Guide to Real Estate in Latin America
October 22nd, 2009 Posted in Cheap Latin America Travel, International living/working, Leffel projects, Work/Life/Travel Balance
A few weeks back Transitions Abroad posted this article of mine: Real Estate in Latin America.
In my humble opinion this is the best region to put your money into if you’re going to buy a house, condo, or piece of land anytime soon, especially if you’re old enough (and have enough verifiable income) to take advantage of the incentives some countries throw at you. In some cases you only have to be 45 and be able to prove you can earn $1,000 a month from outside their country—pretty easy if you’re a freelancer, a business owner, or a pensioner. And apart from a few bubble zones (Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, northern Pacific Costa Rica for a start), the prices are really attractive.
I just came back from Ecuador, where the prices on some of the real estate ads were almost laughable. Like a 90-acre farm outside Cuenca with a 3-bedroom house and a caretaker’s cottage for $90,000. Another was 128 acres with a fruit orchard and a spring-fed stream for $68,000. For another $32K you could build a nice house with a great view. I saw 2-bedroom condos advertised in nice parts of Quito for under $60,000—one was on the 18th floor with a panoramic view from the balcony. These weren’t isolated cases either. See that photo at the top from Cuenca? Renovated lofts in that building start at $45,000.
Anyway, check out the article for details on where the best deals are and why it makes sense. There are resources at the end to follow up on specifics.
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4 Responses to “Guide to Real Estate in Latin America”
By dan on Oct 23, 2009
Nice article, Tim. Well done.
By Henry Lillian on Nov 11, 2009
Clear the way, the clarions are out for the investing abroad parade. Yoo-hoo!
Would be investors thronging the caribbean islands/central America to seize the next real estate deal. Kaveat, investing abroad especially in real estate is not for the meek. If you had your hands on managing properties, you are fully aware of this.
There are some of us for whom investing abroad can make sense. These are the retired middle age couples or anyone with a wad of dollars who moves to these exotic places.
It is wise to have your money work for you. So you buy a condo, a house or anything that appreciates in value. You then rent it out to expats, adventurers’ seeking junkies, snow dogs, out of the rat race followers, ESL teachers, NGO want to change the world freaks flooding the these locations each year.
The cost of living in our industrialized countries keeps on rising and we get less bang for our bucks. So the statistics are in your favor . Meanwhile, it is wiser for the rest of us who may have the financial mean to acquire land/ house to simply increase our rrsp or 401 k or whatever we use to fund our retirement when we are ready to retire to these third-world countries and fully take advantage of our purchasing power $$$$$, we’ll have the cash to do so. It’s plainy foolish to manage a property if we do not intent to live near on a regular basis.
Property management cannot be perform through a crystal ball. It’s a demand job that requires physical presence to ensure your hard earned money is not swindle. That’s exactly what is going to happen if you leave the management of your real estate to an unrelated person and hope he’s going to cherish it like you did.
A wise men once said: ” it is better to earn while you learn than to learn while you earn”. One is very stressful, the other much less.I leave you to find which one.
Henry Lillian
By maggie on Jan 2, 2010
pls send me affordable listings for houses and condos with ocean/beach access
By tim on Jan 3, 2010
Lose track of where you were Maggie? You’ll have to check real estate sites for that…