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Home Investing

Two Decades Of Growth, But Panama Is Just Getting Started

We Called This Long Ago… But It’s Not Too Late For You To Benefit

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Feb 24, 2019
in Investing, Panama
0
View of apartment building on Avenue Balboa in Panama City

Image Source: iStock/Noraluca013

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In the summer of 1997, I got a phone call in my office in Baltimore.

It was my global property scout of the time, Bob Fordi. Bob had just returned from his first visit to Panama City.

“One of the biggest investment opportunities of our lifetimes is shaping up in this city right now,” Bob told me.

“When the United States turns over control of the Panama Canal to the Panamanians and the U.S. military pulls out of Panama, a recession will follow.

“Onto this depressed market will come, overnight, an enormous volume of inventory—all the real estate being left behind in the wake of the Americans.

“And it will all be a screaming bargain.

“I toured officer housing—200- and 300-square-meter properties—that are expected to go up for sale for US$20,000 or US$25,000.

“You need to get down to Panama to see for yourself as soon as possible. This place is going to explode.”

Shortly after that call, I made my first trip to Panama City. I toured the barracks and the VIP officer homes of Howard and Albrook military bases, as well as key neighborhoods such as Paitilla, La Cresta, and Altos de Golf. And I was introduced to the colonial treasures of Casco Viejo…

I was as impressed by the potential of it all as Bob had been.

Long-suffering readers are familiar with the rest of the story. Fast forward to today, Lief and I have been recommending Panama for retirement and investment for more than two decades and living and running the Live and Invest Overseas business in Panama City for more than 11 years.

I write this morning from the dining table of the Avenida Balboa apartment that Lief and I bought in 2003. For years, we rented the place out… earning as much as 15% net per annum. Now that we’re empty-nesters, we’ve taken the one-bedroom loft unit off the rental market and use it as our base when we’re in town.

The view outside the window is nothing like the scene I remember from my first visit to this city more than 20 years ago.

Bob Fordi’s prophesy has played out even more spectacularly than he imagined. Over the past two decades, Panama City has, indeed, presented one of the greatest investment opportunities of our lifetimes.

But what about today? Is it too late to take a seat at this table?

Nope. Boomtown Panama booms on.

During this week’s Live and Invest in Panama Conference, we reminded everyone in the room (and ourselves) just how rosy this picture continues to be.

Over the past 15 years, Panama has been the fastest-growing economy in Latin America, averaging growth of 8.4% between 2004 and 2013, including 4% in 2009, the year economies elsewhere in the region collapsed.

The Panamanian economy is projected to grow at a further 6.3% in 2019.

What’s behind all this?

The Panama Canal. It’s been a cash machine for the country since they took possession from the Americans in 1999. One-way passage today costs US$250,000 to US$1.2 million per vessel, and the Canal operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Looking out the window to my left, I see the usual line of tankers and freighters in the Bay of Panama waiting their turns to make the crossing. I’ve counted as many as 40 ships at a time in this ever-present queue.

All that Canal cash is spread around the country in the form of infrastructure projects the likes of which other countries in this part of the world can only dream about.

Right now, for example, Panama is investing in:

  • An eight-line metro for Panama City… lines one and two are already operating…
  • A US$780-million airport expansion that will double the capacity at Tocumen International…
  • A fourth bridge across the Panama Canal to improve access for the thousands who commute back and forth across the Canal to work each day…
  • A US$165-million cruise port terminal at Amador that will mean an additional 600,000 tourists in Panama City each year…
  • A cross-country train from Panama City to David…

Listening to presenter after presenter during this week’s conference in Panama City, you got the impression that the past 20 years have just been warm-up… and that Panama’s only really now getting started.

What does it all mean for you?

More tomorrow.

Kathleen Peddicord

Tags: investmentsPanama Canal
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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