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Home How to

Getting Started As A First-Time Overseas Property Investor

Kathleen Peddicord’s Virgin Overseas Property Play (Earned 700%)

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Oct 10, 2017
in How to, Real Estate
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Stephen Gasque of Real Estate Today talk radio had me on his program last week. Topic of our discussion?

Buying property overseas.

“Who would do this?” Stephen asked.

“I mean… don’t you need a million dollars or a jet-setter’s background to get started at this?” he wondered…

Nah.

I’ve told you about Lief’s first real estate investment outside the States.

In 2000, Lief drove the entire coast of Spain scouting opportunity. He identified, in Estepona, a pre-construction condo project that he believed stood out from the rest. He phoned me from Spain (I was back home in Ireland with the kids) to tell me about it…

“The numbers work,” Lief assured me during that long-ago late-night call.

“But we’ll need to act quickly. The developer launched this offer two days ago, and already more than half of the units have been sold. He’s telling me the remaining condos will go by the end of the week, and I believe him.”

I (now famously… Lief enjoys telling this story at cocktail parties) was reluctant.

“It feels like maybe we’re moving too fast,” I replied. “Maybe more due diligence is called for?”

“I have a feeling about this one,” responded my husband who is much more about data and spreadsheets than feelings.

If he had a feeling, maybe I should just go along with it, I told myself… and so I did.

Lief made that purchase with a down payment of 5,000 euro.

The structure of the pre-construction offer meant that we didn’t have to come up with anything beyond the 5,000 euros for several months. We made three more payments of 20,000 euros apiece over the coming 24 months.

Then Lief sold the property before the completion of construction… earning a return that amounted to 35% per year for his trouble.

And without having to come up with the final payment… meaning minimal out-of-pocket capital required.

Better to be lucky than good, so they say. In this case, Lief was both.

My first non-U.S. real estate purchase had been a few years earlier. In 1994, a small group of friends and I purchased a piece of land on the southern Pacific coast of Nicaragua. We put up US$50,000 apiece to buy about 2,000 acres of raw, undeveloped cattle land fronted by a long stretch of crashing surf.

For me, at the time, that US$50,000 was all I had in the world, the accumulation of years of saving.

Would I invest my only US$50,000 in a single property purchase today? No, probably not. But, fortunately, as it turns out, 23 years ago I understood way less about the importance of diversification than I do today.

Plus, I was young, enthusiastic, and optimistic. If I lost that US$50,000, I reassured myself… I’d start working to save it all over again. Ah, youth.

I can say today that my naiveté was fortunate because my early exit from that deal saw my US$50,000 turn into US$350,000… which I was able to use to invest in three other opportunities.

Like Lief, I was rewarded for being both lucky and good. Though, if I’m honest, the smarts that went into that buy were not my own but those of the older, more experienced friends with whom I made the purchase. I was able to leverage their know-how… and then we all enjoyed fortunate market timing.

“Would you say that real estate markets overseas can be counted on to go up?” Stephen Gasque asked me later in our discussion last week.

“Yes… and no,” I replied.

“Overseas property markets go up… and down,” I continued, “just like U.S. property markets. All markets cycle, some more dramatically than others…”

Lief and I both have made money on overseas property deals, including our virgin efforts… but we both have lost money investing in foreign real estate, as well. Twenty-plus years into our overseas property investment careers, we’ve both had the experience of losing everything in a deal. It happens.

No investment strategy is guaranteed successful 100% of the time.

The big-picture upside of global property investing, Lief and I have found, is that it’s not only a way to make money. It’s also a strategy for creating, organically, over time, a rich, diverse, and adventure-filled lifestyle. Buying, managing, and selling property in different countries means traveling to those countries… making connections in those places… and becoming part of the local scene in a way that you don’t otherwise.

After more than two decades pursuing this strategy, Lief and I have friends across the world who welcome us warmly every time we return… as though we were returning home.

And, in each case, in a sense, we are.

Kathleen Peddicord

Tags: 'How To Buy Property Overseas'access panamaInvesting In Property Overseasproperty overseasreal estate dominican republicreal estate Nicaraguareal estate panamareal estate spainwhere to buy property overseas
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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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