In this week’s Your Overseas Dream Home Digest…
- Boots on the Ground in Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido
- Spooky Historic Homes in Europe from $95,200
- Why Italians Are Wrong About This Stunning Hill Town
- Your Questions Answered on Investing in Uruguay
“One of My Best Discoveries in Years”
I’ve got boots on the ground in southern Mexico…
As I write I’m in the city of Oaxaca. I’m here scouting real estate and to take in the Day of the Dead festivities.
The Day of the Dead is one of the most important holidays on the Mexican calendar. It’s also a massive draw with people from around the world. Such is its immense popularity that I had trouble finding an Airbnb in Oaxaca city. The best I could do was something overpriced on the edge of town.
Still, it was well worth the effort. I’ve been posting updates on my Instagram page. Click here to follow along.
On Tuesday, I’ll be leaving Oaxaca city and heading south to scout Puerto Escondido, a town on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca state.
I was in this town back in April…and what I found here blew me away.
The beaches of Puerto Escondido are pristine and unspoiled…the potential here is extraordinary.
As soon as the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac at Puerto Escondido airport during my first visit earlier this year, I had butterflies. I knew I was onto something special. A major discovery…
The beaches around Puerto Escondido are spectacular—long stretches of pristine golden sand. Empty and unspoiled.
This coast is largely unknown, except to hippies, surfers, and the ultra-rich. But then these groups tend to be the pioneers when it comes to finding beautiful destinations.
The ultra-rich come for the natural beauty and the isolation…and to build grand homes.
The surfers and hippies come because, for them, the quality of the beaches and the waves trumps the need for any mod cons.
But now Puerto Escondido is about to hit a whole new level…
The stunning coast of Puerto Escondido is well known to hippies and surfers. Now, word is getting out about this pristine coastline…
Right now, a “Path of Progress” is sweeping down this coast…
A Path of Progress is anything that makes a place easier to get to (say new roads, bridges, or airports), or more desirable (like a 5-star resorts in a place that previously only had cheap hostels). It’s one of the key things I look for when scouting destinations overseas.
Money is pouring into Oaxaca state. Last year, the government committed $4.6 billion to new infrastructure in Oaxaca. Thousands of miles of new roads and highways are in the works. And the international airport at Puerto Escondido is being expanded and remodeled to serve an expected surge in visitors. Plans for the airport are to quadruple passenger numbers in the next few years.
This place is set to boom…
All across Mexico’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts, frontline real estate on beaches this beautiful and accessible has been taken over by resorts, hotels, high-end communities, top-class restaurants. But this coast has been overlooked.
I can’t remember the last time I came to a place this beautiful and had lunch at a palapa overlooking beaches this spectacular. This is a rare find. In fact, back in April, when I first told members of my Real Estate Trend Alert group about Puerto Escondido, I called it “one of my best discoveries in years.”
At the time, I recorded a special podcast for RETA members recounting my scouting of Puerto Escondido and the nearby destination of Huatulco. Click here to listen to that podcast now.
Now I’m heading back to Puerto Escondido to follow up on my prior scouting. Stay tuned to Overseas Dream Home this week. I’ll let you know what I find…
A photo I snapped during my April visit to Puerto Escondido. The potential here is incredible. Stay tuned…I’ll be sharing some updates from the road in the days ahead.
Spooky Historic Homes in Europe from $95,200
In Mexico this week, revelers have been soaking up the Day of the Dead festivities…in Western countries, it’s been Halloween.
Given that this is the season of all things supernatural, my team have spent the past week or two researching listings of haunted houses. It turns out that there’s niche demand for homes like these. And you’ll find plenty of them on the market, particularly in Europe, where centuries-old houses are commonplace.
The upshot is, whether you’d like to share a grand manor with a ghost known as “The White Lady” (who only appears to unmarried men)…live within a bat’s flight from Dracula’s Castle in Transylvania…or own a cabin in the woods by a haunted Swedish lake…there are plenty of spooky options to choose from in Europe.
Check out the ghoulish listings my team uncovered in our full article here.
This Tudor mansion offers royal history and, reputedly, a resident ghost. The listing is in the full article here and includes stunning photos of this vast property and its elegant interiors.
Why Italians Are Wrong About This Stunning Hill Town
As I’ve been heading back out on the road to scout Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido (and following those destinations, other towns on Mexico’s Caribbean coast), my scout Ciaran Madden has just returned from Italy.
