With the tremendous growth in certain countries has anyone considered buying land / real estate on the fringes of cities at a discount to capture the price appreciation as the city expands and as buying power of their citizens increases over time?

Thanks for the feedback if you have any!

Not entirely, that is why i am curious as to the experiences of others .

First off, if said countries exist, they probably won't have the type of freeway system we have, so towns/cities will not just grow radially outward. Having said that, real estate is a bad idea: it's speculative as has already been mentioned, and the rule of law is non-existent when you need it. Being a remote landlord is an open invitation for squatters, among other headaches.

A) If you don't ever want to set foot in these countries, stick to emerging growth funds/ETFs and the likes;
B) If you are willing to settle down in these countries, import things wanted by the growing middle-class (e.g. surplus and 2nd hand goods--Goodwill outlets ) or the growing industries (e.g. heavy machinery, as new and affordable as possible);
C) If you only want to stay briefly and have the cash (NOT your retirement funds) and connections, buy into a consumer business (e.g. food manufacturing/processing). Agricultural operations (e.g. dairy farms) rank among the easier targets because there are often farmers ready to be bought out.

I don't want to scare you off but some of these emerging countries have completely different laws than the U.S., and squatting can be a BIG problem.

Take India for example, until recently if you own property and a tenant is using the land for more than X years, the tenant has full rights to the land.

I know people who have lots of land in India and they need a big fence and a (cheap) guard on post to keep squatters off the land. So unless you know someone in this area that is going to manage it for you that you trust, you should be careful.

.02

rpi1967 said:In some foreign country the rule of law is often crooked (yes it occurs in US too). For instance people who previously owned property in China and Cuba pretty much uniformly had it taken away by the government. But in Mexico there have been Mexicans, Canadians and Americans who have received offers they could not refuse.Ya, a friend of ours used to own a flat in Shanghai. After he left about 5 years ago, the government simply took it after he pulled his "residency permit" from Shanghai. As much as real estate has appreciated in China, that was a chunk of change to lose.

Anyway, I think it is very dangerous for someone to invest in property in a location they know little about.

As others have pointed out, the logistics of owning RE in a foreign country could be difficult to the point that it doesn't make sense for an investment.

However, I would imagine there are other ways to accomplish your goal through more practical less risky means such as buying into an international REIT. That is, assuming such REITs exist for the markets you are looking at. If not, there is likely a good reason why they do not exist.

My aunt does this. She's from Australia, and right now she is investing in the US with our family. She does physically fly over about once a year or so to check up on property and such, and a lot can be done by e-mail, phone, and fax. She also can rely on us to some point since we live in the country, but nowhere near the property. We live in LA, our property is in both Las Vegas and Phoenix. She has done quite well for herself, but we are in an up market. She has a manager manage the property. However, she cannot buy fixer uppers since she is far away, so everything she bought is newish. In addition, financing was quite annoying with lots of paperwork that needs to be done. There's also currency issues, if she had transferred money today instead of a few months ago, she would have gained $10k USD, so there's that to keep in mind. I believe she says the taxes she pays are pretty much the same whether she invests here or in Australia, just that she sees a lot more growth and opportunity here.