Travel-Nightlife In Medellin Colombia

Falling In Love Again With This Lovely City Of Flowers

Jan. 22, 2012, Panama City, Panama: Medellin, Colombia, is one of the world’s most pleasant and appealing cities, offering great weather and lots to do, including lively nightlife in Parque Lleras.

Also This Week: Panama Is #1, But It’s Not Always Best…The Cheapest Place In The World To Retire In 2012…Follow Your Priorities To The New Life Overseas That's Right For You…

Dear Overseas Opportunity Letter Reader,

Kathleen and Lief are en route to Medellin this morning, to prepare for our first-ever Live and Invest in Colombia Conference taking place in that city later this week. Kathleen didn't have time to write something for us before leaving for the airport but suggested that we re-run this brief dispatch written following her second visit to Medellin about a year ago this time...

Sometimes first impressions can be deceiving. So I'd worked hard to keep my expectations in check leading up to this return trip to Medellin. Surely, this city, upon second, closer look, couldn't live up to the rose-colored memory I've cultivated since my first visit a few months ago.

Au contraire. I'm falling in love all over again.

Medellin is everything I've told you--beautiful, pleasant, clean, safe, sophisticated...

This city of flowers in a climate of eternal spring is home to friendly, polite, well-mannered people who greet you in passing and go out of their way to offer assistance.

This is the literary and artistic hub of Colombia, with museums, art galleries, cafes, and other trappings of a lively cosmopolitan center. It's also the leafiest city I know. Everywhere are trees, hedges, gardens, and parks of many descriptions.

Coming into town from the international airport, you drive around and around, down and down, inside the giant bowl that holds the city. This makes for a dramatic first impression...that I can now tell you is no less pleasing upon your second arrival. Green and red are the predominant colors of the valley where Medellin sits...the green of the treetops and the red of the brick and clay tiles that are used for nearly all construction.

Lief and I are here this week with our children for a New Year's family getaway that we're also using as an opportunity to shop for an apartment that will double as a rental investment and a family holiday home.

Lief will have much more on the current opportunities for his Marketwatch members. Bottom line, this market remains active, and rental yields are holding in the double-digit range. We're keen to buy while prices remain low (as low as US$1,000 per square meter and less). The exchange rate has moved slightly in our favor since our last visit. Another reason we're keen to act now.

There are complications to be addressed--including exchange controls.

It's not possible to borrow as a foreigner in Colombia to buy real estate in this country. However, it's been suggested that perhaps we could arrange seller financing. We're exploring this option.

Meantime, we're trying to make time to enjoy this city with so much to offer with our children, who are as taken by it as Lief and I have been.

"I'm totally down with this place," remarked Kaitlin over dinner at a funky Cuban restaurant on Parque Lleras our first night. High praise from our Manhattan-based university student daughter.

Kathleen Peddicord

P.S. Kathleen did leave us with one piece of news before taking off for the airport early this morning. In Paris tomorrow, at 2:30 p.m., in the courtyard of the Hotel de Ville, apartment owners, apartment rental agencies, apartment rental managers, and others working in the short-term rental industry in this city are staging a manifestation.

The French take any opportunity to stage a protest, but this is one manifestation we can get behind. Technically, it's illegal to rent an apartment in Paris short-term. It has been for a very long time. Of course, historically, that didn't stop anyone from doing it, and one of the biggest short-term rental industries in the world has developed in this, the most touristed city in the world.

The current mayor, however, has taken this up as a cause. He says that the fact that so many owners elect to rent out their apartments short-term is the reason the average working Parisian can no longer afford rents in this town. Therefore, for the past couple of years, this mayor has been working aggressively to enforce the legislation related to short-term rentals, and his efforts have grown more aggressive lately. He has issued more than 2,000 letters to apartment owners, telling them that they are now under investigation. If it is determined that they have been breaking this law, they will face fines (up to 25,000 euro) and perhaps worse.

It's estimated that some 38,000 apartment owners rent short-term. Again, it's a big industry. Scaring them into taking their units off the short-term rental market has, thus far, had no effect on the cost of local housing. (How could it, really? These aren't the kinds of apartments the average working Parisian is going to rent anyway.) So far the only effect (as one might have predicted) has been to increase the cost of short-term rentals in Paris. The supply is contracting, but the demand is as strong as ever.

