Anyone know about International Flipping?

[Eric M.]

I am curious about the general concept/business of house flipping in other countries besides the US and Canada? I have the thought of travelling around world, living in a place for a while...living as a local more so than a tourist... and moving on. But you need a way to make a living. I have no particular qualifications for any other "real" job, especially one that would both be temporary and pay well. I like the idea of moving somewhere...learning the area a bit, buying a property or 2 (maybe with a local partner) fixing it up and selling it over a years time while I experience the culture...and moving on.

It seems completely obvious that the idea of rehabbing and reselling a deteriorated property would exist in any culture or country but I never hear about it being a thing. Of course, larger firms buy and renovate buildings everywhere. I have seen many examples of this when travelling mostly in urban areas.

But are there mom and pop investors commonly doing this type of investing with houses in places like Australia, NZ, Europe or highly developed areas of Asia in the same way that we are here? Or maybe individuals investing in real estate is more of an American thing? Is there something like a Bigger Pockets Italy or Malaysia or Australia out there with a bunch of guys asking each other about finding contractors, and hard money lenders, how to buy foreclosures and how to find deals?

Maybe there are legal obstacles to flipping houses? Cultural ones? Maybe capital is not as available to an average individual investor? Maybe no local secondary market for mortgages and no FHA like entity means capital is scarce and mortgages are much harder to get.

Certainly there might be legal obstacles for me to do it as an American.  So you partner with locals but then you probably risk a lot of legal and fraud issues with partnerships with local people whom you don't know in places and governmental systems you don't know well. I might be an easy mark. Partnerships go bad....a lot.

Can anyone share some knowledge?