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    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
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  • Home
  • Countries

    Top Destinations:

    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
    • Colombia
    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

    Best For:

    • The Best Places To Retire
    • Health Care Abroad
    • Cost Of Living
    • Investing in Real Estate
    • Establishing Residency
    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
    • Best Places In Latin America
  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

    Global Living

    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore & Diversification

    Making Money

    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing

    Follow Us:

    • Meet Our Experts
  • Real Estate

    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

    • Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
  • Conferences

    Upcoming Events

    • Explore Our Events Site

    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Greece Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

    VIRTUAL

    Nov. 13, 2025

    LEARN MORE
    DISCOUNT
    LEARN MORE
    PRE-REGISTER
    LEARN MORE
    PRE-REGISTER
    • MORE EVENTS

    Contact Our Events Team

    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
    1 (888) 627 8834
    From Outside North America:
    1 (443) 599 1221
    Working Hours
    Monday – Friday 08:00 am – 17:00 pm EST.

    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

  • Store

    Unlock The World

    • Access Your Library

    Overseas Havens Reports

    • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

    Conference Kits

    • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

    Lahardan Books

    • Titles on living and investing around the world
    • Explore Our Store
    Your passport to a life well-lived abroad

    Services

    overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
    The Simon Letter Wealth Protection Insights
    Global Property Advisor Global Investment Opportunities

    Our Customer Service team is here to assist with any questions or concerns CustomerService@LiveandInvestOverseas.com

  • My Library
Live and Invest Overseas
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Home How to

8 Tips To Get Maximum Profit Selling Your Overseas Property

8 Strategies For Maximizing Your Return When Buying Property Overseas

by Kathleen Peddicord
Apr 13, 2022
in How to, Real Estate
0 0
Adobe Stock/Faina Gurevich

Adobe Stock/Faina Gurevich

We’re speaking this week about how to purchase real estate overseas, sharing hard-won wisdom and decades of experience to help you buy smart, safe, and with confidence…

Because we are living through a time when diversifying your lifestyle and your investment portfolio to include property overseas is a critical agenda.

How, though, can you give yourself the best chance of buying right and positioning yourself for maximum return?

Whether you’re considering your first foreign property buy (as we’d recommend you very well should be doing right now)… or you’re looking to expand an already well-diversified portfolio… the key to success is remembering the fundamentals.

Here you go… eight things to understand before signing on the dotted line for the purchase of property anywhere in the world:

Resale Tip #1: Don’t Buy Common

As the adage goes, in real estate, the money is made in the buy, not the sell.

This is true everywhere in the world, and the best way to get top dollar at resale is to avoid common. Choose property with inherent value and premium qualities. This can be about the location, the neighborhood, the building, the development, or the individual asset.

Location is immutable, so be confident in that choice. Other factors are more controllable.

Resale Tip #2: Remember The Importance Of Curb Appeal

Years ago, we looked at a house for sale in Panama City. It was in a prime neighborhood, one of the city’s best addresses, and the list price reflected that. The owners were so sure they’d be able to sell for top dollar that they made zero effort in advance of listing the property.

It was nearly impossible even to walk through the house. The windows were covered by dark, heavy drapes, and every room was cluttered with junk. You couldn’t judge the size of the rooms or get any perspective on the place overall.

We moved on quickly and noted that the house remained on the market after the family had moved out and into a new house in a new Panama City suburb. That happens a lot with high-end properties in Latin America. Wealthy families don’t need to sell so they hold on for top dollar, believing their properties are worth more than they really are, often simply because of where they’re located.

The rooms of your property overseas probably won’t be dark and cluttered, but you should do what you can to make the place inviting when the time comes to sell.

It’s tough to change a would-be buyer’s first impression, so make it as good as it can be. We’ve paid to paint common areas so the approach to our unit was as appealing as possible. Definitely paint your own interior walls if they need it.

Make sure the appliances work, especially, in a market in the tropics, the air conditioners (most apartments in Latin America have split-unit air conditioners rather than central air). Even think about upgrading your front door. A heavy, high-quality door can go a long way toward a great first impression, while a screen or hollow, lightweight door screams cheap.

A potential buyer will favor a property he can move into or list for rental the day he closes without having to do any work. If he perceives the place as rundown, he’ll expect a bargain price. Make your property picture-perfect, and you can ask top dollar.

