• About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Unsubscribe
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
FREE REPORT
BEST PLACES TO RETIRE
*No spam: We will NEVER give your email address to anyone else.
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Browse All Countries
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • Real Estate
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
    • Our Latest On Coronavirus ⚠️
  • Making Money
    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
Live and Invest Overseas
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Browse All Countries
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • Real Estate
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
    • Our Latest On Coronavirus ⚠️
  • Making Money
    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
No Result
View All Result

Global Property Investing

Lief Simon by Lief Simon
Nov 18, 2011
in Real Estate
0
Global Property Investment Portfolio
208
SHARES
3k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

How Not To Let This Happen To You

Buying wholesale, path of progress, crisis investing, real productive assets…why bother with all these different real estate investment strategies? Why not just focus on one? Wouldn’t that be simpler?

Yes, sure. It’d be more simple, but, over time, it’d also be far less effective.

One of the fundamental advantages global real estate investing offers is diversification. You want to capitalize on that advantage every way you can.

All those bubble investors in the United States who “controlled” millions of dollars’ worth of pre-construction condos found out the hard way what putting all your eggs in one basket can mean for your wealth when something goes wrong. Your net worth can disappear, and maybe you’ll have to, too, for a while, until the smoke clears.

The first opportunity international real estate gives you for diversification, to state the obvious, is the chance to own property in more than one country. It can automatically give you currency diversification, as well, if you buy in a country where real estate changes hands in a currency other than the one you use at home (a rental apartment in Paris, for example, if you’re shopping with U.S. dollars).

However, the opportunity here for diversification is much greater and has to do with holding in your portfolio different types of real estate with different investment windows and different exit strategies.

Buying wholesale might lead you to hold raw land in an emerging market early on in its growth cycle…or in a more developed market at the bottom of a cycle.

You could expand and diversify your portfolio then by buying land in the path of progress…or by picking up a pre-construction condo-hotel unit (that also qualifies as a real productive asset that should throw off cash long term). The possible combinations are many.

And the diversification is critical. Over the years I’ve been at this, I’ve been approached all too many times by attendees at my real estate investment conferences with stories to tell. They go something like this:

“I owned several dozen properties in X. They were renting well and cash flowing nicely. Then the local economy turned, and tenants became thin on the ground. All of a sudden, my cash flow was negative, and, before I knew what was happening, I’d lost all (or nearly all) my properties!”

This is what can happen when you’re not diversified and highly leveraged, as most people tend to be with rental properties.

Here’s what I recommend you do to mitigate the risk of this happening to you:

Start with wholesale opportunities, which tend to be longer term. This portion of your portfolio should represent money that you won’t need for at least five years or more. It’s also the portion of your portfolio from which you should expect your highest annualized returns.

Path of progress is generally a shorter-term play and can be highly profitable if your timing is right. Rarely will your timing be exact, but buying in the path of progress even a year after a target area has been identified can translate into excellent ROIs.

Timing is also critical for crisis investing. True crises don’t last long, and, generally, economies recover quickly…if they are going to recover. This means that, to act on crisis investing opportunities, you need cash on hand, set aside for this strategy. Real estate values in Argentina began to recover within 12 months of that country’s financial crisis at the end of 2001. Prices didn’t return to pre-crises levels for about three years and then continued beyond where they’d been prior to the economic meltdown. So if you had bought even 15 months after the crisis (as I did), you would have doubled your money in fewer than 5 years (as I did).

Generally speaking, five years is the longest length of time you should plan to hold a crisis buy, unless you have reason to believe property prices will continue to increase at an extraordinary pace.

Productive assets you buy for the yield and, as well, some capital appreciation. If you are a conservative investor, real productive assets should constitute the greatest percentage of your real estate holdings.

Most investors moved away from yields during the real estate boom, turning their noses up at the levels of yield they typically bring. A net rental yield of 8% per year plus perhaps 5% capital appreciation a year wasn’t nearly as sexy as the 30% to 40% (or more) annual returns promised (and, in fact, still promised today) by some pre-construction marketers.

Yes, you can achieve those 30%- or 40%-per-year returns. I’ve done it and better. But speculative pre-construction plays shouldn’t serve as the foundation of your portfolio. Certainly, they shouldn’t constitute the whole of your holdings. Real productive assets, on the other hand, are your anchor. Further, they can generate cash that you can put aside for future investments…a crisis opportunity buy, for example.

A well-rounded international real estate portfolio might have 30% in wholesale opportunities, 20% in path of progress deals, 15% in crisis investments, and 35% in properties giving you a yield. Of course, the percentages will change over time. Some investments require more money to get into than others, and this can skew things temporarily. And a wholesale pre-construction deal can turn into a real asset rental property once you take possession.

Meanwhile, if one of the markets you’re invested in stalls, or, worse, collapses, you have your wealth distributed among other markets and many different holdings.

All is not lost.

Lief Simon

Comments

Tags: 'Global Property Investing''How To Buy Property Overseas'Lief Simon
Share83Tweet52
Previous Post

Live And Invest In Belize Conference

Next Post

Live And Invest In Belize Conference

Lief Simon

Lief Simon

Lief Simon has lived and worked on five continents and traveled to more than 60 countries. In his long career as a global property investor, Lief has also managed multimillion-dollar portfolios of rental properties, for others and for himself. He offers advice on international diversification in his twice-weekly Offshore Living Letter and monthly Simon Letter dispatches.

Related Posts

Alfama at night, Lisbon, Portugal
How to

The Perfect Time For An Overseas Property Purchase?

by Live and Invest Overseas
February 5, 2021
0

Thinking about making an overseas property purchase can arouse feelings such as excitement, fear, anxiety, relief, and accomplishment. Even seasoned...

Read more
Colonial style buildings line the Plaza Machado in Old Mazatlan, Mexico

Why Mazatlán’s Historic Center Is The Ideal Second Home

February 4, 2021
Cathedral at Plaza de Armas, Durango, Mexico.

Introducing Durango: Bargain Real Estate In Authentic Mexico

February 1, 2021
Beach in Cancun, Mexico.

Move To America’s Most Popular Expat Destination In 2 Weeks

January 28, 2021
White sand beach in Playa del Carmen, Riviera Maya, Mexico.

Top 13 Reasons To Buy Property In Mexico Today

January 27, 2021
How To Invest In Property 101: The Pitfalls You Should Avoid

How To Invest In Property 101: The Pitfalls You Should Avoid

January 18, 2021
Tropical waterside house with moored boat on lagoon side of Placencia in Belize.

Buying Real Estate In Belize: What You Need To Know

January 12, 2021
Next Post
aerial view of coastal community in Belize

Live And Invest In Belize Conference

A world full of fun, adventure, and profit awaits! Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and we'll send you a FREE report on the 10 Best Places To Retire In Style Overseas Today.

Start Your New Life Today, Overseas

how to retire overseas

LIOS Resources


  • New To LIOS
  • Ask An Expert
  • Media Center
  • Contact Us
  • FAQs

Quick Links


  • Best Places To Live
  • Best Places To Retire
  • Finding A Job Overseas
  • Real Estate

Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and get your FREE report: The 10 Best Places To Retire Overseas In 2021

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Unsubscribe

© 2008-2021 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Countries
  • Budgets
  • Archives
  • News
  • Events
  • Bookstore
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Members Area
  • Contact Us

© 2008-2021 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

WANT TO RETIRE OVERSEAS?

Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and we’ll immediately send you a free report on the 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE in style overseas. Each day you’ll learn about the best opportunities for international living, retiring overseas, offshore diversification and asset protection, and investing in real estate around the world.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.