Macau vs. Las Vegas Gaming Revenues: A Reversal of Fortune

Lately, my post from 6 years ago, http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2011/05/macau-surpassing-las-vegas-as-worlds.html , has had resurgence in readership, but it is outdated now.

Back then I commented that Macau had 4 times the gaming revenues as Las Vegas and was growing rapidly (43% in the previous year) while Las Vegas gaming revenues were shrinking because of the U.S. recession.

Macau Casino gaming revenues topped at $45.27 billion in 2013 and have steeply fallen since then to $28.04 billion in 2016, a decline of 38%.  This may have been caused by:

1. A limit placed by the local government on the number of gaming tables (5500), and

2. Chairman Xi’s crackdown on government corruption. This made corrupt civil servants reluctant to visit Macau, and the rumor was that many of the high rollers were government officials.

Las Vegas Strip gaming revenues have recovered since then, with $6.35 billion in 2015, up about 8% from that time, as the city continues to reinvent itself.

Atlantic City continues to lose gaming revenues to new casinos in the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas. Both states have been experiencing about a 3% annual gain in gaming revenues, and Pennsylvania now ranks second nationwide in gaming revenues.

Meanwhile, there is a surprise third place in international rankings.

The U.S. ranks first, with $38.54 billion in gaming revenues, followed by China (Macau), with $28.04 billion.

In third place is Japan, with $12.845 billion in gaming revenues. This is a surprise considering that Japan just legalized casino gambling this year, but what I never thought of before is Japan’s Pachinko Parlors, which more resemble pinball arcades than casinos.  Nevertheless, each one is a place of gambling, and there are 1248 of them in Japan.

Chinese Capital Flight Distorts California Real Estate Prices

Llano, California

I took this photo two years ago when my solar farm client asked me to estimate land values near their facility. These were actual platted residential lots nearby, in Llano, California, with rough-graded streets and electrical transmission lines, but no water or sewer. The surprising discovery about the recent sales in this area was that the buyers were Chinese, and no one was developing the lots, paving the streets, or bringing in water or sewer. These were absentee owners. There was no particular reason to live here, anyway.

Recently I received a request from a bank to appraise an unbuilt condo at The Metropolis, LA’s most extravagant new residential tower yet, as a rental property. 1500 condominiums are being built and offered for sale for prices ranging from $600,000 to $2,000,000. Luxury residences do not generally make profitable rental properties, though, and rentals are generally an interim use before the owner makes the decision to sell or occupy.

Inquiring with Chinese-speaking Los Angeles realtors, I heard the opinion that many of the buyers at The Metropolis, being built by Greenland, a developer out of Shanghai, did not intend to occupy their units, which reminded me of a famous saying by oft-quoted New York appraiser Jonathan Miller that similar condos in New York City serve as "safe deposit boxes in the sky that buyers can put all their valuables in and rarely visit." A National Association of Realtors survey a couple of years ago even measured that the percentage of Chinese buyers purchasing such homes for primary occupancy was only 39%.

Events about a decade ago showed what can go wrong, though, when a luxury residential tower has a low rate of owner occupancy, as seen in Florida and Las Vegas. They can become "ghost towns." Has the Chinese luxury housing bubble exported itself to California and New York?

A Gringo and His Money are Soon Parted in Costa Rican Real Estate

Gringos are often attracted to Costa Rica for its beauty and its claim to be the happiest nation on Earth. Some decide to buy real estate, but the result is not always happy.

My first awareness of the risks in investing in Costa Rican real estate came in 2004 from an old friend who decided to retire, sell his travel agency, and invest the proceeds in a cliffside restaurant/home in Costa Rica.  Being a Venezuelan national, he was fluent in Spanish and could competently read any document presented to him in Spanish. He hired an attorney to advise him on the purchase. After delivering his life savings to the closing of the sale, he then went to visit his property, only to find out that the seller did not have title to the property and that his own attorney conspired against him. 

He returned to the U.S., broke and reduced to sleeping on friends’ couches.

