Homes
Primary residences, second homes and long-stay apartments. The use case should be stated before the investment case.
Real Estate
Buildings, streets and the rules they sit in.
GRIP covers property as a physical, legal and social object. The photograph is the last thing we trust.
Start with use, then tenure, then the building.
Whether the holder will live there, let it, or leave it empty changes which title is even relevant. Construction quality, service charge and neighbourhood logic come after that.
A beautiful unit in a confused legal structure is not a bargain.
Urban neighbourhoods
Walkability, services and who already lives there are the useful description of a neighbourhood.
Business districts
Offices, mixed-use cores and the housing beside them. Start with who would occupy the space.
Coastal stock
Visitor and second-home product follows seasons, flights and short-stay rules. Treat it as hospitality-adjacent until a year-round use is clear.
Workplaces
Offices, workshops and logistics follow the firms that use them. The relevant questions are who would take the space, and on what lease.
The use case
The starting point is what the building is for. A home the owner occupies, a place visited for part of the year, a long let and a short stay are different activities, often under different law. The use can be stated in one sentence, before any image is considered.
What the title actually is
The object being acquired is the question: freehold, leasehold, strata, a quota unit, or a company share. Each carries different rights, time limits and costs. Land is not a condominium. A thirty-year lease is not a house.
The building as a physical object
Waterproofing, fire safety, lifts, sinking funds. New towers raise a delivery question. Older houses raise a deferred-maintenance question. A site visit, and the question of who pays when something fails, belong in the file.
The street, then the building
A building sits in a street. Who already lives there, what happens after dark, and how a household would get to work are the useful questions. An unfinished district with a show unit is a different product from a house on a working street.
Who runs the building
Strata boards, sinking funds, service charges, and who answers the phone. Accounts are part of the file. A well-built apartment in a poorly run building becomes a slow, expensive problem.
Who occupies it
Offices, shops, logistics and mixed-use cores follow the people who use them. Vacancy, lease length and who the tenant actually is belong on the first page of a brief. Housing next to a cluster is an occupancy question.
How a purchase proceeds
Instruction, due diligence, contract, completion. Across borders add translation, currency, and a lawyer who does not also sell the building. Speed is rarely the scarce resource. Sequence is.
Who buys it later
The exit question is who would take the asset, through which channel, and in what kind of market. Some cities have deep resale. Some have a handful of buyers and a long wait. The exit is part of the entry price.
A working habit
Local counsel, a site visit at ordinary hours, and a written note on title, use and money out. Those three habits are where most expensive surprises are caught.
Apply it
Read a market with this in mind.
Country property files
Open where the market research is already deep.
Tenure and the kind of building. The country hub is the city-by-city reading. These notes do not list property.
- PhilippinesLand and condominiums are different legal objects. Metro Manila and a holiday island are different markets.
- EgyptA Cairo apartment, a New Cairo compound, a capital-city off-plan, and a Red Sea hotel room are not substitutes.
- MalaysiaStrata and landed, federal territory and state, a home and a residency programme: four distinctions before a building.
GRIP Library
Real estate research
Real estate research
Tenure, use and the quiet details that matter
Freehold, leasehold, strata, quota, company. The words are dull. They are also the asset.
Brief3 September 20262 min read
Real estate research
Foreign ownership is a local question
There is no international standard for who may hold land. The jurisdiction in front of the title is the one that applies.
Brief9 June 20262 min read
Real estate research
What actually creates rental yield?
A yield is what remains after the occupier, the empty weeks, the building and the tax authority have all been counted. The city brand is not that sum.
Research note12 September 20263 min read
Real estate research
How to compare two property markets across countries
A cheaper price in another currency is not yet a comparison. Tenure, the occupier and the exit have to travel with it.
Research note16 September 20262 min read
Real estate research
New build versus existing property: an investment framework
A new building is a contract with a developer and an unknown running cost. An older one is a known set of defects and a record. Neither is automatically the better holding.
Research note18 September 20263 min read
Continue with GRIP
See how a destination handles tenure.
Every market hub includes a regulatory section. That is the useful place to start, before a building.