I’ve just returned from my scouting trip to Huatulco, a beach destination on Mexico’s Pacific coast…
This is a stunning location, dotted with lush green hills that roll down to golden-sand beaches…coral reefs nestled below crystal-clear ocean waters…and rugged cliffs that jut out into turquoise bays…
Virtually every condo and hotel room I visited offered a more breathtaking ocean view than the last.
The coast of Huatulco is unspoiled, but not undiscovered. You’ll find hotels and resorts here, as well as high-end residential communities. And there are direct flights to the U.S. and Canada.
There’s growth potential here too, though, and there could be opportunities. While in Huatulco, I met with developers and looked at some land. If there’s an opportunity, members of Real Estate Trend Alert group will be the first to know.
There’s growth potential here too, though, and there could be opportunities. While in Huatulco, I met with developers and looked at some land. If there’s an opportunity, members of Real Estate Trend Alert group will be the first to know.
Still, all the time I was in Huatulco, there was another destination I couldn’t get out of my mind…
Huatulco on Mexico’s Pacific coast is made up of stunning coves and bays with sweeping curves of golden-sand beach.
Prior to Huatulco, I was scouting another stretch of coast around the town of Puerto Escondido. The coast here consists of long, empty stretches of golden-sand beach, a contrast to the bays and coves of Huatulco. Though it’s every bit as majestic.
In comparison to the relatively mature market of Huatulco, the coast around Puerto Escondido feels undiscovered. Instead of hotels, resorts and luxury residential communities, you’ll find palapas with plastic deck chairs.
Touring the beaches around Puerto Escondido, I was blown away by the raw, pristine beauty and immense potential of this coast. I consider my first day there one of the top five scouting days in my more than 20-year career as an international real estate investor and scout. (I shared all the details in this video.)
All my experience tells me this destination is set to explode…
The beaches of Puerto Escondido are pristine and unspoiled…the potential here is extraordinary. Check out my Instagram or the Overseas Dream Home WhatsApp Channel for more photos and videos of this coast.
Puerto Escondido is undiscovered…to everyone that is except the ultra-rich, the hippies, and the surfers. (These groups tend to be the pioneers when it comes to finding beautiful destinations.) You’ll find multi-million-dollar homes here, set on virgin beach.
But now, a major Path of Progress is moving along this coast. (A Path of Progress is anything that makes a place easier to get to or more desirable, like a new road or 5-star resort.) Last year, the government committed $4.6 billion to new infrastructure in Oaxaca state, including a new international terminal for Puerto Escondido airport.
I’ve seen this pattern play out again and again…
A stunning destination is discovered…somewhere unspoiled, beautiful, majestic. The ultra-wealthy come and build their million-dollar-homes and ultra-exclusive resorts. Word begins to get out. More people want to come. The infrastructure is improved. Now what I call the “ordinary rich” can follow en masse…
By “ordinary rich,” I mean doctors, lawyers, executives, self-made entrepreneurs, work-from-anywhere professionals… The highly paid professionals who don’t travel in the private jets and aren’t paying thousands of dollars a night to stay in a 5-star resort, but who want luxury and resort-style amenities at a reasonable price.
In many destinations, they’re an overlooked and untapped group.
My Real Estate Trend Alert group has played this trend again and again…in Los Cabos…the Costa del Sol in Spain…the Rivera Maya on Mexico’s Caribbean coast…the Algarve in southern Portugal…
By getting in ahead and owning the real estate the ordinary rich want, we’ve seen incredible uplifts. To give you a brief sample…
- Uplift of $388,844 in Cabo—The first RETA deal in Cabo was in 2015 in the 5-star Quivira resort. The RETA-only price on a two-bed ocean-view condo in the best-in-class Copala community was $336,156. I bought one. An identical condo to mine two floors above me later listed for $725,000. That’s $388,844 more.
