If Return Is A Boomers Destination, Experts Suggest These Map Points

Going forward, boomers most likely can expect a 3-6% annual appreciation, she says. Areas in New York that she predicts will appreciate include Harlem and Midtown West, an area currently being targeted for development.

Stone also says there is growth on Long Island and in boroughs including Brooklyn for boomers looking to invest in property. "Brooklyn is bursting at the seams with interest."

If there is a real estate bubble, New York isnt part of it, says Carl Haacke, author of "Frenzy: Bubbles, Busts, and How to Come Out Ahead." The area is benefiting from a decline in crime, a limited amount of land, and the fact that "it is one of the most exciting places on the planet," he says.

Areas that he suggests could be "danger areas" for boomers considering a real estate investment are South Florida, Boston, Washington, D.C., and California.

San Francisco is currently a real estate bubble, says Edward Leamer, a director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast Report issued at the end of 2004 by UCLAs Anderson School of Management.

Leamer argues that the price appreciation compared to earning from rental is not sustainable. In San Francisco, he continues, when the dot-com boom was under way, earnings did sustain prices. But with the bust, comes a bubble, or more precisely, "a long, agonizing decline in prices like we had in L.A. in the early 1990s." The price premium for a median priced home in San Francisco increased 20% at the start of the 1990s to over 100% in the year 1999, he adds in the report.

But while California is experiencing a bubble, the trend is still upward in Florida, says Hugh Bromma, CEO of Entrust Administration Inc., Oakland, Calif. In some areas of Florida, such as Tampa and Sarasota, "there are some remarkably good deals with new construction."

New England, particularly western Massachusetts, and New Hampshire and Maine, offer a good opportunity for boomers, he continues. But Boston and Cape Cod are too expensive, he adds.

Outside of the United States, a boomer needs to research a potential investment purchase very carefully.

Bromma says that in Central America, the market is "pretty lively." A lot of Americans and Canadians are flocking to the area and if boomers are considering a property as an investment, they may be disappointed. But if they are considering it as a retirement place, it may be wonderful, he adds. Bromma says that anyone considering a property in a Central American country like Panama needs to take into consideration differences from U.S. tax laws.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, April 15, 2005. Copyright 2005 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.