If you happen to be in Paris tomorrow, maybe stop by the Hotel de Ville at 2:30 to lend your support. We wish we could be there...

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You Are Not Responsible For Getting Yourself Into This Mess...

But you are the only person who can get yourself out.

Right now -- and for the next 12 months -- only you can:

Stop the government squeezing more from your hard-earned cash...
Safeguard your assets and actually grow your wealth (even in tough economic times)...
Guarantee a prosperous future -- for you and your family -- and allow yourself the freedom you were born to enjoy...

Because today, I'd like to send you FIVE FREE AUDIO PRESENTATIONS designed to make it possible for you to rise above this economic meltdown and set yourself on a path to financial and personal freedom.

Read here for complete details.

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P.S. What else this week?

• We say (and we believe we're right, based on long experience with this stuff) that Panama remains the world's top retirement haven. That is, in this New Year 2012, Panama is the best place to think about living or retiring overseas...as it has been for the past half-dozen years at least.

However, that is not to say that Panama is the world's best place for all things for all people. For example...

• "As a young adult," writes Philippines Correspondent Victoria Clair, "I often dreamed of the kind of place where I would like to live...and it never involved snow storms. I dreamed of a tropical paradise where the sun was almost always shining, it never got cold, and I could swim in the ocean whenever I liked. I dreamed of breakfasting on tropical fruits and of sipping mango lassies while feasting on curry at a beachside restaurant.

"Now these dreams have come true. I live on Olango Island in the Philippines..."

• "On a recent visit in the United States," writes Retirement Planning Correspondent Paul Terhorst, "we ran into our long-time friend Susan. Vicki asked her what was the most important thing that had happened during the past year. Susan replied, 'My pet sheep didn't die.'

"Susan's sheep amounts to a live-in lawnmower, and the little guy had been sick recently. Susan was pleased with the recovery.

"Vicki and I later learned, after chatting a bit with Susan and others, that, during the year, Susan had also built a new house, witnessed the birth of her first grandchild, and gotten a new job.

"Call me weird, call me unromantic, call me obtuse. But I think having a first grandchild--or any grandchild--would come before a sheep. I also figure that building a house, even if only a rental, and getting a new job, even if in the same field, would come before a sheep. But not Susan. Susan has few priorities. She's at her best when she improvises in the moment. Susan keeps intensely busy. She rarely reflects on where she's going with her life or what's most important to her or even whether she's happy.

"To live a life that goes beyond crisis management and keeping busy, a life that makes us happy, I'd argue we need to know our priorities..."

• Having a legal residency outside the United States can be like having a strongbox full of cash buried in the back yard. It's not hard to put in place, and the day may come when you're awfully glad you've got it.

Medellin, Colombia, is one of our top recommended lifestyle choices for 2012. As we've been reporting for the past 18 months, this pretty mountain city is emerging as one of the best retirement options worldwide. In past reports, however, we've cautioned that establishing yourself here, specifically, for example, establishing legal foreign residency, may not be as straightforward as it can be in, say, Panama, Belize, or Uruguay.

Contacts in the country, including our attorney, have disagreed, telling us we've got this all wrong.

We've been spending a lot of time in Medellin, but coming and going, not as residents, and we haven't yet tried to establish any full-time formal status in Colombia. However, Latin America Correspondent Lee Harrison has. He, too, has purchased an apartment, and he and his wife are intending to spend enough time living in it that they decided to apply for legal residency.

I asked Lee to write up his experience, explaining both why he and his wife have chosen to take this step and also how they've found the residency application process in Colombia.

In addition, I've also asked Lee to join us next week as part of the panel of experts we've put together for our first-ever Live and Invest in Colombia Conference (taking place in Medellin this week...more details are here).

Here's a preview of the getting-established in Colombia experiences that Lee will share with attendees at the live event in Medellin next week...

Also This Week...from Resident Global Real Estate Investing Expert Lief Simon:

Buying a piece of property in a gated community or an apartment building means that, as an owner, you're going to be part of some kind of home owners' association (HOA). How that association is run will affect not only the value of your property, but also your enjoyment and experience of the place overall. Not all associations are managed the same, and, unfortunately, not all are managed well.

