In this week’s Your Overseas Dream Home Digest…
- The New York Times is Scooped Again
- Boots on the Ground in Argentina
- Construction Update from Punta Laguna
- Podcast: Notes from the Field
- Your Questions Answered on Finding a Good Rental Manager
I’m writing to you from Portland, Oregon where I’m spending my weekend at the International Living Go Overseas Bootcamp.
This is the only U.S.-based Real Estate Trend Alert meetup of the year. It’s happening as an “event within an event” at Bootcamp.
I’m enjoying chatting with RETA members and helping them connect with my real estate insiders from all over the world, including developers, brokers, and attorneys.
Everyone is excited to hear about the list of “next places” that my team and I has uncovered. And on that point…
On Monday, The New York Times declared that Albania is emerging.
It raved that “Gorgeous beaches, unspoiled nature, unusual historical sites and low prices have made this former ‘hermit state’ one of Europe’s newest destinations.”
I chuckle when I see articles like this…reading them is a little like looking through the RETA archives for old news…
These days you won’t find many Mediterranean beaches with olive groves and farmland running down to the sea. Here’s one on the Albania Riviera.
The New York Times mentions the beach town of Ksamil…the historic ruins of Butrint…Borsh… places that might be familiar to longstanding RETA members.
Because as usual, we were there first.
My scout Eoin Bassett scouted almost the entirety of the Albanian-Montenegrin coast in service of RETA. In 2022 I sent him on a road trip from Sarandë in the south of Albania along the country’s Riviera.
Something needs to click for Albania. I want to see some wins that show the country getting organized and leaping into this century in terms of tourism services, access and infrastructure.
Albania sure looks like a future European and Mediterranean hot spot, but will it always stay a “future” hotspot?
I have lots more questions. But the potential is undoubtedly there. And my team and I will be watching how things develop there.
(By the way, if you want to be ahead of The New York Times (and its readers), you need to be a RETA member.)
RETA has always been forward-looking.
By its very nature, it’s about getting ahead of the “Path of Progress”—spotting tomorrow’s prime locations while they’re still overlooked, undervalued, and full of upside.
There is no shortcut to finding these destinations.
It’s not something you can do from your laptop or your living room. It requires getting on planes, jumping in rental cars, crossing time zones, digging feet in sand…
This is why my team and I spend more than $1 million on travel and research every year. We put boots on the ground and build local contacts, so our club can be ahead.
This is how RETA members get valuable and actionable intelligence before anyone else.
Boots on the Ground in Argentina
Argentina should be one of the richest nations on earth.
It’s blessed with extraordinary natural resources, excellent demographics, and enormous swathes of productive land. But through incompetence and corruption, it became trapped in perpetual economic chaos, with regular sovereign debt defaults, currency crises, and bouts of hyperinflation.
Enter Javier Milei.
Elected president in 2023, Milei is the most disruptive force in Argentinian politics for generations. A self-described anarcho-capitalist, he’s introduced wide-ranging reforms to shake Argentina out of this cycle of constant economic crisis, and the early results have been hugely impressive.
Which raises a question: Is this a buying moment in Argentina?
My scout is checking out the real estate scene in Buenos Aires, (pictured) and Salta in Argentina.
I haven’t been in Argentina for a long time so I asked a seasoned scout I know to get boots on the ground and give me a sense of the lay of the land.
He’s digging into the real estate scene there. Friday was his last day in Buenos Aires before heading to Salta.
I’m interested in what he’s finding and I can’t wait to have a full report for RETA members, who get all the details of our scouting trips first along with the best, most actionable insights. Learn about membership here.
Argentina is on my shortlist for places to scout soon.
Stay tuned…
Construction Update from Punta Laguna
A few days ago, I heard from a contact on Mexico’s Riviera Maya, where construction is progressing at Punta Laguna in the master-planned community of Corasol, Playa del Carmen.
I bought alongside RETA members here in our deal in 2022 when our members-only pricing for stunning two-bed condos started at $228,600. In April this year, two-bed condos in Punta Laguna listed retail for $342,000…that’s an uplift of $113,400.
My contact on the ground has checked on the site and confirmed that three towers are each now standing at six storys tall.
RETA members who bought in Punta Laguna will be getting a more detailed update on this shortly.
A quick snap my contact on the ground took of one of the towers now rising at Punta Laguna.
Earlier in the week, I took a moment out and recorded a podcast doing some reflection on my investing career.
You might be surprised to learn how important I’ve found small talk to be…
Podcast: Notes from the Field
Earlier this week I recorded a new Notes from the Field podcast and shared it with members of my Real Estate Trend Alert group.
It’s been a while since I recorded an episode, and this one is a little different. I want to share this RETA members-only content with you to give you a taste of the exclusive content RETA members have access to. In it, I look at my own journey as a real estate investor.
It isn’t all about money. This isn’t some anonymous stock market punt or a crypto transaction tapped out on your phone. When you’re investing in real estate, there’s so much more to it. You’re dealing with real people…forging important relationships. Being genuine and courteous makes a huge difference.
From Caminha in northern Portugal, I’ve been reflecting on the road that’s brought me here. The wins, the mistakes, the lessons learned the hard way. And how do we measure success in real estate?
In this podcast I share:
- The importance of knowing yourself and what you want…
- Why “success” isn’t always measured in dollars and cents…
- Why relationships matter when buying overseas…
- And how you can apply these lessons to your own path as an investor.
The view during a Friday evening stroll in Caminha in Northern Portugal.
You can listen to the podcast here: [Listen to Notes from the Field]
This is a candid, pull-back-the-curtain musing. I hope it helps you sidestep some of the pitfalls and sharpen your sense of what success means for you.
One of the things I talk about on the podcast is rental managers Finding a good rental manager is incredibly important, and it’s the subject of a reader question I’ve received. Read on to learn more…
Your Questions Answered
Have a comment for me or my team? A question about owning overseas? Share it here. I’d love to hear from you. Here’s a question I got from a reader recently…
Peter B. asks: Hi Ronan, I have been a RETA member for many years, watching and learning from you and your team.
I live in the Southern Hemisphere, but am now ready to invest in some of the property deals you discover in Central America and Europe.
My problem is that it is too far to travel to manage them, so is it possible to include in all your deals a clear statement as to:
(a) Whether on-site management would be possible or is planned, or
(b) Whether you would have to arrange a local manager yourself, or
(c) Whether there is another good management option available, such as an agency, or similar to your colleagues in southern Spain.
I own a property in Europe now, but have just stopped doing short-term rentals as it was too difficult to manage from the other side of the world.
If you could provide this information, it would make a great deal of difference for me, and no doubt for many of your other members.
Ronan says: Hi Peter, I believe finding a good rental manager is the key to owning a successful income-producing property. Especially if, like you, you live far from your property.
Income-earning real estate is a key component in how I organize my life. And so is minimizing hassle. When I hand the keys of one of my properties to a rental manager I want to make good money, and I want zero problems.
That doesn’t mean I put it all to the back of my mind. I stay proactive. I develop and execute a strategy…and finding the right rental manager is key to that.
I discuss this in more depth, and share my own tips for searching for the rental manager that’s right for you and your property in this article.
As to your question about rental management as it relates to specific RETA deals, if there’s a deal you’re interested in, contact the RETA Concierge team (they are on hand to help RETA members with all aspects of their membership). In advance of a deal opening, RETA members can contact the Concierge team and they’ll be able to tell you if there is on-site management and what options might be available to you.
Wishing you good real estate investing,
P.S. If you have a question about buying real estate overseas or have suggestions for destinations my team and I should put on our scouting list, drop me a line here.