I first started appraising in Costa Rica in 2010, and I started hearing stories of foreigners cheated in real estate deals.  The best known story at that time was the experience of Sheldon Hazeltine, who created a YouTube video titled “Costa Rica land fraud”.  Hazeltine and his partners bought a coastal parcel near Los Sueños with the intention to develop it.  While he was outside Costa Rica, a nearby wealthy landowner organized squatters to occupy the land and then declare squatters’ rights.  In Costa Rica, a squatter can acquire a right to possession (not ownership) after just one year of occupation, unless it is an agrarian parcel, in which case, the Institute for Agrarian Development can expropriate the land and transfer ownership to squatters who are farming the land. Otherwise, after 10 years of occupation, the squatter can then obtain titled ownership, anyway.

After some time being occupied by squatters, though, a billboard was erected on the property advertising the development of a hotel on the site by the wealthy landowner.  He basically paid the squatters to take the land and enable him to obtain ownership through their squatters’ rights. The squatters were paid off to leave. Hazeltine had been trying to get back his land for almost 20 years.

This YouTube video is no longer available due to a defamation lawsuit against Hazeltine.  He accused a thief of being a thief.

I was told of squatters who have taken over properties previously belonging to Tropical American Tree Farms, a failed teak farm venture. A young attorney organized squatters to occupy the former teak farms, charging them for the privilege. They cut down the trees and planted crops. It is possible, now that the teak farms have been vacated for so long, that the squatters may have obtained title to the lands per agrarian law.

There is a logic behind these squatters’ rights laws that is antagonistic to absentee landlords living in other nations.  Possession is nine-tenths of the law; there is little sympathy for supposedly rich gringos that own land but do nothing with it when there are so many landless campesinos in Costa Rica who just want to earn a basic living.

But the problem of expropriation of land from foreigners gets worse.  There has been a proliferation of property theft gangs which use public notaries to record transfer deeds in their favor without the owner of the land knowing about it.  Any deed transfer by a notary public is accepted as true until a judicial proceeding establishes otherwise, and such litigation typically takes 5 to 7 years.

Property theft through fraudulent title transfer has become such a problem in Costa Rica that a legislative bill was introduced last August to quicken the pace of justice for defrauded landowners.  

Legislative bill number 19.968, the Law for the Cancellation of Irregular Entries in the Property Registrar (Ley De Cancelación De Asientos Irregulares En El Registro Inmobiliario Del Registro Nacional), would create an administrative mechanism to cancel fraudulent property documents that have entered into the Property recording system.   By bypassing the courts, the time frame to revert a fraudulent transfer would be significantly reduced.

If a foreigner wants to be an absentee landlord in Costa Rica, nevertheless, the risks are high.  The best way of having a defensible ownership is to buy within a gated community.  Otherwise, one must live in Costa Rica full time or else hire security, and there may be little to prevent your security guards from transferring the ownership into their names.

 

<

An Appraisal of a Commercial Property in Seoul, South Korea.

A wealthy Korean immigrant died in California and his will left a commercial property in Seoul solely to his only daughter, thereby disinheriting her brothers.  Two brothers traveled to Seoul to have a Korean court overturn the will and obtain partial interests in the building.  They succeeded.  The daughter, in turn, sued her brothers in California court for full ownership, as California Estate Law had been violated. She won.

My assignment was to review a translated Korean language appraisal that had been ordered by a Korean court, in order for me to figure out the damages her brothers had to pay her for stealing part of her inheritance, and testify to this in a California court.

I had been a speaker at a conference sponsored by the Korean Association of Property Appraisers in Seoul in 2008, and was familiar with some of their valuation methods and the differences there are with U.S. valuation methods.

Two differences are:

Land and improvements are valued separately.  This is similarly done in Germany and by U.S. tax assessors, and I’m finding it increasingly necessary in Los Angeles County, where land values are spiraling upwards, calling into question the highest and best uses of many older properties.

Because Seoul is built out and there is a lack of land sales, The Minister of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs also compiles a “Officially Announced Price System”. I often find that such price announcement systems fail to keep pace with changing market conditions, especially if created by a government bureaucracy.

The Government's computer-generated land valuations are overly general, too.  Theoretically, the appraiser should adjust land values for accessibility, size, and developability. This appraiser made no adjustments.

In this case no adjustment was made for a 4-story. 7736 square foot building that had no road access (see photo).  It was situated on a 241.3 square meter (2597 square feet) lot in Jongno-gu, which is one of the wards that compose the central business district of Seoul. The building itself is situated behind and obscured by a taller building and thus had no street access or visibility.

