Countries where you can purchase property without paying real estate taxes, and more news

For PropertyGuru’s real estate news roundup, find out the countries that do not ask you to pay real estate tax. In other updates, the town of Ghaziabad in India’s National Captial Region (NCR) has hiked circle rates, making purchasing property there more expensive. Lastly, learn about the importance of data storage in the rapid growth and innovation of artificial intelligence (AI).

Where to buy property without paying real estate tax – includes Cambodia, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand

Taxes are a word few people like. Some choose to relocate for this reason only – to escape them. And this is not entirely impossible – as different countries have different approaches to taxation – especially when it comes to non-residents. Expat.com looks into real estate taxes—more precisely, the countries that don’t impose them on non-residents.

Real estate tax is a tax collected from property owners. The amount of tax they pay is typically determined by the assessed value of the property, which includes the land and any structures built on it. So, if you own an apartment or a piece of land in most countries, you will need to pay tax on it. Real estate tax is typically levied every year or every six months.

However, some countries will not ask you to pay real estate taxes. And if you are considering purchasing property abroad, you may want to know what they are. Keep in mind that countries that don’t impose real estate tax on residents and non-residents may have other fees that you will need to consider when budgeting for your purchase.

India’s Ghaziabad increases circle rates, homes to get costlier

Purchasing a property in the NCR town of Ghaziabad will get costlier as the Ghaziabad district administration has notified the hiked circle rates for the financial year 2024-25. (Editors note: The circle rate is the lump sum price which is decided by the government based on the current market value of the area which holds the property.) The new rates have been increased by 10-20 percent for residential properties, 15-20 percent for commercial properties and a 10 percent hike for all agricultural properties, officials said, as cited in media reports.

According to Housing.com, the Stamp and Registration Department has revised the circle rates after two years since 2022. The previous average increase was about 10-12 percent in 2022-23.

AI success—and what data storage has to do with it

We live in an era where the ubiquity of the cloud and the emergence of AI use cases have driven up the value of massive data sets.

For many cloud service providers, the recent emphasis has been on building high-performance computing infrastructure and then saturating it with data in a race to train the most intelligent and valuable language models possible. However, DataCenterNews cites that, as these models are deployed and commercialised at scale, the emphasis will rebalance and demand for storage infrastructure – the backbone of AI innovation – will surge.

Data, which is not merely consumed, but generated by AI will grow at an unprecedented rate as new media-rich use cases and experiences are invented. Identifying the right storage technologies to process and retain data efficiently and sustainably will become more important than ever to data centre operators.

The Property Report editors wrote this article. For more information, email: [email protected].