March 28, 2010
Ambergris Caye, Belize
ALSO: Life In These Wide-Open Spaces Is Simple, Sweet, And Safe...Why The Internet Is Not Your Friend When It Comes To Renting Overseas...What It Costs To Rent In Panama City, The Azuero Beaches, And The Boquete Highlands...
PLUS Lief Simon On: Why The Panama City Property Market Will Not Crash...
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Dear Overseas Opportunity Letter Reader,
My first visit to
Ambergris Caye, Belize, I arrived in San Pedro Town, climbed down from the little plane, collected my suitcase from the runway where it had been off-loaded for me, carried it across the dirt road to the Sunbreeze Hotel, checked in, then set out to explore.
San Pedro, I discovered, boasted three dirt roads, a handful of rustic little hotels (most without hot water), a single nightclub, a school, and a string of dive shops. This unassuming fishing village was just beginning to attract the attention of intrepid divers. They were the only ones at the time who recognized any reason compelling enough to make the trip out to these well off-the-world's-radar white-sand shores.
That first visit, I met with a real estate agent who greeted me dressed in cut-off shorts and bare feet and who took me for a tour by boat, which, he explained, was the only way to see much of the island. Remember, three dirt roads...
That was 23 years ago. Returning to Ambergris this week, I barely recognize the place.
The Sunbreeze is still here, but it's double the size I remember and now includes conference facilities. Today it's one of dozens of accommodation choices on this island, including four- and five-star international-standard resorts like the Victoria House at the island's southern end and Coco Beach up north. Some of the roads criss-crossing San Pedro (yes, there are more than three) are even paved!
There are big grocery stores, furniture shops, spas, salons, a fitness club, golf cart rental agencies, and too many real estate agencies to count. It seems the agents (at least those I've met with) now wear shoes. And today you can drive the island nearly end to end, as we did yesterday afternoon.
"The condo market went crazy on the island four or five years ago," our hostess for the tour explained. "At the upper end, they were selling for $500,000, $700,000, even $1 million.
"That market has disappeared," she continued. "In fact, the market overall dried up dramatically a couple of years ago, but it's returning. This first quarter of 2010, we're seeing sales again, mostly at the under $300,000 level."
One agent I spoke with tried hard to persuade me that this market is more than returning...that it's moving up quick. "We're still at the early-in stage here," he explained. "I see a tidal wave of interest building and tremendous appreciation on the horizon."
Maybe. More likely right now is a good time to hit these white-sand beaches in search of fire-sale opportunities.
Kathleen Peddicord
P.S. Beyond the nearly unbelievable level of development since I last walked these shores, the other thing that has impressed me this visit to Ambergris Caye is the community of expats that has established itself here. This is a place now where you could settle in among like-minded fellows, be made to feel welcome, and enjoy all the comforts and services of home straightaway.
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P.S.
What else this week?
- I stood off to the side of the road, out of the way, while the good people of San Ignacio, Belize, went about their midday business. I watched as the elementary schoolchildren, having finished their morning studies, filed out onto the street, skipping and racing and giggling as they made their ways to their respective buses for the ride home for lunch. Across the road, the river gurgled, and children too young to have been in school all morning splashed in it in raucous defense against the noontime heat. Vendors offered cold drinks, fresh fruit, fried fish lunch specials, pirated DVDs, housewares, and canoes for rent from small wooden structures and open-air huts. Young mothers passed by on bicycles, their babies on their backs or balanced on their handlebars.
The canoe man dragged one of his biggest canoes down to the riverside and positioned it on the bank for our eventual use, as we'd asked him to do. I waited and watched, then, finally, identified a lull in the traffic and darted across the road to make my way down to the river to join the others.
Such a busy place for the middle of nowhere.
The surprise, though, is that this place, San Ignacio, is not nearly as nowhere as I remembered it to be...
- The most important thing to understand about finding rental accommodation (short or long term) in a foreign country is that you can't do it long distance. Not if you want to get a good deal and avoid surprises.
For, to get a good deal, you must shop beyond the Internet market, and, to do that, you must have feet on the ground, either yours or those of a reliable local contact you trust.
You can begin your search long distance, googling "For Rent" opportunities in the place where you'd like to spend time. You'll find those houses and apartments listed either by other gringos (that is, fellow non-locals) or by locals with the wherewithal to advertise their rentals on the Net. In other words, this route leads to the high-ticket and priced-for-the-gringo-market properties.
Google "Se Aquila" (in a Spanish-speaking market) or "A Louer" (in a French one), and you improve your chances of penetrating the market to a more local level. But the real deals never make it anywhere a search engine could find them.
- "With so many pretty little towns in the region," writes France Correspondent Lucy Culpepper in her feature report on the Béarn region of that country in this month's issue of the Overseas Retirement Letter, "it's difficult to choose a favorite. But, for me, the town of Morlaas stands out. It is a good size, not too big or too small. I find it very welcoming, offering every facility and service you need, plus an interesting historical center and a beautiful country setting...
ALSO THIS WEEK, from resident global real estate investing expert Lief Simon:
The real estate market in
Panama City is going to crash, isn't it? Some think so.
On the surface, this seems the safe position to take. Much of the world has seen precipitous real estate price declines over the past two years, and, yes, the Panama City market has softened noticeably. Meantime, dozens of buildings remain under construction. As all of this new inventory comes online, and investors and speculators who bought pre-construction try to off-load their purchases, the thinking goes, this market will be flooded.
And it will bottom out.
That's the popular thinking, but
it's superficial and misguided, overlooking important fundamentals...