The appraiser stated land value to be 12,210,000 Korean won per square meter, equivalent to $10,912 per square meter or more than $1000 per square foot.  I have seen such land valuations in Manhattan, and since Seoul is a city of 10.2 million people with twice the population density as New York, I did not immediately doubt such a figure.

Nevertheless, the zoning for the site allowed only one extra story of height, and the site was already fully covered.  Accessible only by alley way, there would have to be an assemblage of adjacent parcels if any type of redevelopment could be done, but this is done commonly in Seoul if 80% of property owners consent to join a "redevelopment union".

Although this building was classified as an office building, its employees were more likely to be employed as seamstresses than office workers.  The lack of vehicular access limited this property’s highest and best use. The size of the lot, less than 2600 square feet, was only about half the size of a typical residential lot, which is not conducive to high-density redevelopment, and the space between buildings was so tight that I could not get a photograph of the whole building in one frame.

To find comparable sales and listings I turned to the auction houses which publish details of their real estate auctions.  They typically publish the original reserve price, which is based on appraised value, and then subsequent reserve prices which are discounted by 20% each month until they attract bidders.  The subject property itself had failed to attract bidders at two auctions and the reserve price for the next auction is now set at 64% of appraised value.

In the end, the client was able to get compensation from her brothers based on the original Korean appraisal.

One hidden treasure in these alley ways off of the street are blocks of street markets and food stalls.

The Growing Worldwide Glut of Luxury Condos



Pavilion Residences One and Two stand largely dark at night behind the successful Pavilion Shopping Mall in Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle, yet Phase 3 is now under construction and promises to be more luxurious, featuring serviced suites.  Were Phases 1 and 2 not good enough? Phase One is said to have been sold out to residents from 27 different nations, but few seem to live there.



In my travels in the last year I have witnessed an increasing supply of luxury residential condominium towers in cities such as New York, Boston, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Seattle, Vancouver, Beijing, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur and my home city of Los Angeles.

In many instances, luxury condo purchases represent foreign flight capital from the upper classes of nations with changing political conditions.  South Americans, particularly Venezuelans, have been attracted to Miami, where a condo glut from 8 years ago has been fully absorbed, with new condo towers now in the works. Western Pacific Coast condos are often being bought by Chinese buyers who want to diversify their investments or feel that they lack safe investment options within China, and some who just want a safe place to store ill-gotten gains now that the Chinese government is cracking down on corruption. 

In many cases, the motivating decision to purchase a luxury condo is the relocation and preservation of capital into nations with secure property rights and stable political conditions, such as the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.  Under the present circumstances in Venezuela, for instance, how secure can a high-net-worth individual or family feel when there are riots in the streets and the government is socialist?

As Jonathan J. Miller, New York’s most quoted appraiser, says in the New York Times, “We’re building the equivalent of bank safe deposit boxes in the sky that buyers can put all their valuables in and rarely visit.” These absentee ownership residences become obvious in night-time skylines all over the world, where few interior lights are on in the evening (such as the Pavilion Towers in Kuala Lumpur in the top photo). When preservation of capital is their main motivation, they hesitate to rent such units out and prefer to keep them vacant.
 
Preservation of capital, though, should not be confused with return on capital.  Those buying luxury condos for rental income will be disappointed, as some of these cities do not have the high income professionals (e.g. Miami, Las Vegas, Vancouver, and Kuala Lumpur) to cover the carrying costs of such condos. I have seen similar disparities in Honolulu.  Tourist cities might be pleasant locations for second homes, but local incomes are generally low, as how much can the local population earn working in hotels, taxi cabs and restaurants?

For those investing for property price appreciation purposes, I fear that the world is running out of multi-millionaires to purchase the swelling inventory, and depreciation is becoming increasingly likely, eventually resulting in fire sale prices. 

What happens, too, when the home country political conditions improve, and the owners decide to repatriate their capital back to their homeland?  Who will purchase such condos at resale?  Chinese and Japanese investors, for instance, have a distinct preference for purchasing new residences, and resales of luxury residences are often marked down. (I remember when the Turnberry was the place to be in Las Vegas in 2008 and have seen considerable markdowns since then.)

The result can be tumbling condo prices, as was seen in Vancouver at the beginning of this century, when Hong Kong investors in Vancouver condos decided it was safe to return to Hong Kong, where the capitalist economy was booming, and then sold their condos in Vancouver.  Now the buyers in Vancouver are from Mainland China. 

The recent regime change in Argentina might similarly entice wealthy Argentineans to return home to a new pro-business climate now that the incompetent Fernandez dynasty of 13 years is gone.  Argentina’s new leader, Macri, made a favorable impression in a recent episode of Sixty Minutes.

Within China there has also been an overdevelopment of luxury condos, as evidenced in the accompanying chart presented by a Chinese government housing official at the MIT World Real Estate Forum last week. The vacancy rate in the luxury residences (defined as Tier 3) is increasing while there is a great need for more “Affordable Housing” (Tier 1).  One young man in Beijing told me of having to share a one bedroom apartment with 3 other graduating college classmates while searching for employment in a country which generates more than 7 million new college graduates per year.  When I attended the OPIE (Overseas Property and Immigration Exhibition) in Beijing two weeks ago, I noticed a luxury condo tower breaking ground next to my hotel, the Metropark Yuantong.

Tier 3 housing has sold well in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but not so well in lesser cities such as Xi'an, where a 27-story high-rise tower had to be recently demolished due to lack of occupancy and deterioration.

 

 

 

 

Tier 3 Condo Towers in Shanghai

For most of China’s recent history, investment options have been few for local residents, so many have bought condos as a way of saving money with hopes of capital appreciation in the future. Local bank savings accounts offer paltry interest rates, and the Chinese stock market is increasingly viewed with suspicion as Chinese corporations do not operate according to GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), but by CRAP (Chinese Regularly Accepted Accounting Principles).

 

Critical Thinking Skills Needed for Real Estate Appraisers and Valuers

My posts on Scotland and Trinidad in September were critical of "chartered surveyors" who allowed false information to enter the valuation process with exculpatory phrases such as “the developer informs us that…” without verifying such information, even if it seemed preposterous. I did not intend to suggest that chartered surveyors were worse than valuers and appraisers elsewhere.  The same problem exists  throughout the world, including my home country of the USA.

Part of the problem is that “critical thinking” skills are not part of the valuer’s training in any nation where I have interacted with local valuers. 

In the English-speaking world, valuers are trained using “business school” methods.  Instructions in problem-solving start with set, unchallenged assumptions, and the question is not asked, “What if the information and assumptions are wrong?” or "What if the property owner is lying?" There is an intermediate step which is being neglected, the step that consists of verification, exemplified by such questions as "How do we know that the building measures 25,000 square feet?" Did we measure it? Did a government entity measure it?  Did we get the number off the rent roll? (Rentable areas are often inflated by landlords.) Or were we just "informed" by the owner?

Consider, for instance, that the larger the property, the less likely it is that the appraiser will measure it.  In a recent appraisal of a 44-structure industrial campus, the owner represented building area as 256,000 square feet, claiming the measurements to be from the county tax assessor's office. The assessor's measurements were 54% smaller.

In Latin America and some other nations, valuers enter the profession through the field of architecture or engineering, and their more scientific education is even more dependent upon problem-solving that starts with set, unchallenged assumptions. I find many of these architects and engineers overly rely on the Cost Approach and also lack skill in discerning current market conditions (which need to be known in adjusting the Cost Approach for “external obsolescence”, the loss in value due to unfavorable market conditions or external adverse influences).

Imagine if all appraisers and valuers verified the information about the subject property that they relied on.  The world would receive more accurate valuations.  Instead, trainers of valuers indoctrinate their students into providing multiple “Assumptions and Limiting Conditions” that merely serve as disclaimers that complete due diligence was not performed, and then they have the nerve to call this "good appraising"! Remember that "Assumptions and Limiting Conditions" serve to protect appraisers and valuers from liability and not to protect the client.  Take the following example:

In the Scotland post, (http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2013/09/appraisal-of-former-naval-base-in.html), I spoke of a former munitions site appraised as the site of a new, 5-star hotel, with the valuer stating the assumption that no environmental contamination was present (almost never the case with a munitions site), even with abundant metal scrap visibly leaching oxides into the soil, underneath signs warning persons to keep out due to ongoing asbestos removal. 