- Gain of €223,000 in Spain—In 2020, I brought RETA members an opportunity in a community called Casares Costa in Spain’s Costa del Sol. A RETA member bought a luxury condo here for €327,000. It was sold in late 2023 for €550,000.
- $309,018 More in Playa del Carmen—In 2021, RETA members had the chance to buy two-bed condos from $265,304 in a community called Singular Dream in the beach city of Playa del Carmen, along Mexico’s Caribbean coast. In early 2024, a two-bed condo in Singular Dream was listing for $574,322.
I continue to look for opportunity in Cabo, the Algarve, and these other destinations where we’ve seen incredible uplifts. But I’ve also identified new, emerging global destinations that are poised to see the next wave of opportunity.
Puerto Escondido is one. I’m working on deals here, but it’s early days. There’s lots of due diligence to be done. Lots of boxes to tick. A potential RETA-grade deal is at least a year away.
But my team has also fanned out across the world…tracking destinations where the ordinary rich are flocking in greater numbers…and where potential deals are very close…
Right now, one of my most senior scouts, Eoin Bassett, is on the ground in the tiny and stunningly beautiful European country of Montenegro along with our RETA photographer and videographer, Alan Kennedy.
Another of my scouts, Oliver Lovett, is in the Dominican Republic, scouting the out-of-this-world luxury beach and golf community of Cap Cana.
And my senior scout, Margaret Summerfield, has just returned from the Algarve in Portugal.
Below, I’ll share brief updates from each, starting with Eoin in Montenegro…
Luxury Marinas and Viennese Traditions
By Eoin Bassett
Some days are best begun with cake…
On the shores of the Mediterranean’s only fjord, my colleague Alan and I are trying three types at once. This indulgence has been recommended by one of our local contacts.
She’s so right…
To come to this grand old café and take coffee and cake is in the spirit of imperial Vienna, for it was the Austro-Hungarians who built this place to take full advantage of the panoramic view…
Rugged mountains clad in green foliage spill into the serene waters of the bay. Palms rustle in the breeze. The border with Croatia is an imaginary line somewhere on the mountains…the famed city of Dubrovnik is close at hand by water taxi or road.
Soon we’ll be walking off our cake on the wide pleasant boulevards of one of the three luxury marinas close by.
Taking coffee and cake—getting dressed up to enjoy coffee and cake with friends, and to be seen—is a signature part of the culture in the Austrian capital, Vienna. It’s also present in Montenegro, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
We’ve come to the Bay of Kotor in tiny Montenegro at Ronan’s request.
On Montenegro’s northeastern coast, right across the border from Croatia, the Bay of Kotor is jaw-droppingly beautiful and packed with ancient history. A mammoth Path of Progress is moving down the coast of Montenegro…and the Bay of Kotor is where all of the growth trends are converging.
This is the first stop for any tourist visiting Montenegro. That’s what makes it one of the strongest investment prospects.
Notably, it’s also a place that attracts a premium crowd. In contrast to Croatia, where mass tourism exploded two decades ago, this is where you find top-end luxury brands…fine dining…and well-dressed people enjoying it all.
Porto Novi is one of the three luxury marinas dotted around the only fjord on the Mediterranean. Prices for property start at around €800 to €900 per square foot.
I’ve seen a lot of luxury marinas in my decades as a scout. But I’ve never been to a place that boasts three…
Porto Novi is a 64-acre resort town with a One&Only resort where you’ll pay close to $2,000 a night in high season.
Then you have Porto Montenegro on the other side of the mountain, among the leading superyacht marinas in the world. In 2016 it was the first marina ever to be awarded Platinum status by the Yacht Harbor Association (TYHA).
And finally you have Lustica Bay…where we’ll be scouting tomorrow.
All of these luxury marina communities are new.
Roads that snake around the mountains and fringe the sea are getting asphalted…we see construction steaming ahead on hotels…on apartments…
Everywhere we’ve gone so far we agree Ronan seems to have called it…
People are coming…money is here…the big name resorts are backing the place as a new Riviera.
And the scenery, the food…it’s easy to see why!
