Feb. 28, 2010
Panama City, Panama
ALSO: How To Find The Overseas Haven That's Right For You...You Won't Get Bored Or Lonely In Boquete...How's The Poor, Unsuspecting Buyer To Prevail?...Owner Financing In The Land Of Eternal Spring...
PLUS: Lief Simon On: How To Borrow To Buy Real Estate In A Foreign Country...
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All-New Live Panama Conference Recordings Available Now For A 50% Discount!
If you were unable to join us in person this week, we missed you. And we want to offer you a chance now to benefit from the insider and expert insights and information that has been shared, discussed, and debated over the two-and-a-half days of this high-powered event.
No, it's not the same as having been here.
On the other hand, you don't have to get on a plane. You can access all this insider Panama know-how, including the complete set of speaker recordings, from the comfort of your living room or office...and refer to these real-time resources again and again as you develop your own live and invest in Panama plan.
We will make this all-new
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Dear
Overseas Opportunity Letter Reader,
One of the best parts of our live events is the chance they afford to spend time among like-minded people living interesting lives and pursuing out-of-the-ordinary adventures.
This week, during our Live & Invest in Panama Conference in Panama City, for example, I met...
Anne and Jack from Massachusetts...she'd like to come to Panama to start a pottery cooperative, he's researching the idea of bringing his bio-fuel business to this country...
John from Denver...who's not as interested in moving himself to Panama as he is in relocating his money...
Amanda and Jerry from the Midwest...who are off today, now that the conference has concluded, to explore Boquete, where they intend to retire among the coffee farms and perhaps even beginning farming a little themselves...
Edward from Arizona...who has a long-term plan to move himself, his family, and his assets from the States to Panama and who right now is shopping for a "crisis buy" condo in Panama City...
Ricardo from Spain...who took the opportunity this week to research banking not only in Panama but elsewhere in the region and who is considering now with
Caye Bank in Belize, represented at the conference by longtime banker-friend Peter Zipper...
Others we spent time with this week are off now exploring Las Tablas (our recommended
budget retirement choice in this country, a small colonial beach town where you could live comfortably on less than US$1,000 a month)...
Los Islotes (where Lief Simon has escorted a group to view his current development project)...RioMar and other
recommended beach development options nearby Panama City)...El Valle and, farther afield in the highlands, Boquete (home to the biggest expat community in this country,
one place outside Panama City where you could get by speaking virtually no Spanish)...
For such a little country, Panama offers a tremendous diversity of opportunity. It was a pleasure this week to help the more than 100 open-minded, forward-thinking, adventure-seeking in attendance at our conference begin to discover the possibilities firsthand.
Kathleen Peddicord
P.S. By all accounts, this week's Live & Invest in Panama Conference was a great success, and, yes, we'll do this again. We're finalizing details now for our next live in-Panama event later this year. Stay tuned.
Meantime, we'll be hosting a
Live & Invest in Belize event on Ambergris Caye in June and a
Live & Invest in France event in Paris in July. Watch this space for updates and details.
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P.S.
What else this week?
-- On Day 1 of our Live & Invest in Panama Conference in Panama City...
On behalf of the entire Live and Invest Overseas staff and all the correspondents, speakers, friends, and experts we've invited to join us over the coming few days, I'd like to welcome you to Panama City!
Over these days together, this assembled team is going to introduce you to Panama, from end to end, every angle, and many points of view. For such a small country, Panama offers a tremendous diversity of opportunity and choice, geographically (with both Caribbean and Pacific coasts, highland retreats, and the cosmopolitan distractions of the most developed city in the region) and generally. Panama offers opportunity and advantages for the would-be retiree, expat adventurer, investor, and entrepreneur.
We're going to introduce you to all these faces of Panama, and we're going to do our best to help you identify just how you can take advantage of any and all opportunities that appeal.
Our objective is simple: To show you the real Panama. Not the Panama of marketing hype or rose-colored glasses. And to help you compare and contrast life in Panama with life in other key overseas havens.