Making this assumption in the “Assumptions and Limiting Conditions” section of an appraisal is not good appraising; it is aiding and abetting fraud. Sure, a valuer is not professionally trained in measuring environmental contamination, but a valuer does not have to be an environmental expert to state visible evidence in his or her report.

Once I had a debate with another appraiser on an on-line appraisers' forum.  I mentioned that I had one client who insisted that I inspect the roof on every building that I appraised for them.  This other appraiser seemed angered by my remarks and insisted that roof inspections were outside the scope of an appraiser’s duties and it was dangerous to our profession to think otherwise. He even stated that it was even unethical to state my roof observations because it would infer that I was representing myself as a roofing expert. That had been what he was taught.

I remember a situation with a former Honeywell building in Minnesota in which missing or worn-out roof flashings resulted in rain and snow melt leaking down inside the exterior walls and destroying several hundred thousand dollars of computer equipment. Now which appraiser is more likely to get sued – the one who pointed out the obvious hazard, or the one who performed an incomplete property inspection and had the attitude of “That’s not my job”?

The truly concerned appraiser or valuer (who cares about his clients) needs to think about whatever may affect the market value of the property.  This includes being properly informed in matters of construction and design, environmental hazards, flood zones and protected wetlands, demographic analysis, and microeconomic analysis of the equilibrium between supply and demand.  Anything less could make the valuation a meaningless academic exercise and is an abdication of professional responsibility.  It can also hurt the client.

This also answers a question I occasionally get asked, which is why do I get sent overseas to perform valuations where local appraisers are available?  The answer is that I offer my clients extra due diligence that they have learned not to expect from other appraisers or valuers, who instead provide pages and pages of disclaimers and limiting conditions. When others say "That's not my job" I say "I will make it my job."

But let us take "critical thinking" to an even higher level.  Shouldn't we as appraisers and valuers also question valuation techniques that may be incomplete or unsound to begin with? 

The appraisal profession has been deficient in its use of discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, for instance. Some appraisers and appraisal organizations teach that future expenses will grow no faster than future income, when in reality, a building is a deteriorating asset and expenses will almost always increase faster than the rate of price inflation. So many commercial loans have failed because reliance was placed on an unrealistic DCF analysis.

Appraisers have also been surprisingly resistant to the concept of looking at listings as comparable sales data. If listings are found indicating lower market values than most recent sales, this is the warning indicator to inform appraisers of a declining market. In that case, listings will indicate the new, reduced ceiling of value.

Some appraisers refuse to use comparable sales that are foreclosures or in foreclosure, even if the appraised property is also in foreclosure. Someone has taught them to do this. This can result in overvaluation.

Critical thinking can sometimes fly in the face of professional orthodoxy, which may not always hold up to logic. There is a status quo maintained by professional "Grand Poobahs" whose power is dependent upon a lack of change.  Professional orthodoxy is sometimes not that much different than a religion. Many years ago, religious leaders were asked the question, "What would you do if Science invalidates part of your religion?" (We all know that the Earth is not flat.) The answer that impressed me most was from the Dalai Lama. He said, "Then Buddhism would have to change." Likewise, the appraisal profession will also need to change with the times. 

PS:  For younger or foreign readers, the above illustration is of a television character named "Sergeant Schultz", an incompetent prison guard played by John Banner in the 1960s television sitcom "Hogan's Heroes". His stock phrase was "I know nothing, NOTHING!" even though he sometimes knew that his prisoners were up to no good, but could be persuaded to look away by a piece of chocolate.  

Appraisal of an Industrial Property in San Jose, Costa Rica

Urban real estate appraising sometimes yields pleasant surprises, as the shortage of land in growing or geographically constricted cities can create situations in which a property’s land value can exceed its value as currently improved. I appraised a similar situation in San Francisco, California immediately before flying to San Jose, Costa Rica to appraise the property of a bankrupt boatbuilding company.