Luxury yachts bob in the water at Porto Montenegro, one of the world’s leading superyacht marinas.
Ronan says: When I was last in Montenegro in 2022, I told RETA members that I noticed something was absent along Montenegro’s beautiful coastline…a “missing piece.” That missing piece is best-in-class real estate to serve the ordinary rich.
As I say, RETA members have already profited from this missing piece in Los Cabos…the Costa del Sol in Spain…the Rivera Maya on Mexico’s Caribbean coast…the Algarve…
Now, we’re closing in on a deal here for exactly this kind of real estate. Eoin and Alan are on the ground right now, and my senior researcher, Margaret, is due to follow up in May. This could be huge.
And this is just one of the destinations we’re scouting for opportunities like these. Right now, another member of our scouting team, Oliver, is boots on the ground in the Dominican Republic. He shared this…
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Golf Pros and Glorious Beaches in the Luxurious Caribbean
By Oliver Lovett
To say that Punta Cana International Airport was busy would be an understatement. The line to get through customs stretched back so far that entire groups were waved through without so much as a cursory glance.
Later, as I stood in line for my hire car alongside the throngs of tourists from Europe and North America, I spotted a dozen or so golf pros milling around. They’re in town for a PGA event being held in Punta Cana this week at the Tom Fazio-designed Corales golf course. Just one of the many excellent courses in this part of the Dominican Republic.
I’m here in Punta Cana, on the eastern coast of the Dominican Republic. This is a tourism powerhouse. There are regular flights to destinations across Canada and North America. Some 7.8 million passengers arrived at Punta Cana International Airport in 2023.
Like any visitor to the Caribbean, I made an immediate beeline for the beach, in my case Bavaro Beach. It’s everything you’d expect from a Caribbean beach. Clear turquoise waters, soft sand, and ample space for relaxing on beach chairs under tall palm trees.
The palm-fringed Bavaro Beach is just one of the many incredible beaches you’ll find around Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.
But Ronan didn’t send me to the Dominican Republic to confirm the beaches are still spectacular (which they are)…
I’m here to check out Cap Cana, a magnificent beach and golf community and the site of a potential new RETA deal.
Cap Cana is just down the road from Punta Cana, but I’m told it feels like another world. So much so that in Cap Cana, Ronan sees echoes of a destination more than two and a half thousand miles away…in another country…on another ocean—Cabo, Mexico.
Like Cabo, Cap Cana is a destination for the ultra-wealthy. At 30,000 acres, this master-planned community is twice the size of Manhattan. It has top-tier golf courses, a pristine marina, sports fishing, shopping complexes, upmarket restaurants, a hospital, and a bilingual school.
Then there’s the stunning beach. Brilliant and arresting, with bright Caribbean waters against an expanse of sand.
As in Cabo, the ordinary rich are coming here in greater numbers. Tomorrow I’ll be touring luxury real estate in Cap Cana. I’m excited to see what I uncover and will report back…
Cap Cana boasts out-of-this-world luxury in an awe-inspiring Caribbean setting.
Ronan says: Everything in Cap Cana screams luxury. I scouted this community twice last year, meeting with developers to negotiate a potential RETA-grade deal. Now we’re closing in on something big.
The potential of being ahead in emerging destinations like these is incredible.
Just look at the Algarve, where my senior researcher Margaret was just on the ground visiting a town where members of my RETA group have seen incredible uplifts from just this kind of opportunity…
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Huge Uplifts in the Algarve
By Margaret Summerfield
In the not-too-distant past, a visitor to the Algarve in early April would have been greeted by deserted beaches and half-empty restaurants.
Those days are now just a memory…
The Algarve is in the south of Portugal facing the Atlantic, yet it boasts a perfect Mediterranean climate. It’s a place of rich culture, great food, soaring cliffs, white-washed villages, stunning beaches, and 300 days of sunshine a year.
