Can you guess how much this pretty property in the Mediterranean costs? The truth is, for too many British people it’s impossible to say. Why? Because fluctuating exchange rates mean many buyers from the UK don’t know until the day they make a currency transfer how many pounds they’ll need to exchange to meet the agreed local price of their property.

Exchange rates can be affected by a range of economic and political factors, things that are out of your control. Just look at the recent weakening of the euro against the pound which is happening on the back of concerns that Greece could leave the Eurozone and that the new French president’s anti-austerity stance could weaken the single currency bloc, at least in the short term. It’s because of things like this that the amount of pounds you would need to transfer to meet the agreed purchase price of a property in the Eurozone will vary constantly with the exchange rate. It’s worth thinking about, given the difference it can make to how much your property could cost you.

The good news is there is a way of eliminating your exposure to fluctuating exchange rates? Using Smart Currency Exchange to make all your currency transfers is the first step to making your pounds go further when buying abroad but having a forward contract with them could help you fix the cost of your overseas home in pounds, before you have to pay for it in a foreign currency. For more information download their free guide by clicking here.

It’s a touchy but timely subject, but with Greece’s exit from the Eurozone increasingly likely, here’s a brief look at its entry into the single currency. Greece adopted the euro in 2001 when €1 was pegged at 340.75 drachmas, circulating the single currency with other members in early 2002, the same year that drachma ceased to be legal tender. It was the twelfth country to join the Eurozone, having failed to be accepted with the first draft of members in 1999 for failing to meet the EU’s economic criteria. Polls at the time showed that nearly two thirds of the Greek population were in favour of joining the Eurozone. In the Bank of Greece’s last foreign exchange fixing session before joining the euro, £1 was worth around 546 drachmas. Who knows how many “new drachmas”, if things come to that, there would be to £1…

If you have an interesting currency or money fact or story, why not share it with us? Email us at enquiries@smartcurrencyexchange.com and we’ll include it in next month’s newsletter.

Can you guess how much this pretty property on the Greek island of Corfu costs? The truth is, for too many British people it’s impossible to say. Why? Because fluctuating exchange rates mean typical buyers from the UK don’t know until the day they make a currency transfer how many pounds they’ll need to exchange to meet the agreed local price of their property.

The current asking price of this two-bedroom villa, on the shore of a lake and with a private pool, is a tempting €175,000 (for more details contact OGC on 0207 898 0549). But we thought we’d see how the actual price in Sterling to British buyers fluctuated over the space of just two months thanks to exchange rate movements. The result was by a hefty £5,963 – enough for a few family holidays to Corfu…

Do you want to eliminate the uncertainty of what an overseas property could cost you, due to fluctuating exchange rates? Using Smart Currency Exchange to make all your currency transfers is the first step to making your pounds go further when buying abroad – thanks to their bank-beating exchange rates. Speak to us today though and we’ll reveal how a forward contract could help you fix the cost of your overseas home in pounds, before you have to pay for it in a foreign currency.

How did you find Smart Currency Exchange?

I was very fortunate to stumble across Smart when I was browsing the internet looking to find the best ways of transferring funds abroad. I was in the process of buying a small, two-bedroom house in Spain where I spend a few months each year.

Why did you choose to use a currency exchange specialist?

That’s simple, I wanted a reliable and efficient way of transferring money and I didn’t want to pay through the nose for those services, as I would have done if I had made the transfers through my bank.

How exactly did the Smart team help you?

The Smart team were great. They were helpful no matter how large or small an amount I wanted to transfer, whether it was £2,000 or £200. I just wish that I had known about this service a lot earlier because it could have saved me a lot of money. The company that I had been using before were global but they were nowhere near as helpful as Smart.

Did you deal with a particular trader?

I dealt with David Comber who was on the end of the phone to offer advice whenever I needed him. We agreed rates at which I was happy to trade and when they were reached he would call to confirm that I was happy to sell and would deal with everything on my behalf.

Did anything about Smart’s service really stand out?

The part of Smart’s service that I liked the most is that they contact you when you make the money available and ask you about transferring it into your receiving bank account. They provide you with a currency rate, either by phone or email, no matter where you are. It couldn’t be easier. I would recommend Smart with complete confidence to my friends and colleagues but I believe that the service that they provide really sells itself.

