I’ve made a career of scouting the globe to identify interesting places for people to spend time and money.
My first recommendation was Costa Rica, in the mid-1980s, followed over the next decade by Belize, Nicaragua, then Honduras.
Each of those markets went on to boom. Readers who took my advice and took positions were well rewarded.
Next on my radar was Panama.
In 1996 I sent my property scout Bob Fordi to Panama City.
“You need to see this place yourself,” Bob reported. “I believe Panama is shaping up to become the greatest investment opportunity of our lifetimes.”
“Panama has everything Costa Rica has,” Bob continued, comparing Panama to the then gold-standard overseas retirement haven that borders it to the north.
“Panama has beaches, rain forest, highlands, wildlife, bird life, surfing, fishing… everything that draws the crowds to Costa Rica…
“The difference,” Bob pointed out, “is that the infrastructure in Panama is head and shoulders above that in Costa Rica and anywhere else in Central America. Panama City is a real city… and it’s also a screaming bargain.
“Plus,” I remember him saying with emphasis, “the timing is once-in-a-lifetime.”
I visited for the first time later that year. Bob was right. Retirees and investors needed to know about this place.
The first big investment opportunity I identified was the sale of former U.S. military housing.
After the turnover of the Canal, Panama owned this inventory. They put officers’ homes in Clayton and Albrook on the market for $20,000.
Today these sell for a million dollars and more.
About this time, Lief Simon joined the conversation. He and I targeted Avenida Balboa in Panama City, where we bought a pre-construction condo that we still own.
This property has been a short-term and a long-term rental, earning us as much as 20% per year. Today it’s worth twice what we paid for it and serves as our personal pied-a-terre as we come and go from the Panamanian capital.
Then we turned our and our readers’ attention to Coronado and the City Beaches area just outside the city… then Panama Pacífico and Costa del Este, two master-planned suburbs targeting the fast-growing foreign executive and business traveler markets.
Homes and condos we recommended in those spots two decades ago are worth multiples more today.
In 2000 I toured Boquete for the first time with U.S. developer Sam Taliaferro. Sam showed me the valley he intended to purchase to create the world’s first expat retiree community.
I reported on Sam’s Valle Escondido in real time and named Boquete the world’s best place to retire overseas in 2001.
In 2010, the AARP claimed the same of this flower-covered valley of eternal spring.
From the capital city, the nearby beaches, and the central highlands, Lief expanded our search to the east coast of the Azuero Peninsula. We told readers in the market for a comfortable, affordable retirement and investors shopping for an undervalued beach property play to look at Pedasí, Las Tablas, and Chitré. Each of those markets has seen dramatic growth in the years since.
Then, in 2008, Lief identified the next big thing in Panama—the other side of the Azuero Peninsula, Panama’s undiscovered Veraguas coast.
It’s here that Lief and I have made the biggest investment of our careers at Los Islotes.
Thirty years after putting my boots on this ground for the first time, how would I size up Panama today?
That’s the question I get most often on the subject…
Is Panama still a good investment?
I’ve watched this market ride out the ups and downs of the past three decades. Sure it cycles, and it has dipped… but it has never tumbled in any significant way.
It’s also been the first to recover post-any global downturn.
Over the past 30 years, Panama’s property market has grown up to become efficient and multi-faceted with many niches. This is a diverse marketplace with many end-users.
If North American interest wanes, Colombians step up. If local Panamanian traffic shifts, Europeans fill the gaps.
Short-term and long… tourists and global businessfolk… Americans north and south, Europeans, and Asians… buyers and renters… buy-to-flippers and legacy investors… Panama’s got ’em all… plus an exploding local middle-class.
Panama is the surest property investment market in the world.
That’s a bold statement. I make it with confidence.
Lief and I are more invested in Panama than anywhere else… and we’re actively expanding our holdings.
In a world awash in uncertainty, Panama stands tall. This is the ultimate safe haven.
Until next time,
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter
