Ecuador tops global property index

Ecuador topped the Global property Index by International Living this week. The country was declared the best overseas hotspot for investment following the construction of a major new access road that allowed access to the Latin American country's North Pacific Coast.

The International Living index compares global destinations using factor such as Value for Money, Costs, Income Potential and Easy of Buying. The new access to the country's Coast, combined with the low housing costs and high quality of real estate, saw Ecuador outstrip the competition "across the board" due to the potential for booming rental yields.

Other hotspots included Mexico's Tulum and the South of Costa Rica, where real estate transactions are boosted by simple industry processes. The Dominican Republic and Brazil completed the a Latin-flavoured top five, with Europe's depressed markets and low property prices helping Dublin to rank 14th and Spain's popular Murcia region to take 22nd place.

But none of them could compete with Ecuador.

"This is one of the nicest stretches of Pacific Coast you will find," Ronan McMahon of International Living told OPP. "It stayed undiscovered because it was difficult to get to. I visited a home that grossed $3,800 in rent last December alone. The owner bought the property for $180,000 so that's a gross yield of 2.1% - from a single month."

The country's economy, which depends on the US dollar, is also considered to be stable with an unemployment of 5.1 per cent at the end of last year.