March 7, 2010
Casco Viejo, Panama
ALSO: Paris In A New Light...Anatomy Of A Former Retirement Haven...Custom-Built Banking Haven...The Best-Kept Secret Of French Country Life...
PLUS: Under-Supply Creates Opportunity In This Top Tourist Market...
----------
We Got It All On Tape!
Here's Your Last Chance To Benefit And Save More Than 50%
If you were unable to join us in person last 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.
These recordings are being edited as you read this. When they're ready, they'll be bundled with the PowerPoint presentations and other speaker materials...along with other top Panama resources, including our complete Live & Invest in Panama manual. This Total Panama Package will be ready for fulfillment starting next week.
Meantime, you have this final chance to claim your pre-publication copy.
If you weren't able to be in the room with us last week, this is the next best thing. And, right now, while the editing continues, you can purchase this all-new
Live & Invest in Panama Conference Kit at a savings of more than 50%.
Go Here Now For Full Details
----------
Dear Overseas Opportunity Letter Reader,
Conversations with attendees at last week's conference here in Panama City reminded me of one of the fundamental choices you have to make as you consider your options for launching a new life in a new country overseas. That is:
Would you be more comfortable moving to an established expatriate community, a place where you'll have no trouble slipping in to the local social scene and finding English-speakers who share your interests?
Or do you want to go local, immersing yourself in a new culture completely?
This important early decision may not have occurred to you. But I encourage you to consider the question directly, for the answer sets you on one track or another, and they lead very different places.
It can be easier, frankly, to seek out a place like Ajijic, Mexico, or Boquete, Panama, where your neighbors would be fellow North Americans, where you'd hear more English on the street than Spanish, and where you'd have like-minded compatriots to commiserate with over the trials and tribulations of daily life in a foreign country. Ajijic, for example, could as easily sit north of the Rio Grande as south. It can seem like a transplanted U.S. suburb.
This can make it a terrific first step for some, a chance to dip your toe in the retire overseas waters rather than diving in headfirst. In Ajijic, you're living overseas and enjoying many of the benefits (great weather, affordable cost of living), but the surroundings and the neighbors are familiar in many ways. You can shop at Wal-Mart, meet up with fellow Americanos for bridge on Thursday evenings, and never have to travel far to find English-language conversation.
On the other hand, life in Mexico would be a very different experience residing in a little fishing village or a small colonial city in the mountains where you're the only foreigner in town. Settling among the locals means you must learn to live like a local.
Is the thought of that appealing, exciting, and invigorating? Or terrifying? Be honest with yourself as you consider your response.
There is no right or wrong reply, and there are pluses and minuses either way.
During our 12-plus years living outside the States, we've gone local, first in Waterford, Ireland, then in Paris, now in Panama City. Here in Panama, in fact, we've chosen to settle in one of the most "local" neighborhoods in the city, Casco Viejo. This is about as far from a private gated development community as you can get, a neighborhood in transition that is home still to some of Panama City's poorest residents. English is spoken almost nowhere, and I continue to struggle every day to manage even basic communication with the shop-keepers and passers-by.
Latin music blares from open windows. Children run barefoot in the square. The Catholic church on our block is full every Sunday morning of the local faithful, who, after Mass, congregate on the corner to share gossip and pass the time.
Living in a gated community, we'd miss all that. Living in a gated community, the streets would be kept clean, the landscaping manicured. We'd have access to a swimming pool, a clubhouse, maybe riding stables and a tennis court. Security at the gate would keep out anyone without permission to pass, roving guards would keep watchful eyes over our property, and our neighbors would likely all speak English just like we do.
And that could be great, too.
Great, too, but different.
Kathleen Peddicord
---------------
Global Property Investing:
Now You Can Profit With The Pros
I'm Lief Simon. Using a time-tested, four-strategy process, I'd like to show you how I've been profiting on the international real estate market for the past 17 years.
What's more, I'd like to give you the chance to profit right along with me.
I'll do the legwork, and you can select only the property investments that suit you best...and not only specific markets to focus on and specific current deals to consider, but also specific strategies to follow to take best advantage of current market conditions.
Go Here Now For More Details
---------------
P.S.