He spent more than a week on the ground there hunting for incredible-value homes in stunning hill towns and overlooked coastal resort destinations.
Among the towns he scouted was Casoli…
The attractive hillside community of Casoli sits in the foothills of the Central Apennines mountains, about three hours’ drive east of Rome and 30 minutes from Italy’s Adriatic coast.
This hill town about three hours’ drive east of Rome is one of I Borghi piu belli d’Italia, “the most beautiful villages in Italy.”
Last year, it ranked sixth overall. But Ciaran found it to be even more upmarket and more appealing than the top-ranked destination, which he also scouted on this trip. (Read his report from that town here.)
And yet, despite how upmarket and appealing Casoli is, real estate there is insanely affordable. Ciaran found historic homes at prices from just €38,000. These include a stunning three-bed property in the historic center with incredible views out over the town and hills.
Get those listings and Ciaran’s boots-on-the-ground report on Casoli here.
Ciaran found a property in the historic center that has multiple balconies with stunning, panoramic views of the village. You’ll get the listing for this home in the full article here.
Your Questions Answered
Have some feedback for me or my team? A question about owning overseas? A destination you’d like us to scout next? Share it here. I’d love to hear from you. Here’s a question I got from a reader…
Christie S. asks: Do you have any upcoming deals in Uruguay? They have a generous long-term residency plan and I’m interested in a safe haven from the current situation in the U.S.
Ronan says: Hi Christe, Uruguay is a great option as a safe haven. And it’s a place that has been on my real estate beat for a long time.
Uruguay is known as the “Switzerland of South America,” a nickname it has earned for its banking secrecy regulations, as well as its peaceful history and lack of corruption. This tiny country is the wealthiest (per capita) in South America, according to the World Bank, and the most democratic, according to The Economist. Here you’ll get exclusivity, security, privacy, opportunity…a safe and peaceful place for you and your money.
Uruguay doesn’t make the news headlines much, it’s small, overlooked, well-organized, and has quietly become one of the best places in Latin America to invest in real estate.
I’ve been tracking Uruguay closely since the earliest days of Real Estate Trend Alert, and bringing members investment opportunities here. Most recently, RETA members had an opportunity to buy ocean-view, walk-to-the-beach lots from $33,180 in the country’s Rocha region. This opportunity arose from a Path of Progress that is turning a stretch Uruguay’s Atlantic coast—a once-quiet coastal area with some of the best beaches in the country, fringed by nature reserves and lagoons—into a favorite vacation destination of South America’s elite.
Back in July 2022, RETA members also had the chance to get in on another deal in Rocha, but this time back from the coast. The Sierras de Rocha is a landscape of unparalleled beauty, where rugged hills hide deep ravines and valleys are crossed by small streams. It’s a virgin refuge for indigenous flora and fauna. A natural paradise of waterfalls, pools, and forests.
The opportunity here was to own 12- to 13-acre parcels of farmland in an unmatched location, just 20 minutes’ drive to Rocha city and a farther 25 to La Paloma (Rocha’s most important seaside resort), with prices running from between $73,000 to $96,000. At the time, I figured on spending about $110 per square foot to build a home. So, all told, for less than $250,000, members could have a small farm and a country escape.
Back then I told RETA members: “In today’s crazy world, the idea of a bolthole with a piece of land somewhere, where it’s warm and sunny most of the year, where you’re near the beach, but tucked away in the mountains away from it all is very appealing.” And this holds true, perhaps even more so, today.
I keep in close communication with my contacts down there. At the end of last year, I spoke with my long-time contact Juan Fischer to get an update on Uruguay and the opportunities there for RETA members. We talked about how to become tax resident, about owning farmland, and he also updated me on that Path of Progress that’s making its way along the coast. RETA members can watch that interview here. (If you’re not yet a RETA member, all the details you need to join are here.)
I’m always on the lookout for new opportunities in Uruguay…and in fact, in early December, my scout, Ciaran, will heading to this country for two weeks to meet with my contacts and dig into the best opportunities. If you have something you’d like him to scout, share it with us here. And stay tuned…you’ll be getting Ciaran’s updates from Uruguay here in Your Overseas Dream Home.
Ronan McMahon, Founder, Overseas Dream Home & Real Estate Trend Alert