This was once primarily a vacation destination for Northern Europeans. Now it’s a year-round hot spot for retirees, young families, and the footloose work-from-anywhere crowd.
With soaring cliffs, stunning beaches, and 300 days of sunshine a year, the Algarve in southern Portugal is a stunningly beautiful, inherently desirable destination.
I was in town to speak at International Living’s Fast-track Europe Conference. (To join me and Ronan at a future event, click here to learn more.) While there, I took the time to re-visit the town of Lagos…
Lagos is arguably the most historic town on the Algarve. Tucked behind ancient walls, it’s place where an immaculate Old Town spills down cobbled lanes into shady plazas. From spots all over town you can catch breathtaking views of the Bay of Light, fringed by miles of golden sand, with the town of Portimão on the other side.
The town was once peaceful and little-known. But it has since exploded in popularity, exactly as Ronan said it would. When I visited, the cafés and restaurants were packed. The streets busy.
The charming town of Lagos in the Algarve was packed when Margaret visited in early April.
For years, Lagos has been benefiting from a Path of Progress moving west along the Algarve.
When development first came to the Algarve, it rolled out west of Faro, where the international airport is, toward Vilamoura. That’s where the major resorts, golf courses, hotels, and condo communities first developed, before moving farther west toward Lagos.
Over the last few years Lagos has seen a huge surge in demand for real estate as it gets discovered by millions from all over the world. The ordinary rich are now everywhere here. This is now a year-round community. Best-in-class property is highly sought-after. There is demand for resales…as well as demand for rentals. And the scarcity is acute.
RETA members have done very well buying ahead of this trend…
- In December 2019, RETA members could buy in a community called Santa Maria from €310,500. According to an Algarve contact, two-bed condos available to RETA members for €390,000 now list for €550,000—a boost of €160,000.
The pool at Santa Maria. These condos are now being delivered to RETA members.
- In 2020, Ronan recommended condos in a community called Adega in Lagos. One RETA member bought a condo here for €500,000. She has since sold it for €795,000. That’s an incredible gain of €295,000. RETA members could get penthouses here for the incredible price of €480,000. A contact says those now list for around €1 million…so they’ve doubled in price.
- In 2021, RETA members could own in the luxury community of Dona Maria. One RETA member purchased a penthouse there for €1.1 million. That’s since listed at double that—€2.2 million.
- RETA members could also buy two-bed condos in Dona Maria from €575,000. An Algarve contact says these currently list for about €850,000—an uplift of €275,000.
This condo in Dona Maria offers views out over the marina in Lagos and to the Atlantic beyond. Pan to the right and you can look out over the Old Town. RETA members have seen huge lifts from the members-only deals here.
Ronan says: In the Algarve, RETA members bought ahead of a massive spike in demand as more and more vacationers, expats, retirees, and work-from-anywhere professionals flocked to this sun-soaked region. And we were early as the Path of Progress swept west along the Algarve from the traditional tourist centers near Faro airport such as Albufeira.
Now we’re preparing to be ahead in Puerto Escondido…Cap Cana…and Montenegro…
Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing a further update from my scouts in Montenegro, Eoin and Alan. And in the days ahead, you’ll be hearing more from Oliver in the Dominican Republic. Stay tuned.
Ronan McMahon, Founder, Overseas Dream Home & Real Estate Trend Alert
Your Daily Dream Home
Saleres, Andalucia, Spain
This house is on the edge of Saleres, a charming village in Spain’s Lecrin Valley, with just 165 inhabitants. Saleres is about a 30-minute drive from the historic city of Granada, known for its stunning Old Town.
The first floor has a lounge, a kitchen, and a downstairs toilet. On the second floor you’ll find two bedrooms, a bathroom and a terrace area with panoramic views.
Remember, we don’t make money from any listing shared here in the Your Daily Dream Home section. We have no dog in the fight. We’re just sharing cool properties we’ve found.
I haven’t visited this property or done due diligence on it. If you’re interested in the listing, you should hire an attorney and do your own due diligence.
