I was not at all surprised to read that Brazilian property development Ecohouse had closed its office in Singapore.
After all, they had announced earlier in January this year that they would be stopping sales of new projects in Singapore in order to focus on the construction of the properties.
If there is not going to be any new revenue inflow from Singapore, keeping an office here is just going to incur additional expenses.
The company mentioned that they were consolidating their operations and will be managing their operations from their global headquarters in London. Ecohouse investors can email to [email protected] for questions on their projects.
Herein lies a problem with investing into overseas property or development projects.
If anything goes wrong with your investment, it is very difficult for you to manage. Unless you go to the country often, or have a relative or close friend who can do it for you, making dedicated trips to resolve issues will incur travel expenses that will eat into the returns.
Unless you are a multi-millionaire who can afford to write-off such investments if something goes wrong, it is probably better to stick to things closer to home.
And I have not even gone into the tax complications of such overseas investments.