Property advice - Diarmuid Condon

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viztopia

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I hope that i am not crossing the line here but i have invested in an overseas property and i have received advise from Diarmuid Condon who is a reporter for the Sunday Business Post. He seems very impressive but he is totally against the property i have invested in. My question is how highly rated would Diarmuid Condon be in the property overseas sector. Please note this is not a question on Diarmuid Condon himself, it is a question of his standing in the property overseas sector. The kind of reply that i would be looking for is "he is the eddie hobbs of property overseas etc"
 
Re: Property advise - Diarmuid Condon

viz, I'd hope he wouldn't be the Eddie Hobbs of overseas advisers, remember the Cape Verde debacle? Unless the person has extensive knowledge both on the ground and working in the area you've bought in, then you shoudl trust your own intuition and decision. I've lived and work in the Middle East, been to Dubai and have friends working (1 in property there) but I'd never invest there due to the location, politics, dependence on oil etc and potential for resale and rental, but an on the ground expert without a vested interest blows me out of the water each time!

ps Where did you buy?
 
Re: Property advise - Diarmuid Condon

Did he tell you to flog the property and invest in something he was promoting himself?
 
Re: Property advise - Diarmuid Condon



I have never heard of him. Above comment is true if he sells proeprty through his own company he has a vested interest in trying to get you to buy from him or his company. On the other hand he may have a valid point if he knows who is building the project for example he must have been in the game a while to be reporting in the press etc so listen to what he has to say doesnt mean you have to part with any money yet. If the deal you are looking at feels right and you have done your homework dont hesitate.
 
Re: Property advise - Diarmuid Condon

He has a consultancy and has posted on here too, but there is nothing in the world like an independent consultant, they all have links and that's business. Now an ombudsman/person, then you have an unbiased view and advice. Even top advisors are not always spot on and sometimes dangerously so, my namessake wrote about investing overseas and taxes, costs etc, in the SBP, he made a couple of glaring errors in regards to Croatia that I was disappointed in. But then again, we're all human! If you've done your homework and are satisfied, plus the investment is above board, then you should be happy.
 
Re: Property advise - Diarmuid Condon

Viztopia,

Where did you buy and what reasons were you given for selling? What were the reassons for purchasing in the other location?

Diarmuid Condon has a regular property column with the SBP. He's one of the few journalists who tend to give some critical analysis of overseas property markets. The others seem to just quote mainly biased positive statements provided by estate agents and developers. Over the last month or so he has written some articles about the dangers and pitfalls of buying property abroad.
 
I have read some of the stuff he has written and it is far better than the usual guff about overseas property. If he is charging you a fee for the advice then at least his motivation would be independent.

Brendan
 
It's great to have independent journalists or advisors, but isn't that independence tested when they then charge you a fee to check into what country to invest into or not? This isn't a slight against anyone, but a property advisor could be classed as a property agent without a visible portfolio. Don't we all have stronger links/contacts with one place or another, it's just human and business nature.
 
almo said:
It's great to have independent journalists or advisors, but isn't that independence tested when they then charge you a fee to check into what country to invest into or not?
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How so? They are working for and paid by you, not a developer.
 
Before everyone starts to loose the run of themselves, it might be advisable to wait until viztopia informs us as to where he/she bought and more importantly why, it seems, he/she waited until AFTER they purchased the property to contact an advisor.
 
ccovich, the point is for folks who are looking for a property to buy, they go to an "advisor" and are told what's hot and not, so, the point is, are there any completely 100% unattached consultants who don't have any sort of interest? Eddie Hobbs would be up with the best willing of them, but as it came out, he plugged Cape Verde because he had an interest there.

My colleagues are approached on a not too irregular basis by "freelance" reporters or staffers who, for a nice holiday, will do a half or full page spread, I can name 2 such from British Sunday weekenders who use this tact. It's publicity but at what cost to the consumer and developer/agent.
 
There isn't an advisor without a bias either by way of background, experience or point of view, sometimes trapped by comments previously published, by innate conservatism or boundless optimism to the point of recklessness. Many AAM posters are unduly negative, lacking ANY experience in overseas property and some of the stuff posted displays total ignorance of the issues especially by those that favour equities.

The facts are that for every €1 invested in shares Irish investors invest €3 in property. Lots of stuff posted for example on new destinations like Cape Verde or the Baltics is devoid of any real analysis.

This is the wrong place to start any research as a consequence. I suggest you ask the professionals- ideally top international firm's analysis. There ain't much here except bluffers on this subject. Look at the threads history and you'd never think there were opportunities to enhance your balance outside of the narrow prescribed formula limited by the narrow overseas experience of most active posters few of whom have ever visited overseas sites.
 
What was the "Eddie factor" mentioned above? , i attended an exibition on Cape Verde and Hobbs gave very general advice on all aspects of overseas property. He did admit to liking CV before these expos.
 
