How To Retire Overseas
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April 4, 2010
Casco Viejo, Panama
ALSO: Currency Risks For The Overseas Retiree (Or, One More Reason Panama Trumps Costa Rica)...12 Critical Questions You Should Ask Before Buying Real Estate In A Foreign Country...The World's Most User-Friendly Foreign Residency Program (And How They Might Expand It)...How To Swap Your Home For A Chateau In France...
PLUS Lief Simon On: The Importance Of Figuring Transaction Costs For Your Global Property Investments...
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Dear Overseas Opportunity Letter Reader,
It's a big world, full of opportunity for fun, adventure, and a new start. You can be spoiled for choice, even overwhelmed trying to make a decision where to go.
It helps if you can identify a primary agenda. Here are shortcuts, the most common reasons for seeking out a new life overseas...and where to look in each case to find a lifestyle that will surely satisfy those objectives.
For Cheap Living:
For Luxury Living On A Budget:
- Paris: Whatever your idea of the high life, you can find it in the City of Light, and the best part about Paris is that some of the best it has to offer comes free. The sweetest pleasures of life are here for the taking. Picnics in the Luxembourg Gardens, long walks along the Seine, afternoons lost among the cobblestones of the Latin Quarter. These things cost not a sou...
- Buenos Aires: This is the Paris of South America, and, with few exceptions, anything available in Paris is available as well in B.A., at lesser cost and with a Latin edge, including five-star restaurants, nightclubs, comedy clubs, open-air cafes, world-class live theater and ballet, art galleries, museums, indoor shopping malls and outdoor antiques markets, European-style parks, plazas, and gardens, plus classic architecture of the kind found in but a handful of cities around the world. If you want to live a life filled with art and history, culture and interesting company, but you can't afford Paris, look to Buenos Aires...
For A New Life At The Beach:
- Las Tablas, Panama: Within a 20-minute drive of the little Pacific-coast town of Las Tablas, Panama, you can reach five different beaches, all beautiful, all undiscovered. This is a big part of the reason why dozens of U.S. and Canadian expats have settled in this part of Panama's Azuero Peninsula, about four hours west of Panama City.
The other draw is the cost of living. It's dramatically lower in this region than in this country's capital city. You could buy a fixer-upper beach house in Las Tablas for as little as US$20,000, and you could rent a small house, right on the beach, for as little as US$200 to US$300 a month, long term. A retired couple could live comfortably in this part of Panama on as little as US$1,100 per month, including rent and full-time household help.
- Ambergris Caye, Belize: Belize's biggest attractions are its natural beauty, its beaches, and its barrier reef, the second largest in the world, teeming with colorful fish, coral, and unusual marine life. Add to the list the facts that the people in this country speak English and that the cost of living is affordable, and you understand why this country's biggest outlying island, Ambergris Caye, makes my list of Top 4 Overseas Beach Retirement Havens.
Furthermore, and worth mentioning in the wake of recent global banking debacles, Belize's international banks are solid. Banking is the second-most-important industry in Belize (after tourism), and Belize banks are required to keep 24% of their assets on deposit liquid at all times.
Finally, Belize offers the world's last hold-out offshore havens and boasts the most user-friendly foreign residency program in the world right now, the Qualified Retired Person (QRP) program, which allows you to "retire" to this country as young as 45.
- Samana, Dominican Republic: The Dominican Republic, our other favorite Caribbean pick, is known for its beaches, which are world-class and attract big volumes of tourists every year. These powdery coasts, though, make sense not only as a vacation spot, but also as a place to consider longer term, for there's much more to the D.R. than its beaches.
The Dominican Republic isn't your typical Caribbean getaway. It's more international than you might expect, more cosmopolitan. Have a craving for blue cheese, authentic French baguettes, or fresh gnocchi? In the D.R., you can find all of these things. French and Italians settled on the island about 30 years ago and have since developed an extensive and diverse culinary, business, and service infrastructure geared toward other expats.
