March 21, 2010
Belize City, Belize
ALSO: At Home On Panama's Azuero Sunset Coast...How To Retire Overseas Questionnaire...This Undiscovered Region Of France Has Everything...Language Adventures In The Balkan States...Time To See Belize!...
PLUS Lief Simon On: Why You Can't Afford Not To Diversify Globally...
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Run Away To A Beautiful English-speaking Land On The Caribbean...And Live Tax-free!
Belize is one of my favorite countries in the world, one of the places I most regularly day-dream about returning to explore further. From the white-sand beaches of Ambergris Caye in the Caribbean to the long mainland coast (offshore which lies the second-longest barrier reef in the world) and the hilly rain forest interior, Belize serves up natural beauty in abundance. This country's islands, beaches, Mayan ruins, mountains, rivers, caves, and waterfalls make for some of the best adventure travel (that is, snorkeling, diving, boating, fishing, hiking, river-rafting, mountain climbing, and spelunking) on earth.
And that's only the start of the reasons why you should be taking a close look right now at this little English-speaking country. Belize is also one of the top offshore, asset-protection, tax, and banking havens in the world today.
On top of this, Belize offers a user-friendly and incentive-laden foreign residency program that allows for what friends in the country refer to as "virtual residency." You can take advantage of the advantages of permanent Belize residency even if you're physically present in the country as little as two weeks per year.
Plus, Belize is affordable, welcoming, safe, and home to an interesting, eclectic, engaging, and friendly population that includes a well-established expatriate community of like-minded adventurer-retirees who would love to have you join them.
The advantages, appeals, and attractions of Belize are many.
But is it a place you want to spend your time or your money?
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Dear Overseas Opportunity Letter Reader,
"The good news from Belize is no news from Belize..."
Throughout the 25 years I've been traveling in this country, that's been the running joke.
Nothing ever happens in Belize, and the people of Belize, both the Belizeans and the foreign expats, retirees, and adventurers who've chosen to settle among them, like it that way. These are fiercely private and independent folks, content to stay under the world's radar.
This aversion to the global spotlight has always been recognized as one of Belize's greatest charms. In the current global climate, however, privacy is more than charming. It's a serious and increasingly unique advantage.
Especially when it comes to banking, taxes, asset protection, and other money matters.
Belize is a custom-made banking haven, created by the British in 1981, who looked around at the top banking havens worldwide at the time and cherry-picked the best elements of the banking laws in each case. These elements were incorporated into the banking law for the about-to-become independent nation to be known as Belize.
Three decades later, most of the world remains unaware of the banking, tax, and financial privacy advantages Belize has to offer. And therein lies an important part of the reason why these advantages have survived.
For decades, the world's bankers have turned their noses up at Belize banks. Bankers from Switzerland and Austria would snicker at the mention of the idea of doing business with a bank in Belize. But the world's banking industry has been turned on its head. The damage has been colossal in some cases.
But not in Belize, which quietly remains a stable, English-speaking banking haven with strong fundamentals, including bank liquidity rates of 24%. In the current global money climate, quirky little off-the-radar Belize might be just the safe haven you seek.
Kathleen Peddicord
P.S. I've been a fan of Belize all these 25 years I've been spending time in this little country, but I believe Belize has more to offer right now than ever. That's why we've scheduled a
Live & Invest in Belize Conference for June 21-22 in Belize City. Belize, with its barrier reef, Mayan ruins, rivers, and rain forest, is an adventure-traveler's playground. It's also an affordable and user-friendly retirement haven and an increasingly appealing offshore and banking haven, as I've explained.
However, is Belize for you? The only way to answer that question is to come see the country for yourself.
And when you do, we want to make it as easy as possible for you to see Belize beyond the hotel meeting rooms where we'll be holding our event. That's why the first 25 who register will enjoy two-night's free stay, either before or after the conference, at one of three resorts--one on the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye, one on the northern mainland coast at Corozal, and one in the rain forest interior of the Cayo.
This is the only Belize event we will offer this year. We published the invitation to our Live & Invest in Belize Conference on Friday. The response already has been tremendous, with registrations online, phone calls, and e-mails throughout the weekend. If you'd like to join us as a VIP Attendee, and enjoy the two free nights before or after the event getting to know the country beyond Belize City, I urge you to reserve your place at the event now.
Full details of the program we've put together are here.
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P.S.
What else this week?
- "The French are renowned for their paperwork," writes France Correspondent Lucy Culpepper in this month's issue of the Overseas Retirement Letter, in subscribers' e-mailboxes this week.