Generally speaking, an owners' association should have a board of directors that oversees an administrator, either an employee or a management service, who deals with day-to-day management of the association and of the building. That team should work together, making decisions jointly.

In practice, what usually happens is that a single person, maybe the president of the board, maybe the hired administrator who ends up working very independently, typically a power-hungry, ego-driven individual, takes control. In the beginning at least, everyone else is happy to sit back and let this happen. Who wants to manage an apartment building?

Over the years, I've been involved in several different owners' associations in several different countries, but not because I wanted to be. I got involved when I recognized a problem and thought I might be able to help. Otherwise, like everyone else, I've got other things to do.

I'm about to get involved again, with the management of the building where we now own an apartment in Medellin. In the course of our renovation, we've noticed some problems with the building's façade, some cosmetic, some structural. Everyone we've spoken with has a different story for why the exterior of the building has been left to deteriorate as it has been. We aren't so interested in the stories of Who Struck John to this point (the administrator says no one pays their building fees, meaning she has no money for this kind of work...one board member we've spoken with says the administrator won't cooperate with the owners and has resisted help with the accounting...).

We'd just like to have the repairs made and the building repainted.

I'm also currently involved with the management of a building in Panama City where I own an apartment. Here I'm on the HOA board of directors. In this case, the administrator is an employee, rather than an outside service company (as in Medellin). This is a cleaner relationship and can make it easier for the board to control things. Still, someone has to be in charge.

Fortunately, in this case, the gentleman who has stepped up to take charge is not on a power trip. He just wants things to function as they should, and he likes to fix things. He's a retired guy who spends about half his time in Panama. When he's here, he's in residence in his apartment in the building and working full-time on building-related issues. It's a 200-unit building (compared with a 14-unit building in Medellin), so there are lots of issues. Managing a 200-unit apartment building takes a lot of time and attention.

In the Panama building, when something breaks, it gets repaired. The pool and social area are always clean and well-maintained. A cash surplus has been set aside for future repairs. Generally speaking, everything runs smoothly. The HOA operates as a model of efficiency, thanks entirely to this one guy.

I hear horror stories regularly from owners in other buildings in Panama City, about water pipes not working, elevators out of service, pools sitting empty because they leak... Nothing gets fixed, there's never enough money, and everyone's always arguing with everyone else.

When you buy in a situation where you're going to become part of an association of owners, you want to try to figure out, in advance of your purchase, where in the spectrum of management the building falls. Is it being run efficiently or inefficiently? Sometimes you can tell by the state of the building. Is the exterior in good repair? Are the common areas clean? But it's safer to dig a little deeper before you buy. Ask the seller about the HOA management team. Ask to see the most recent financial statements for the association. Speak with other owners to get their opinions on how things are run.

Here I'll add a caveat. Speak with several owners, and don't place too much stock in what any one or two tell you. Everyone has his pet peeves, his specific complaints. In the Panama building where I'm on the board, one owner wants us to install solar panels. Another obsesses over fire safety (it's a solid concrete building). Another isn't happy with the paint color in the lobby. If you were to ask any one of them if he or she were happy with the current building management, they'd say no. But their reasons for being unhappy are unreasonable.

Skip this due diligence at your own risk. We didn't skip it completely in Medellin. We did ask for copies of the association financial statements in advance of our purchase. In hindsight, what we received in response to this request should have raised a flag for us. What we got was a typed (from a typewriter) partial income statement. We didn't question the statement we received, and we didn't pursue any other real due diligence in this regard.

It was the apartment we wanted in the location we wanted. And it's such a small building that we figured we'd be able to work with the other owners to take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.

We still believe this to be the case, but we're already running into road blocks. No one to blame but ourselves.

----------

You Are Not Responsible For Getting Yourself Into This Mess...

But you are the only person who can get yourself out.

Right now -- and for the next 12 months -- only you can:

Stop the government squeezing more from your hard-earned cash...
Safeguard your assets and actually grow your wealth (even in tough economic times)...
Guarantee a prosperous future -- for you and your family -- and allow yourself the freedom you were born to enjoy...

Because today, I'd like to send you FIVE FREE AUDIO PRESENTATIONS designed to make it possible for you to rise above this economic meltdown and set yourself on a path to financial and personal freedom.

Read here for complete details.

----------