If you’re moving or buying property overseas, there are ways to minimise your exposure to currency fluctuations. To find out more, download our free guide entitled ‘Why overseas property buyers lose money… and how you can avoid it’ by clicking here

Best keep your eye on events though, and if you’re on the verge of needing to buy euros, don’t miss the opportunity to lock into a favourable rate – talk to a Smart trader today for reassurance.

The pound’s recent run against the dollar has eased off slightly this week as the Eurozone crisis reduced investor appetite for risk, increasing the attractiveness of the dollar as a safe-haven currency.

Against commodity currencies, the pound could well have further to rise but don’t count on a longer term rout. The Canadian dollar continues to benefit from its proximity to the US, which enjoyed reasonable economic growth at the start of this year, but is still prone to volatility. For the time being though, the exchange rate certainly favours Brits emigrating to Australia or New Zealand.
For more information on how the pound might be affected by upcoming events, speak to the Smart Currency Exchange team today by calling 0808 163 0102.

See below to see how the pound has performed against key currencies over the past month:

Based on central bank/ IMF rates   

If you’re moving or buying property overseas, there are ways to minimise your exposure to currency fluctuations. To find out more, download our free guide entitled ‘Why overseas property buyers lose money… and how you can avoid it’ by clicking here

At the end of April, the pound reached a 22-month high against the euro. You’ll probably have seen in the news that at one point last week £1 was worth as much as €1.226 – compare this to a year ago when on May 3, 2011 the rate was £1/€1.115. And anyone buying in Florida will welcome the news that the pound has also strengthened against the dollar – the £1/$1.63 rate at the end of April was an eight-month high for the pound.

While these rates are interbank rates, meaning they’re not available to the man in the street, they give an indication of what you will be offered by a currency exchange specialist when you need to make an overseas currency transfer. How many pounds you’ll need to send from your UK bank account to credit your overseas account with a set amount of euros will vary with the exchange rate you get – the better the rate, the less it’ll cost you in pounds.

Smart Currency Exchange offers highly competitive exchange rates – consistently up to 3% better than those offered by your bank – to overseas property-buyers and anyone who needs to make currency transfers for other reasons. However, it’s perhaps Smart’s ability to offer forward contracts that is especially useful in the current climate. By speaking direct with a Smart trader, this allows clients to secure an exchange rate based on today’s rate for a transaction they intend to make up to a year in the future. If you’re on the point of buying or paying a deposit for a property in the Eurozone or USA, it would be foolish not to fix a rate today so you know precisely how much your currency transfer will cost you in pounds. It would also mean that even if the pound were to suddenly lose value, you would still have access to a favourable exchange rate.

Worth thinking about, isn’t it? For more information, contact Smart Currency Exchange on 0808 163 0102 or download their free guide on making currency transfers by clicking here

How did you come across Smart?
I downloaded a guide from the Overseas Guides Company on buying property in France and found all of the information that they provided very useful. They recommended Smart and that’s why I decided to go with them.

Why did you choose to use Smart for transferring your money?
The Overseas Guides Company have always looked after us, answered our questions and helped us out with any problems we have had so we were more than happy to take their recommendation. After I discovered the Overseas Guides Company, I never had any reason to look anywhere else. They provided us with all of the information that we needed.

How did Smart help you?
Smart helped us to transfer between £150,000 and £200,000 to France in order for us to buy our second home there. Each time we called, the trader who helped us was incredibly efficient.

Did anything about Smart’s service really stand out?
We can’t fault Smart in any way – they delivered exactly what they promised, transfers were fast, they secured us fantastic rates and were friendly and helpful throughout. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to friends and family. I can’t fault them at all, they have been nothing but helpful.

Tell us a little bit about your property in France…
We bought a house in the Charente and have spent the last three years renovating it – we’re nearly there! We had a hankering for years to buy in France but we never thought that we would actually do it. One Thursday we decided to take a look on the internet and by Monday we had flown over to see the property and bought it! The house was pretty much falling down but it was idyllic, the garden runs right down to the banks of the Charente River and there was an old tumbling down barn. Everyone thought we were mad but they are all changing their minds now. At the moment I go over every six weeks or so for two weeks at a time, it’s wonderful.

If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice about buying in France what would that be?
I would warn that renovations take time and there really is nothing that you can do to speed things up so it’s best to just go with the flow. I would also advise them to choose Smart to transfer their sterling to euros – they saved us a lot of money and took any worry off our shoulders so that we could concentrate on important things like making sure the roof stayed up!