What else this week?
- "Belize is a custom-made banking haven," explained longtime friend (and Belize banker) Peter Zipper to the group convened in the meeting rooms of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Panama City last week.
"With their Belize Act in 1981, the Brits built themselves a banking haven. They 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.
"Until that point, Belize had been British Honduras, a colony of the Crown.
"The constitution for this new country was based on the Canadian constitution. What does this mean?" Peter asked the crowd.
"That means boring. Boring politics, boring everything. Not much to rock anybody's boat.
"As a result, in the nearly three decades since, Belize has managed to remain largely under the radar..."
- Also at last week's Live & Invest in Panama Conference, longtime friend and British expat David Stubbs, five years resident in Costa Rica, compared that country to Panama. David is partnered with my husband, Lief Simon, in their Los Islotes development on Panama's Azuero Sunset Coast, meaning David travels back and forth between the two countries regularly. And he can't help but make comparisons...
"One of the biggest differences, Panama to Costa Rica," David began last week, "is to do with infrastructure. It's better in Panama. When it comes to roads, bridges, telecommunications, Internet, really, there's no comparison.
"
Looking at the numbers, it's easy to understand why..."
- During a recent visit to Paris, while our own apartment was rented to a nice Japanese banker, we decided to see the City of Light from another angle. Rather than in the 7th arrondissement, where we normally call home when in this part of the world, we opted to stay across town, in the 10th.
"Embrace the bohemian experience," Lief urged as we made our way down Boulevard Sebastopol our first afternoon residing in our furnishings-by-IKEA digs.
Indeed, we did, in our rented apartment situated between the 9th and 10th arrondissements (or, as Kaitlin explained to a French friend on the phone, "My parents are in an apartment near St. Denis of all places!").
Prostitution is legal in France, and rue St. Denis is one of the places where the industry thrives. I've never walked the business blocks of the street myself, but I'm told they're lined at all hours with ladies of every description and to accommodate every budget...
- "Imagine a corner of France so tucked away that even the French find it hard to place on the map," writes France Correspondent Lucy Culpepper in her feature piece for this month's issue of the Overseas Retirement Letter.
"From the Romans to the Renaissance and from the Belle Époque to Art Deco, there's history to be enjoyed at every turn. Gorgeous scenery, rolling wooded countryside, friendly people, and delicious wines and food, too.
"More hints? This is the birthplace of a great French king, was the seasonal favorite of royalty of all nations, was once named as the 'center of the sporting world,' and is home to the first-ever Grand Prix as well as the Wright Brothers' flying school.
"It's where Napoleon founded the first national stud farm and the British designed beautiful gardens and parks. Rightly proud of its past, this area has also embraced the present with impressive 21st-century architecture, technology parks, sporting facilities, and a trail-blazing communications infrastructure. The majestic Pyrenees Mountains dominate the views and beautiful beaches are just a short drive away..."
ALSO THIS WEEK, resident global real estate investing expert Lief Simon reports:
A friend who owns a real estate company in
Croatia wrote me this week to update me on the real estate investment climate in that country. While the Croatian property market wasn't spared by the global downturn, it wasn't hit as hard as other European resort and vacation spots fed by foreign buyers, such as Spain and Bulgaria.
Croatia imposed a moratorium on any new development from 2004 to 2007, while the government reconstructed the policies and permitting processes related to real estate development along its coastlines. This created a supply-side hole.
Then came 2008 and 2009. The global climate changed, and Croatia, like everywhere, saw fewer transactions. However, thanks to the lack of overbuilding in the years leading up to the market turn (in fact, there was virtually no development at all in this country during what were boom years for real estate elsewhere), again, property prices weren't affected as much as in much of the rest of the world. The market has seen perhaps a 10% drop in sales prices.
The real opportunity right now is related to development properties. Some are currently being offered at tremendous discounts. As they worked to ramp up after the new development rules and procedures were established, developers trying to get off the ground in this country in 2007/2008 were immediately faced with a new challenge: reduced or withdrawn project financing. Money they may have been counting on was no longer available.
This has left some developers with little option but to try to sell their projects at fire-sale prices... 