The Mortgage Explorer Blog

We were just about to close one winter evening in 2005 when the telephone rang. It was a Canadian nurse living and working in London. She was married to an Australian  IT consultant. Both had a working permit expiring in 3 years’ time and were renting an apartment, at the time.

The lady was seeking a deposit to buy a flat in downtown Vancouver but would also want a mortgage. The husband had an unencumbered flat in Sydney, Australia. The nurse explained that she had contacted every lender she could imagine in London but had no luck. They all said that they could not comply because she had no permanent residence in this country. She had found The Mortgage Explorer on the web and she felt it was her last resort.
What followed may sound extraordinary to the general public but it was quite simple really.
We dismissed the working permit, concentrated on the salaries they both earned. We next applied for 2 mortgage agreements in principle from an offshore lender. One mortgage was in Australian Dollars as it related to the flat in Sydney. This was the equivalent to the amount required as deposit in Vancouver. The other was the mortgage for the balance of the purchase price on the Vancouver flat. This was in Canadian Dollars.

To some it may seem quite sensible to use the respective currency for where the two flats were located. We could have also got the two mortgages in Sterling as both earned in that currency. However we opted for the previous format because both flats were self financing through getting rented out. The respective income was in Australian Dollars in Sydney and Canadian Dollars in Vancouver. For good measure though, we ensured that there was at least 2 free currency switches annually, they could turn to, should there be a punitive fluctuation in currencies, at their expense.

The whole process took 10 weeks to complete and the happy couple could not believe that they had achieved their dream. In fact the young lady commented that if ever we were to write an article about these transactions we should entitle it : ‘Mother Flat in Sydney makes Baby flat in Vancouver’. Voila

Cape Verde presents an opportunity to invest in a country whose property market and tourism development are still in its infancy.

A growing and stable political and Socio-Economic environment provides the key to investing in Cape Verde. Its democratic government is supportive of direct foreign investment with a rapidly developing and adaptable local infracstructure. The currency Cape Verde Escudo is tied to the Euro.

It is looked upon by investors as an emerging market, comparable to Spain 15 years ago. Continued direct foreign investment, a tropical climate, growing demand for quality bedstock and the success of a new International Airport have and will continue to attract visitors to Cape Verde Islands.

Air links between Europe and Cape Verde are being boosted by the introduction of a 3 flights a week by Air Portugal. The move may help those keen on investing in Cape Verde, especially if they wish to combine this with investing in Portugal as well.

As for the climate: dry tropical with average temperatures ranging between 21C to 31C and water temperatures between 22C and 27C. 10 to 12 hours of daily sunshine for most of the year with no record of tropical storms or hurricanes , well known for its stable climate.

Its large, untouched expanses of white sand beaches are constantly washed by the clear warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean.