From what a gather she is also researching other countries where people have invested money in property and been taken for a ride along the way.These kind of articles do raise awareness in the ever volatile Real Estate market and demonstrates that it is not always a bed of roses and we must not get carried away by glossy folders,amazing locations,cheap land available and estate agent talk.
I am in the process of selling.I read through the compra venda contract.I took it to my lawyer.He says,wow it's says you are signing the whole property over after the Sinal!!Are you crazy of course it doesn't say that.Of course it did.I had misread it.Now imagine a tourist being faced with these crooked contracts. And the estate agent wants 22,000 reais commission!!His commission has definately gone by the wayside.
It's very important to highlight what can go wrong however it just seems to me that generally "news" today is only news when it's bad news - wars, terrorism, economic problems, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc have vast coverage and hardly ever is good news given as much attention. I don't know Lydia personally or her writing and therefore I am not jumping to conclusions which is why I asked the question... Is there going to be any focus at all on smart investments by people who profited from their investments and how they achieved that.
Unfortunately in this day and age people just enjoy reading about misfortune - which means people in the business have to resort to reporting misfortune to catch their attention and sell their marketing space. Whether they are doing it to help others or simply because that is what sells is a debate we could have for a long time... It's a sign of the times and an indicator of the type of social animal which we have evolved into (or devolved into perhaps).
Personally whereas I'd like to see what people did wrong so that I can try and avoid the same mistakes, I'd be a lot more interested in what people did right and how they profited.
Your example is a good one Dotty - something went wrong but you caught it in time and were able to resolve it and will profit from it. How much more can we all learn from that rather than if your lawyer had been in on the conspiracy and you'd lost your property (although that may have made a more "exciting" story).
However as I said - not jumping to conclusions - hence my question - are success stories being included as well or just the disaster stories?