"And they seem proud of that fact, so be prepared for lots of forms, duplicates, and what will seem like regular intrusions into your personal life. A large dollop of patience and a soupcon of good humor are required to persevere. Always, but always remember to start every conversation with 'Bonjour, Madame/Monsieur,' even if that is the sum total of your French. It really is worth it. If you don't, you will be treated with less respect. I exaggerate not at all on this point.
"Every town and most villages have a local administrative office, a mayor, plus admin staff known as 'La Mairie' (pronounced 'merry' and not to be confused with mari, meaning husband and pronounced 'marry'!). When you first arrive in a new town where you'll be living, go and introduce yourself at the Mairie and find out what's on offer. Even small villages in the Béarn, the feature of this month's ORL report, have a hall (salle polyvalente) where you might find sewing classes, yoga, an over-60s gym, quilting, walking groups..."
- "'What's the policeman doing with his lollipop stick, Mammy?'
"Our 2-year-old son's guess was as good as mine," writes
Overseas Retirement Letter Editor-in-Chief Lynn Mulvihill from
Montenegro.
"Twenty minutes earlier, we had parked our rental car on a snowy street in Zabljak, a village in the north of
Montenegro, to pick up some groceries. With the village car-parks full, we had little choice but to leave the vehicle at the side of the road.
"We returned, supplies in hand, to find a young policeman hovering around the car. (His 'lollipop' was a small stick with a stop sign on it, which the Montenegrin police use to halt traffic.)
"With our limited grasp of Montenegrin and the cop's lack of English, verbal communication was difficult. Between the policeman's hand gestures and tone, though,
it didn't take long for my husband to understand he was being accused of illegal parking..."
- "Kathleen, I read your article on moving overseas in the latest issue of Escape From America Magazine with interest. It has started me thinking, and now I'm wondering if you have something in the form of a questionnaire to prod a tired mind to consider what I might really be looking for?"
My new book, How To Retire Overseas (available now in bookstores in the United States), features a section that is precisely that--a questionnaire to help you think through your personal priorities and preferences.
Before you can begin to consider where best you might relocate overseas, you've got to get to know yourself better. What's important to you? What things would you miss from your current life if they weren't part of your new one?
What services, amenities, niceties, and distractions could you not live without? What hassles, hurdles, frustrations, and difficulties would you find intolerable?
For example...
- "I'm full much of the time," Robby explained. "I've got my crew working overtime to finish the two new casitas I'm building. Meantime, tonight, I've even rented out my own house. I didn't want to turn the guy away, so I'm letting him stay in my home. My wife and I are going to spend the night with her parents."
Rentals, short-, mid-, and long-term, are the opportunity in this emerging market. We met Robby three years ago, when this young American entrepreneur and his Cabanas Torio were just getting started and struggling for decent occupancy even on the weekends. Today, you'd better book in advance. Don't show up without a reservation (as we witnessed at least two travelers do Saturday afternoon). You'll find there's no room at the inn (even though Robby has increased his nightly rates twice in the past year).
Robby was one of the pioneers on Panama's Azuero Sunset Coast. Today, a few years later, the next generation of interest is well established. His patio restaurant and bar is crowded now for breakfast, dinner, and after-dinner socializing with backpackers, surfers, and fishermen, yes, but, increasingly, as well, with the forward-thinking and the adventuresome in the market for affordable new lives at the beach. We met this weekend a woman who has rented a home near Torio for US$175 a month; a couple building a little house on the river that will ultimately be the guesthouse for their eventual retirement home here; and a successful developer from Canada considering an early-in investment in a stretch of nearby beachfront.
The one thing they all agree on is that this region of Panama is extraordinarily beautiful...
ALSO THIS WEEK, from resident global real estate investing expert Lief Simon:
A reader wrote this week to say, "I want to diversify into international real estate, but I just can't justify it because I'm getting yields from property investments in the United States that are as good as I could get overseas, and the transaction costs in the United States are lower."
That is one way to look at it.
On the other hand, if you're into residential rentals in the States and in the States only, for example, the risks are not insignificant, given both the current market climate and the lack of portfolio diversification.
Over the years, many readers have told me similar stories. They had great portfolios of rental houses or apartments, they explain. All their properties were returning at breakeven cash flow or better. So they'd been systematically expanding their holdings within their target markets.
Then, in some cases seemingly overnight, the local market where they'd been investing shifted. Maybe the economy for the entire city turned, with jobs being lost and people moving away. Maybe the demand for local housing changed, with new neighborhoods opening up and fewer people wanting to be in the neighborhoods where the investors held their rentals.
The end of these stories is always the same. The investors lost everything, sometimes walking away from mortgages they could no longer cover. Once even just some of their rentals weren't occupied, they couldn't make their loan payments, setting off a domino effect that eventually affected their entire portfolios.
The fundamental problem is lack of diversification...