2015 – July 2016), overall committed occupancy is up 2.2 percent when compared to the same time last year. ADR is up 2.9 percent based on reservations that are currently on the books. Transient bookings (individual reservations that are made by business and leisure travelers) are up 1.5 percent year-over-year, and ADR for this segment is up 3.4 percent. When broken down further, the transient leisure (discount, qualified and wholesale) segment is showing occupancy gains of 4.0 percent and ADR gains of 2.5 percent. The transient business (negotiated and retail) segment occupancy is down 1.6 percent, but ADR is up 4.9 percent. Group segment occupancy is up 2.7 percent, and ADR has increased 1.9 percent, compared to the same time last year.

Hach added, “While there are many reasons that hotels are experiencing a relatively flat to slight dip in Q3 demand, it is likely just a small correction, as many travelers booked their trips earlier this summer. However, the strong dollar cannot be ignored, as it is becoming more expensive for people who live in Europe and Asia to visit the U.S.”

The August NAHR looks at group sales commitments and individual reservations in the 25 major North American markets for hotel stays that are booked by August 5, 2015, from the period of August 2015 to July 2016.

Source:TravelClick