No Language Barrier:
More later this week, including my top picks if you want to start a business overseas...move to a new country with your kids...retire to an established expat community...retire overseas only part-time...or seriously mitigate your tax burden...
Kathleen Peddicord
Editor's Note: These shortcuts to a new life overseas are excerpted from Kathleen's new book, How To Retire Overseas, in U.S. bookstores now! 
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P.S. What else this week?
- "Here's one more reason Panama trumps Costa Rica right now," writes Costa Rica Correspondent David Stubbs.
"The local currency, the Costa Rican colon, is appreciating against the U.S. dollar. So anyone living here on a fixed U.S. dollar income, such as anyone on Social Security, is seeing his purchasing power fall. How much? Around 10% since last September. Ouch. No such worries for expats in Panama, as Panama uses the U.S. dollar...
- "Ninety-nine percent of the guys trying to sell you a piece of property in this part of the world would cheat you given half a chance and without giving it a second thought."
"Do you mean agents or developers?" my new colleague asked.
"I mean everybody. Agents, brokers, developers, land-owners...everybody and anybody with whom you might have a conversation about buying a piece of real estate in the unregulated markets we deal in."
It sounds a bold statement at first...incredible. And, sure, I was exaggerating (maybe...a little) to make a point.
And the point is this: The rules change when you leave the developed world and enter the undeveloped one. No, that's not right. It's not that the rules change. It's that there are no rules.
Right now, I know of a high-profile developer in Nicaragua who, for four years, has been selling land he doesn't own...
- "Rumors have been circulated that the QRP program is to be discontinued," began our host. "That's not the case at all. The truth is, there's a good chance the program will be expanded."
Belize's decade-old Qualified Residency Program (QRP) is perhaps the most user-friendly residency option in the world right now. Show the Belize government that you can support yourself in the country, and the Belizeans will roll out the welcome mat for you. As a QRP, you receive the Belize equivalent of a U.S. Green Card. At the same time, you are exempt from import tax on household goods, your automobile, your boat, even your airplane (should you have one!), when you bring them into the country.
Specifically, to qualify, you or your spouse must be 45 years of age or older, and you must show that you can meet the minimum income requirement of US$2,000 per month. Pension income can be shown to fulfill this financial requirement, or you can simply deposit a minimum of US$24,000 at the start of each year of residency into a Belize bank account.
The other requirement for QRP residency is that you "consider yourself to be retired." Like everything in Belize, this stipulation is open to interpretation. Bottom line, to date, it has meant that you can't apply for a work visa. This is not to say that QRP residents can't do international or Internet business, and many do. Belize offers a world of opportunity for the would-be entrepreneur. (We'll explore specific current business opportunities during our Live & Invest in Belize Conference in Belize City in June. Details here.)...
- "This idea of swapping houses is really a great option for managing the costs of an extended stay in another country," writes Correspondent Lucy Culpepper. "We tell readers regularly to rent first anywhere they're considering settling long-term. But, in fact, better advice might be to swap first. It can be the lowest-cost alternative available for exploring a possible retirement location, for example, and a far superior option both to staying in a hotel (how can you get a real feel for a place 'living' in a hotel?) and to arranging a short-term rental (as renting in a foreign country where the language is different can be challenging and intimidating).
"Many of the people who house swap are retirees, either looking for new overseas adventures or simply wanting to return 'home' for a spell. They are keen to keep their travel costs to a minimum while staying in comfortable, safe locations. Some home exchanges are for short vacations; others can be for months at a time (typically, in this case, with owners of second or even third homes in different countries).
" Even if you have a tiny apartment, you could exchange it for a chateau in France! (It has happened.)..."
ALSO THIS WEEK, from resident global real estate investing expert Lief Simon:
One key to making money investing in real estate around the world is remembering all associated costs of any transaction, both coming and going, in your initial figuring. Forget to factor in capital gains tax, for example, in a jurisdiction where you're liable to pay it at a rate of 25% (as you can be in Mexico), and your overall rate of return certainly will suffer. Here's what you need to know...
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