I stayed at the charming Hotel de Bergerac in the Los Yoses barrio of San Jose while making a two-kilometer walk to and from the subject property, located in the rapidly urbanizing suburb of San Pedro in the canton of Montes de Oca. Vacant lots were few to be found, and new, upscale retail stores were often built next to dilapidated, corrugated steel structures, as often occurs in Latin American cities concurrently experiencing prosperity and land shortages. Moreover, much of San Pedro had been upzoned, permitting building heights of up to 7 stories and site coverage of up to 85%.

Montes de Oca has a particular attribute contributing to its growth. It is also known as Costa Rica’s “Cradle of Higher Education”, including the Universidad de Costa Rica, Universidad Latina and Universidad Fidelitas, all located in or near San Pedro.

Arriving at the subject property, I was initially disappointed to see the physical deterioration of the various structures, most of which were aging metal buildings with rusting steel roofs. This is one of the common letdowns of foreign appraising – traveling many hours and thousands of miles to find a property that is far less than as described. It makes me anxious that someone is going to be angry with my report. The remaining physical life of these particular buildings was rather limited, although San Jose’s 96% industrial occupancy rate does prolong the usage of older buildings.

What was encouraging to see, though, were two neighboring industrial sites that had already been redeveloped with attractive new multifamily housing. San Pedro has a housing shortage and has been encouraging multifamily development.

In one of my posts last year, http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2012/07/appraisals-of-view-land-in-costa-rica.html, I described my lunch with a Costa Rican appraiser in which I asked what Costa Rican appraisers use for comparable land sales. He said that because of the lack of publicly available land sales data, the San Jose provincial government has created a map system for appraisers known as La Mapa de Valores de Terrenos, which sets a baseline value per district, which is then adjusted by appraisers for site factors such as size, zoning, commercial street frontage and terrain. The base rate for this section of San Pedro is 180,000 colones per square meter, equivalent to $358 per square meter (or $33.25 psf) at today’s exchange rate. These land values are comparable to CBD land values in many U.S. cities.

When the comparable improved property sales and listings and land sales and listings were compared, it became clear that the subject property was no longer improved at its “highest and best use”. The land value of the site, even adjusted for demolition and remediation costs, still exceeded the “value in use” of the current improvements, and there seems to be enough collateral value to support the requested loan, which, ironically, is going to be used to restart boat production.

More later, when the loan is funded.

Chinese Housing Bubble

The chart below may explain the reason for seemingly contradictory reports of housing shortages vs. reports of ghost cities of empty new apartments in China. The chart, published on www.newgeography.com , shows a long-term misallocation of capital towards construction of luxury apartments, whereas affordable housing is in short supply.



In my previous post two years ago on the Beijing housing shortage, http://www.internationalappraiser.com/search?q=beijing+housing , I had spoken to a recent college graduate who described how 6 to 8 recent graduates would have to share one apartment because of the lack of affordability, yet there also media reports, including Leslie Stahl’s 60 Minutes visit to China and interview of Wang Shi, China’s biggest real estate developer, indicating thousands of empty condos in places such as Zhengzhou, Urdos and Tianjin. One memorable irony of this 60 Minutes episode was the sight of poor villagers in Zhengzhou salvaging bricks from the rubble of their modest homes, razed to build new condo towers, while empty condo towers loomed in the background. It was explained that these villagers couldn’t possibly afford the newly built high-rise residences.

In the U.S.A., the sight of so many empty condo towers was the precursor to the bankruptcy of such lenders as IndyMac Bank, whereas it is surprising to learn that in China, these empty towers are actually sold out to small investors. Middle class Chinese investors have very few investment options:

1. Put the money in the bank and earn a very low interest rate.
2. Invest in Chinese stocks traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, in companies that Chinese investors consider to be dodgy and dishonest. (They are restricted from investing in Chinese companies listed on the Hong Kong exchange, which are more trusted because they have to meet higher financial and reporting standards.)
3. Invest in real estate, which has always gone up in value in their lifetime.

This has led to massive investment in residential real estate, and the Chinese government has already taken steps to curb speculative demand for housing with restrictions on loan-to-value ratios for investor-owned housing and the number of units that can be owned.

Nevertheless, when so much money is sitting in empty homes with no renters, the fundamental economic law of supply and demand ultimately forces home prices lower.
Future investors will be dissuaded from investing in these homes with no prospect of income, and sales prices will decrease as a result. This is an inexorable economic law, much as the physical law of gravity, which no society can escape.

