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      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.

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      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
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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

        Join our Weekly Newsletter
        Overseas Property Alert

        Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive expert insights on the best international real estate investment opportunities.






          We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.

          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

          International Property Summit

          Caribbean Virtual Conference

          Live and Invest In Spain Conference

          PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

          June 18-20, 2025

          VIRTUAL

          July 17-19, 2025

          Valencia, Spain

          Sep. 17-19, 2025

          LEARN MORE
          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 Investing

          A Surprise Legacy Investment

          by Lief Simon
          Jun 10, 2024
          in Investing
          0 0
          View from a wooden cabin in a mountain

          AdobeStock/Chris Gardiner

          Sometimes real estate is a longer-term hold than you expect.

          I usually go into any property purchase with a plan to hold for at least three to five years. I’ve held properties much longer, but rarely have had a round trip in less than three years.

          Buy to renovate and flip and your timeline might be as little as 12 months, depending on how much work you’re doing on the property. I know a guy who was able for a short time to buy properties, do minor repairs, paint, and flip. He was in and out in less than six months.

          Of course, the upfront research time for the individual properties took time and a fair amount of effort.

          Pre-construction condos can turn around in less than three years depending on the construction time and whether or not you can sell the unit before the building is completed. I did this only once in my years of real estate investing overseas. It was a beachfront condo in Estepona, Spain, when the market was starting to get frothy.

          Land speculation is a different animal.

          I’ve owned this parcel of land in Canada for about 20 years. It’s on an island in Nova Scotia…

          A developer friend originally bought the land (on an island known as McLean Island), carved it up into lots, and ran basic infrastructure.

          The idea was to flip the lots within three years.

          The reality is that only a few of us who bought in sold that quickly. The market had softened by the time the development process was completed.

          In the years since, I’ve listed the property every once in a while, with no bites.

          Meanwhile, I wasn’t put out holding onto the property. It didn’t cost much and the property taxes weren’t anything to speak of… and it’s 7 acres of wooded oceanfront.

          Then the pandemic ended and the real estate agent I had last listed with wrote to ask if I was still interested in selling. A quick family meeting and the answer was no.

          My son, Jackson, didn’t know we owned the land. When he found out, he asked if we could build a log cabin for family trips that we could rent out when we weren’t using it.

          That suggestion worked for me as long as he took the lead, which he told me he was up for doing. I don’t have time to build a log cabin in Canada right now.

          Twenty years after buying the land, we visited it for the first time last month…

          Kathleen and Lief in Canada… And A Family Project

          The idea of building a log cabin on an island is romantic, but we figured we’d better go see the island for ourselves before committing to the plan.

          So, we made it our annual family holiday.

          This is a wild and beautiful part of the world—a true escape. It’s super-safe and life is simple. There’s lots of wide-open spaces and dramatic coastline…

          Start Your New Life Today, Overseas






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            It was a lot of fun scouting out the 7 acres, thinking about the best place to build a cabin.

            Here we are meeting a man about our plans…

            A log cabin in CanadaOur land has 70 years of growth on it—and no one has done anything on the land for at least 20 years. There were lots of fallen trees from hurricane Fiona last September…

            We bought chainsaws and hatchets and me, Jackson, and my son-in-law Harry spent a day lumberjacking.

            We cut a path through the forest to reach the coast… (see, no fires were needed for us to clear our property.)

            The island was right next to some of the wildfires—and was covered in smoke. But it wasn’t so bad deep in the woods where we were cutting…

            Next Steps

            We started to develop a connection to the land while we were there…

            I’m very glad we made the trip. But I still haven’t worked out the exact next steps in our cabin-building plan…

            We started speaking with a company that does pre-fabricated log cabins, but everyone else was busy for the summer season already—they didn’t have much time to even talk with us.