No country is perfect, and there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all overseas haven. It's a matter of your own priorities and of the pluses and minuses of any country you might be considering as a place to spend your time or your money.
In other words, it's all relative. So, again,
an important part of your research as you consider your options is making comparisons...
-- Then on Day 2...
Your most important ally in buying, selling, or renting real estate in any developing market is your attorney. First thing, before you do anything else, you need to find a local one you can trust who speaks real English, who has experience working with foreigners...
And, who, critically, works for you...not for the seller, not for the property developer, but for you. Sharing doesn't count. If you're sharing an attorney with the developer, whose interests come first in his mind when an issue arises?
"Do you mean I need an attorney even to review a rental contract?" asked a conference attendee.
Yes, I mean you should engage an attorney even to review a rental contract.
In any emerging, unregulated market like Panama, you can't take anything for granted. You must assume that nothing will be as you expect or as you're accustomed to back home. Not even a simple rental contract. For, in an unregulated market like this one, nothing is standard.
Furthermore, any legal document, to be legal, must be in Spanish, meaning that, unless you read Spanish at a high level, you aren't going to be able to identify the surprises on your own.
Don't take for granted that the guy offering to sell you the piece of real estate actually owns that piece of real estate. Nor that the guy offering to rent you "his" apartment has the right to do so. Nor that the access to a piece of property across a neighbor's field in fact conveys with the sale.
Nor that the boundaries stand where the seller or even the real estate agent indicates...
-- "One of my original complaints about
Boquete, Panama's most popular mountain town," writes
Panama Letter Editor Rebecca Tyre, "was that there are too many expats and tourists in the region for my liking. Why move to a new country if you aren't going to experience the local lifestyle as much as possible?
"I revisited Boquete last week for the first time in a couple of years, though, and I came to appreciate the upside of having so many expats around. Speaking with the wisdom of hindsight, I can say that, the truth is,
living among expats when I first moved to Panama nearly five years ago, maybe my transition would have been easier..."
-- "Situated at 4,500 feet altitude, the weather is perfect," writes Central America Correspondent Michael Paladin. "You need neither air conditioning nor heating. No need for screens on the windows either. The name of this Shangri-La is
Antigua, Guatemala, internationally known and famed for its architecture and ambience. Tourists from all over the world walk the cobblestone street year-round, oohing and ahhing over the pastel colors of the perfectly preserved colonial buildings. Even those colonial structures in ruins are picturesque. There is a small colony of interesting expats and a vibrant social life.
"The other thing worth noting about Antigua right now is that there have been interesting changes in the real estate market...
"It's possible right now, more so than ever before in the history of this market, to arrange owner financing. Specifically,
the following properties are currently on offer by sellers who would be interested in carrying back part of the purchase price..."
ALSO THIS WEEK, on the final day of our Live & Invest in Panama Conference: Lief Simon on borrowing locally as a foreign property buyer in Panama...
Banks in Panama have taken to lending for the purchase of real estate based on a cap. This is an arbitrary ceiling put in place in an effort to ward off a crash in the Panama City property market.
Scotiabank is the exception. Scotiabank is ignoring the cap and lending based, not on the sales price, but on a property appraisal. This can be a value for you, as it provides a reality check. If Scotiabank's appraisal comes back significantly less than the price you're intending to pay, maybe you'd rethink the purchase.
Scotiabank also lends to buy land and lots. This, too, is unique among Panama banks.
Your loan will be variable rate. This is the norm not only in Panama and not only throughout Latin America but most everywhere in the world outside North America. A foreigner can borrow from a bank to buy real estate in France, for example, or Ireland, but, again, not typically at a fixed rate of interest.
Scotiabank is currently lending at 7.25%. This rate is reviewed every six months but not necessarily adjusted.
Scotiabank hasn't adjusted its rate in a year-and-a-half... 