The potential result is that millions of middle class Chinese families will lose much of their wealth in an inescapable housing crash, similar to events that have already transpired in places such as the U.S., Spain and Ireland.

Avoiding Cultural Gaffes while Appraising Abroad

British innkeeper Basil Fawlty [actor John Cleese] is confronted with an "ugly American"

 

 

One day in Perth, Australia, my Australian hosts and I had some time to kill between property inspections and we settled at a pleasant riverfront café at about 11 am.  Not quite ready for lunch, but having already had breakfast, I asked only for orange juice.  Then I immediately asked if it was “fresh-squeezed”.

 

My hosts immediately asked if I was trying to re-create a classic scene from the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers, the famous 1979 “Waldorf Salad” episode in which an obnoxious American comes to visit.  I even remembered that episode, particularly since it was the first time I had seen Americans parodied in foreign media. This American from California was portrayed as demanding and belligerent, finishing his demands with the phrase, “or I’ll bust your ass!” And he and his wife insisted on fresh-squeezed orange juice. That episode was hilarious, but it did make me feel uncomfortable wondering if that was how the rest of the world perceived Americans.

 

As a southern Californian, I perceive one dividing line between better-quality and lower-quality restaurants is whether the orange juice is fresh-squeezed.  God knows we have enough oranges in this state, so when the waiter pours the orange juice out of a carton that says “Florida” I judge the restaurant to be “not really trying”.  Traveling in Mexico, I have found that restaurants there would never even think of not squeezing oranges. Naturally, I do not expect oranges to grow in England, but Perth, Australia looks so similar to a California city, with its palms and eucalyptus trees and waterfront, similar to San Diego or Long Beach, that I was disarmed into thinking that fresh oranges would be present.

We had a good laugh, but it was not the only cultural gaffe I’ve made while traveling in Australia.  On one hand, I have found Australians to be refreshingly down-to-earth and approachable, but have mistakenly assumed that this informality extended to attire. Last year, for instance, I again found myself in Perth on a 40 degree Celsius day (104 F), wearing a tank-top, and I spied a lively bar with a t-shirted crowd across from my hotel and tried to enter, but I was refused admittance by the doormen.  At first, I couldn’t even understand what they were talking about, as they use an Australian slang word for tank top, but then I realized that I had seen no one wearing a tank top that day and that I was underdressed for summertime Australia. Bear in mind that I live in a city (L.A.) in which I can dine at a $100 per person restaurant and not have to wear socks.  (We have a surreal culture which has adapted to the demands of imperious Hollywood stars.  If Rob Lowe doesn't have to wear socks at a 5-star restaurant, why should the rest of us?)

 

Likewise, I have been glad that I packed a business suit on my Australian trips, as there are more situations requiring it over there than here in the U.S. I even did a couple of guest lectures at an Australian university and noticed that the Australian faculty wore suits and ties.  If only they could see how California college professors dress – not much differently than their students.

 

Mexico

 

There are many Americans who misunderstand Mexico.  Despite negative portrayals of Mexico in our news media, the concept of courtesy is stronger there than it is in America.

 

Even the poor people practice courtesy.  Once, when I was inspecting a contested property with a Mexican appraiser and his colleagues, we were greeted by residents of a local ejido, a commune composed of agrarian peasants, who politely asked why we there.  When we explained that we were performing a valuation for the owner of the property, they courteously explained that the property belonged to them instead.  No shouting or cursing was involved, unlike the last time I inspected a trailer park in Bakersfield, California.

 

Another time I was traveling in Mexico with another American (not my employee) and three Mexicans, and I felt like my American colleague was raising their eyebrows with his bossy behavior, calling the shots on when and where we would meet and eat and pause for souvenir shopping.  We met for breakfast on the second morning, and although I ordered bistec ranchero (steak ranchero), I received huevos rancheros (eggs ranchero) instead.  My American companion was outraged for my sake and thought I should have had the meal returned to the kitchen, but I was satisfied to eat huevos rancheros to avoid an international incident and any unfavorable impression of Americans, all the while understanding that he came from a city where it is acceptable behavior to stand up and shout “Where’s my f***ing cheese steak?”