Resale Tip #3: Be Patient

Unless you’re selling into a frenzied market, patience is another requirement for getting top dollar, especially with a high-end property. Getting your price for a premium property means waiting for the right buyer to come along.

We spend part of each year in Paris, where one of our favorite pastimes is reading the listings in real estate agency windows. Often, the properties highlighted this way are priced higher on a per-square-meter basis than other similar properties in the same neighborhood. This is usually because properties that make it into the agency windows are special in some way. The bargain and more common properties are sold quickly. Those in the windows take longer to sell.

If you can be patient to wait for the right buyer to come along, the payoff is worth it.

Resale Tip #4: Invest In Professional Photography

People will come to see the property (or not) based on how it looks on the internet.

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Resale Tip #5: Pick Your Season

Every market has a season that’s better for listing and selling than the rest of the year. In some markets, listing in summer versus winter, the dry season rather the wet can make a dramatic difference in the sales price you’re able to realize.

Resale Tip #6: Write Your Own Listing

If you have any writing experience or skills, consider drafting copy for the real estate listing yourself. No agent knows your property’s selling points as well as you do.

Resale Tip #7: Pay Attention To Your Competition

When selling one of our apartments in Buenos Aires, we noticed that other apartments in the same neighborhood were overpriced, and they weren’t selling. We raised our price by US$35,000 and were still the cheapest listing in our zone at the time. Our place sold in a matter of days.

Resale Tip #8: Target The Expat Market

The best way to realize a premium when reselling is to sell to another foreigner.

In many markets overseas, including Playa del Carmen in Mexico and most towns along the coast of Spain, for example, the buying pool is primarily expats. In a market like Medellín, Colombia, however, with more local than foreign demand, you should do everything you can to connect with potential foreign buyers. You’ll almost always be able to charge more than if selling on the local market.

Decorate your property to be attractive to a North American and promote the property online in English and through an English-speaking real estate agent. Listing with an English-speaking agent who markets exclusively to North Americans is like advertising your property in the window of a Paris agency. It’ll attract buyers looking for a simple, turn-key purchase and willing to pay more not to have to do any work.

The best buyer is one who doesn’t have or who isn’t willing to take the time to hunt for a bargain. That’s almost always a foreign buyer.

Sincerely,
Kathleen Peddicord signature
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter

Tags: 'real estate'diversificationreal estate abroadReal Estate Investmentsell property
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has reported on opportunities for Americans to live, retire, and do business overseas for 40 years. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 24, established businesses in 7, renovated and built properties in 6, and educated her children in 5.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets from the east coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland, then to Paris, France, and finally to Panama City, Panama, where she has based her Live And Invest Overseas business. Peddicord and her husband, Lief Simon, now divide their time between Panama and Paris.

Peddicord was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. She opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Waterford, Ireland; Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France. Peddicord launched Live And Invest Overseas group in 2008 and has built it into a successful multimillion-dollar business. Today, she shares her firsthand experience of expat life with more than 500,000 readers of her publications, including Overseas Opportunity Letter and Overseas Living Letter.

Kathleen has been featured often in The New York Times, MSNBC, AARP, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, and more and writes monthly about expat matters, international real estate, and offshore diversification for Forbes and U.S. News.

Kathleen has written several books including the memoirs “At Home In Ireland” and “At Home At Los Islotes” and her latest title “At Home Abroad,” all published by Lahardan Books. Her best-selling "How To Retire Overseas: Everything You Need To Know To Live Well (For Less) Abroad” was published by Penguin Random House in 2018 and her “Buying Real Estate Overseas For Cash Flow (And A Better Life)” was published by Wiley in August 2020.

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Best For:

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To Live Overseas?

Super Cheap

  • Chitré, Panama
  • Santa Marta, Colombia
  • Phuket, Thailand
  • Dumaguete, The Philippines

Cheap

  • Medellin, Colombia
  • Boquete, Panama
  • Kyrenia, Cyprus
  • Hua Hin, Thailand
  • The Algarve, Portugal

Affordable

  • Valencia, Spain
  • Cascais, Portugal
  • Las Terrenas, The DR
  • Pisa, Italy
  • La Rochelle, France
  • Mazatlán, Mexico

Luxury

  • Ambergris Caye, Belize
  • Kotor, Montenegro
  • The Panama City Beaches
  • Paris, France

Resources

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