If you need further information about the benefits of using a currency transfer specialist to send money abroad from the UK or vice versa, contact Smart Currency Exchange on 0808 163 0102 or download their free guide by clicking here

Can you guess how much this sunny property in Florida costs? The truth is, for too many British people it’s impossible to say. Why? Because fluctuating exchange rates mean typical buyers from the UK don’t know until the day they make a currency transfer how many pounds they’ll need to exchange to meet the agreed local price of their property.

The current asking price of this four-bedroom, two-bathroom detached home in Florida is just $75,000 (for more details contact OGC on 0207 898 0549). But we thought we’d see how the actual price in Sterling to British buyers fluctuated over the space of just three months thanks to exchange rate movements. The result was by a £1,526 – just think how many visits to Disney World you could get with that…

Using Smart Currency Exchange to make all your currency transfers is the first step to making your pounds go further when buying abroad – thanks to their bank-beating exchange rates. If you speak to us today, we’ll reveal how a forward contract could help secure the cost of your overseas home in pounds, before you have to pay for it in a foreign currency.

Contact Smart now by going to http://www.smartcurrencyexchange.com

How did Smart help you?
They helped us transfer pounds to euros and send them to Greece when we bought our second home in Corfu.

How did you find Smart?
Through The Overseas Guides Company (OGC), a resource for people buying overseas property. Their website explained the help we would need to buy in Greece, who could provide it and why we needed them. We signed up to receive informative emails from them some time before we bought and are very grateful for their advice. As well as using Smart, we bought through an estate agent OGC recommended and were very happy with them. We also took their advice to get a local Corfiot solicitor and she has been excellent.

How would you rate Smart’s service?
We couldn’t find anybody better. We have been very pleased with their speed and efficiency, as well as their excellent rates – we will continue to use the them.

Tell us about your home in Corfu
It’s a 150-year-old traditional house, 30 kilometres from the island’s capital. Despite being near some immensely upmarket homes, we were able to get the property for the price we wanted as it has only a limited sea view and is about 50 metres from the road. Initially, the place looked a bit of a mess, with old furniture and a rusted stove outside awaiting clearance but we had that cleared by the end of the summer. In all, we went over there four or five times last year and did lots of work on the property, including painting much of the inside. We have no intention of renting it out so we can pretty much work at our own pace, while having friends to stay.

What excites you about Corfu?
There is so much we wish to see and do on the island. We hope to go on Hilary Whitton Paipeti’s guided walks for instance. We have ambitions to walk the spine of the island – I believe there is a footpath from the north to the south, taking in the mountain tops and valleys along the centre of the island. We still have many bays and inlets to explore and swim and many restaurants to visit and eat in!

For all your currency needs go to: http://www.smartcurrencyexchange.com

Anyone who held out till April before making a £/€ transfer will have received a welcome treat over Easter. The pound made solid gains in the first week of this month, as it hovered around highs not seen since the beginning of September 2010, likely to be the result of continuing unease against the euro zone debt crisis and in particular concerns about Spain’s economy.

At the same time, at the start of the month the pound hit a four-and-a-half-month high against the dollar, making those discounted properties in Florida  even more tempting for anyone in the market for a second home near Disney.

Against the New Zealand and Canadian dollar the pound also gained value but it was against the Australian dollar that it performed the strongest – the AUS$ was more than four per cent cheaper at the end of the month than the start for Sterling buyers.

So what of the pound going forward? It’s easy to paint a bleak outlook and much anticipated growth figures for the first quarter of 2012 due out at the end of the month will cause movement in the currency markets, however a spate of recent data suggests the UK should avoid slipping back into the red. Furthermore, data released in March showed that UK house prices declined at their slowest rate since June 2010, another promising sign for the pound.

For more information on how the pound might be affected by upcoming events, speak to the Smart Currency Exchange team today by calling 0808 163 0102.

See below to see how the pound has performed against key currencies over the past month:

Based on central bank/ IMF rates   

If you’re moving or buying property overseas, there are ways to minimise your exposure to currency fluctuations. To find out more, download our free guide entitled ‘Why overseas property buyers lose money… and how you can avoid it’ by clicking here
http://www.smartcurrencyexchange.com/freereport1.aspx