Every culture has its blind spot, including our own. Once I was with an American who expressed his moral indignation at the sport of bullfighting. A Mexican responded with "We Mexicans find it strange that you Americans treat your house pets better than you treat your own children."  Touche'.

Traveling abroad, I am sometimes offered food that could be considered strange to Americans, particularly when traveling in China, where I’ve been served snake, dog and donkey meat, but I cheerfully eat it and say “Thank you.  It’s delicious.”  I consider respect for other cultures to be part of appraiser professionalism.  It is also keeps an appraiser's mind open to differing concepts of value in other cultures.

 

 



Tropical American Tree Farms Update and Other Teak Farm Promotions

Latest update: https://www.internationalappraiser.com/2019/07/tropical-american-tree-farms-update.html

I received many complaints about Tropical American Tree Farms (TATF) in Costa Rica, who did not sell titled land, but sold unenforceable "certificates of ownership" in individual trees, written in the English language and thus not enforceable in Costa Rican courts. Some investors claim that they are due payments in arrears for as long as 16 years. The owners of TATF were an American couple; the husband died about a year ago. It seems that no investor has received any payouts from this investment over the last two decades.

I sometimes get requests from readers to appraise their trees, but I have not yet been able to help. I have encountered investors who have no deed (known as the “escritura”) and cannot locate their trees on a map. Lacking that information, I cannot perform an appraisal for the IRS. I cannot state that their trees are worthless, either, because trees are not worthless.

If I have the relevant escrituras, I can appraise the investor’s ownership interest in the property, and if the escritura demonstrates that title has not been transferred to the investor, then the value of the ownership interest is likely to be zero.

Continued teak farm investment promotions

These are not necessarily fraudulent but are advertised with a large amount of puffery and unproven claims. For instance, in an issue last year of International Living, former congressman Bob Bauman, who normally presents sound legal advice for would-be expatriates, presented the new Panamamian residency visa for immigrants (such as Americans) wishing to pursue forestry in that country along with the unvetted investment claims of a Panamian teak farm investment promoter. (IL promptly removed the investment claims from its web site when I informed them.) The standard line from these promoters is that income starts coming from trimmings of teak trees at 13 to 14 years and that the trees can be profitably harvested at 20 years of age. No legitimate Latin American forester seems to agree with this.

"OLAT" -- Organizacion LatinoAmericana de la Teca, the trade organization for teak farmers, tells a different story. They considered a teak tree to be mature at 30 years of age, and immature teak has less value than mature teak, enough less that they did not even attempt to measure the value of teak less than 30 years old in their price surveys. Visit their web site at www.OLATgroup.org .

What are current teak prices?

Costa Rica's Oficina Nacional Forestal published average teak prices in June 2012 as 225 colones per pmt (pulgadas maderera tica) for standing trees and 326 colones per pmt for logs. A pmt is equivalent to 1 inch x 1 inch x 3.36 meters. Based on 504 colones per dollar and 364 pmt per cubic meter, this translates to a price of $162 per cubic meter for standing trees and $235 per cubic meter for logs. Bear in mind that the price per cubic meter increases as the tree matures.

My continued advice is to pursue all foreign investments with personal due diligence. If one's main goal is a Panamian residency visa, a forestry investment will help meet that goal, but don't expect to get rich that way, and make sure to actively manage your property.

Final analysis

In addition to being an appraiser, I have also been a Certified Fraud Examiner for the last 13 years.  What TATF looks like is a confidence scheme from the start. The art of this con is that it takes 20 years for investors to find out that they have been defrauded.

Some of you have expressed doubt that the Brunners had bad intentions at the start, but that is how confidence schemes work -- they rely on your misplaced confidence by seeming like trustworthy people. When investment promoters or loan borrowers smile a lot and talk about Jesus, I have learned to view it as a red flag and an effort to manipulate me.  I've been had before, too.

Other recommended posts:
https://www.internationalappraiser.com/2019/07/tropical-american-tree-farms-update.html

http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2011/08/costa-rican-teak-farms-for-gringo.html

http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2017/02/a-foreigner-and-his-real-estate.html

http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2012/07/appraisals-of-view-land-in-costa-rica.html

http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2013/06/the-international-appraiser-is.html

http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2011/06/costa-rican-and-mexican-appraisals.html

http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2010/03/appraisal-in-costa-rica.html