Carlos, his family were developing there and selling property, he issued some half-baked denial but maintained the promo for it on his site. Fair enough if he truly believed in it, good lord I could do the same for certain things, but when you're known for giving objective and impartial advice, it'd be better to just steer clear of a certain area than be called anything untoward in the end. Maybe that's just me.

Paddle, I'm working with a company here in Croatia that deals in property, so pelase don't think I'm being negative, I believe I've been pretty positive and not reckless, just pointing out that it's kind of a contradiction to have an "independent consultant", especially in property, overseas or not. I know I've cheesed off my colleagues by warning clients away from certain areas or by pointing out things that really wouldn't matter anyway (that the sea is not 100% or that the capital increase is slower or that rental income is not as good as you'd expect), but I'd figure that's just common courtesy.

What has your experience been of the overseas market? Do you think that some places like Cape Verde are a little ott in marketing? I have doubts on Turkey having been there a few times and looking at figures etc, but I find the country fascinating.
 
almo said:
ccovich, the point is for folks who are looking for a property to buy, they go to an "advisor" and are told what's hot and not, so, the point is, are there any completely 100% unattached consultants who don't have any sort of interest?
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The point I was making is that if there are (I have no idea whether there are or not), if they were making money on the basis of fee based advice, as opposed to commission on sales, they would be independent, similar to Authorised Advisors. This is in response to this point

almo said:
It's great to have independent journalists or advisors, but isn't that independence tested when they then charge you a fee to check into what country to invest into or not?
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which I don't understand.

Why would they give independent advice for free????
 
There is no independent advice on the market. It's a myth and measuring/ criticising/ benchmarking against a myth is a waste of keyboard time. Name one Authorised Advisor and I'll show you the the bias / dependency of their position. There are only different degrees of dependence. You can choose any well known advisor, even so-called independent economists (other than those in academia full time) and with some research you'll trace back a bias. This is because people are paid money from somewhere, including from lobby groups who hire them.

Even non-industry posters on AAM are not independent and are trapped by their experience, prejudice, envy or inexperience on some subjects. To expect anybody to be authentically independent is a nonsense. To expect free independent advice is even worse.
 

Fine. It all depends on what you believe. Varying degrees of dependence-sure, I don't disagree. Everything in life is relative.

Keeping all others things equal, I would feel more confident in receiving what I perceive to be independent advice from someone who I would pay for the advice as opposed to someone who would eagerly give it to me for free.

So what is the best way of receiving advice-even if you undertake it yourself, it will not be perfect, it is likely to cost you money (time and cash), and will be tainted by your own prejudice, inexperience and envy etc. (as you have already admitted)


What is your prejudice paddlepuss?
 
Hi,

as you'll no doubt have noticed I'm new to this forum, I've not posted much before and thus far it confuses the hell out of me. As far as I can make out this thread has veered off in a complete tangent from the original posting and seeing as viztopia couldn't be bothered to tell anyone where he's/she's bought or what advice he's/she's received the whole thing seems a bit irrelevant at this stage.

I did a search for Diarmuid Condon (apparently it's Diarmaid) and found his website at http://www.diarmaidcondon.com (www.diarmaidcondon.com) so I guess people could make their own judgements on what they find there. It all looked fairly Kosher to me but then what do I know?

As for bias, I'm sure everyone has it but would it be fair to say that some would base their bias on better information than others?
 
In fairness, they only started the thread yesterday, so they haven't been given much time to respond!

In their first post, viztopia asked

viztopia said:
The kind of reply that i would be looking for is "he is the eddie hobbs of property overseas etc"
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Well look what the links page on http://www.diarmaidcondon.com/ (www.diarmaidcondon.com) http://www.diarmaidcondon.com/Links.html (throws up)!

Whoopdedooda said:
As for bias, I'm sure everyone has it but would it be fair to say that some would base their bias on better information than others?
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Yes, fair comment, in my opinion.

I don't know much/anything about Diarmaid Condon, other than what I have read here. I'm not making any judgement on 'his standing' but I would agree with what Brendan says above.
 

An ombudsman is in place to give free advice, I've yet to meet an advisor who hasn't got some link to industry (esp in property) that cannot but slant their judgement, even with the best will in the world.

I would feel more confident in receiving what I perceive to be independent advice from someone who I would pay for the advice as opposed to someone who would eagerly give it to me for free.

You're very adroit in entering that it's your perception of the advise. So you, as a person would believe that if you've paid for it then it must be better than getting it for nothing......this isn't a slag off, just how people value such services. Charge a fee and suddenly it's worthwhile, lend a hand with no strings attached and it's throwaway advice. Human nature is a terrible thing. You have to charge a full on fee to have any worth or standing. I've seen such gratefulness from folks when they've been overcharged for services here by some agents, yet when they perceive you don't value your time then it's not regarded as much.
 
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