Now we are in 2012, it is important to look upon current trends and utilise market knowledge to assess this year's global property market.
In this exclusive video, co-founders of Property Frontiers David Cox and Ray Withers speak of their property market predictions for the current year and where they believe the best opportunities for investment will be.
Property Frontiers highlight opportunities for 2012 in the South East of the UK, focussing on the London market.
Here they discuss that while there is an air of uncertainty surrounding the UK property market, investors should focus their attention in high yielding properties where excellent incomes can be generated from the areas of student accommodation, care homes and hotel room investments.
With this in mind, certain parts of the EU are also pinpointed as markets that could well provide opportunities despite the debt crisis and economic turmoil within the eurozone, suggesting that on a property level, opportunities could be born for those who want to invest in second homes in southern Europe, becoming cheaper in sterling terms if the Euro falls.
Here they predict that investors should focus more on value rather than growth and propose counties such as Poland as ones to watch in 2012.
While Cox and Withers explain the potential in the USA, one of their favourites from a value perspective thanks to low prices and good yields, they also forecast growth in some emerging markets this year.
They explain that wealth will continue to move east with many Eastern European nations affording young working populations and stressed the Istanbul property market as a sector that will propose good investment potential this year as it still has strong fundamentals and strong growth.
Finally, given the success of the alternative investment sector in 2011, generating around 50% of Property Frontiers sales from Bamboo sales alone last year, the video explains that Alternatives with strong fundamentals and a good track record will continue to be an innovative and accessible opportunity for investors in 2012.