            Then the fires started which took everyone’s attention…

            Each person we spoke with for advice or help, only knew their part of the process. When I tried to get the name of someone who could help manage the entire project… no one knew what to say. The locals didn’t know anyone who did that. It seems that the landowner usually functions as the planner and the general contractor for their own project…

            We need a surveyor to lay out the plan for where to build on the property… and where to put the septic. One surveyor told us we probably could only build one structure. Another told us it was just one septic system that was allowed per lot… no matter the size of the lot. Assuming the second guy was correct, that means we need to plan the entire compound first and then install a septic system big enough for all future construction. No one really knew how to think about that.

            We have some contacts and will start conversations via email… but Jackson will have to go back in person to really make progress.

            The scouting trip fulfilled its purpose… Jackson is still eager to work on the project after the visit.

            My 20-year-old, 7-acre land investment in the Canadian wilderness has evolved from a potential quick flip to a family legacy undertaking… and a father-son project.

            I can’t imagine a better investment than that.

            Stay diversified,

            Lief Simon signature

            Lief Simon

            Editorial Director, Global Property Advisor

            Tags: 'investing''investment''overseas investing''real estate'CanadaInternational Property SummitLegacy Investment
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            Lief Simon

            Lief Simon

            Lief Simon has lived and worked in 7 countries on 5 continents and traveled to more than 75 countries. His real estate investment career began with a $5,000 down payment on a three-flat building in Chicago. Less than three years later, Lief sold the building for a leveraged return of 3,000%—$150,000 in profit after closing costs and commissions.

            From there, he turned his attention overseas and has bought property in 24 countries including France, Croatia, Portugal, Ireland, Belize, Spain, Argentina, Cyprus, Romania, and beyond. Thanks to his decades-long career as a global property investor, Lief has built a multi-million-dollar portfolio that includes rental properties, significant land holdings, and 7 personal residences.

            Lief has established residency in 3 countries and acquired a second passport from Ireland.

            In 2008 Lief and wife Kathleen Peddicord made the most important investment of their lives—a 215-acre oceanside finca, known as Los Islotes. There, on Panama’s largely undiscovered Veraguas coast, they’ve installed underground electricity, water, and internet and built a forever family home that sits at the heart of their ultimate vision: a gold standard private residential community for those in search of a true safe haven escape.

            Lief’s latest book, “Cowboy Millionaire—The New American Pioneer,” collects all the wisdom he has learned in three decades of living and investing outside America.

            He offers advice on international diversification in his twice-weekly Offshore Living Letter and monthly Simon Letter dispatches. For real estate investment opportunities, check out his monthly Global Property Advisor service.

            If you’d like to meet Lief in person, join him for one of our upcoming in-country conferences. You’ll find further details here.

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                  HOME

                  Top Countries

                  • Spain
                  • Portugal
                  • Panama
                  • Belize
                  • Colombia
                  • Cyprus
                  • Mexico
                  • France
                  • Montenegro

                  Best For:

                  • Health Care Abroad
                  • Retirement Living
                  • Cost Of Living
                  • Investing in Real Estate
                  • Establishing Residency
                  • Gun Ownership
                  • English Speakers
                  • Safety
                  BROWSE ALL COUNTRIES

                  Budgets

                  How Much Will It Cost
                  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

                  Global Living

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

                  Making Money

                  • International Real Estate
                  • Banking
                  • Employment
                  • Investing
                  Meet Our Experts

                  Real Estate

                  Overseas Property Alert 

                   

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

                  VISIT SITE

                  Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

                   

                  Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

                  READ MORE

                  Explore Our Latest Posts

                   

                  Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

                  EXPLORE

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                  INTERNATIONAL PROPERTY SUMMIT

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                  CARIBBEAN VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

                  VIRTUAL July 17-19, 2025
                  LEARN MORE
                  PRE-REGISTER

                  Live and Invest In Spain Conference

                  Valencia, Spain Sep. 17-19, 2025
                  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

                  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

                  Services

                  • Overseas Living Letter: Affordable Retirement Guidance
                  • The Simon Letter: Wealth Protection Insights
                  • Global Property Advisor: Global Investment Opportunitites
                  VISIT OUR STORE

                  Free Report

                  THE 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE IN 2025

                  FREE REPORT: The 10 Best Places To retire in 2025

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