Travel Notes from Greece, Panama, and Caminha -

In this week’s Your Overseas Dream Home Digest…

The Window is Closing in Caminha
Forget the Greek Islands!
A Bird-Eye View of Panama’s Most Exclusive Communities
Your Questions Answered on Selling a RETA property

Greetings from my homebase of Cork, Ireland.

Last Wednesday I arrived home from Caminha in the north of Portugal, where I checked in on the renovation work I’m having done on my historic mansion. While there, I scouted the area for other promising real estate opportunities.

And what I discovered is that things are changing quickly in Caminha.

Where 18 months ago, there were 10 listings for every buyer, now you have multiple buyers for every listing.

This conveniently located but thus far overlooked corner of Portugal has obvious appeal—explosive greenery, stunning Atlantic beaches and flat lagoon waters…

The situation here now reminds me of another part of Portugal and another opportunity…one where I missed out…

Three years ago, I could see the Silver Coast around Obidos Lagoon and beaches was on the cusp of exploding.

I wanted to buy a place that was a home plus an investment. I saw lots of options in the €350,000-€550,000 range ($410,000-$644,000). All imperfect. I procrastinated…then found and negotiated a dream home right on the shores of Obidos Lagoon.

It had it all: A pool, space, views…all of them awesome, and the property was on the market for under €400,000 ($468,300)…

Then disaster struck: the engineer’s report showed damp…

It hadn’t been disclosed, and I was busy at the time, leaving for Mexico the following week…

I walked away from the opportunity.

It turned out I was right about the region being on the cusp. Today that home would list for €1.2m…damp and all!

By the time I got back to the Silver Coast, seven months later, prices were through the roof and inventory was scarce.

I kept moving forward…searching for the next places…and I found Caminha…this time around I was more decisive, choosing to live with imperfections…

This market too is on the cusp…

In fact, the transformation in Caminha is astonishing. And the window of opportunity here is closing…

One interesting property I found in Caminha—perched on what I’m calling “Gentrification Hill”—is this two-story villa with three bathrooms and sweeping views across to the Minho River to Spain. The original stone house has been carefully restored. With one bedroom downstairs and two suites upstairs, the property (featuring a balcony and pergola) is a short stroll to the charming town of Seixas.

Spanning 3,024 square feet, this property comes with parking and is on the market for €335,000 ($392,300).

This restored stone villa in Seixas, with sweeping views to Spain, is on the market for €335,000.

Before leaving town, I stood outside this villa and recorded a short video to show you exactly what I’m seeing on the ground. Watch it here:

On the ground in Caminha—a video from “Gentrification Hill”

Please note, I haven’t been inside nor have I done any due diligence. I just found the property yesterday morning before I left Caminha. You can find the listing here.

I’ll be sharing more on what I found in Caminha soon…and as with all my research, RETA members will be the first to hear my updates. So if you’re not yet a RETA member, and want to unsure you don’t miss any of my, or my teams, reports from the road, you can join here.

Stay tuned…

Forget the Greek Islands!

I have yet to get on a debrief call with my scouts Eoin Bassett and Alan Kennedy, who just wrapped up their exploration of the Greek coast from Thessaloniki to Kavala. But Eoin sent us this note from the airport:

“Everyone seems to be out there—especially on social media—hunting for the next great Greek island. The most beautiful, the most undiscovered, the least crowded.

But after what we’ve just seen, I have to ask…

Who needs an island?

To be clichéd, Northern Greece has it all. Spectacular beaches backed by vine-studded hills and olive groves. Charming beach towns, sheltered little marinas, laidback tavernas where the seafood is caught that morning and the wine is grown just up the hill.

And if you like myth and history, wow…

In addition to real estate opportunities we stumbled on the tomb of Alexander the Great’s mother, walked stretches of the Via Egnatia—the ancient Roman road to Constantinople—sat in the marketplace where Aristotle once debated, reveled in thousand-year-old Byzantine frescos, and stood in the prison cell where St. Paul was held.

This is Macedonia, the land of the god Pan, of Orpheus, of Dionysus…a land soaked in legend and layered with civilizations.

Northern Greece is full of history and myth…is there opportunity here? That’s why I sent my scouts Eoin and Alan there last week to check it out.

We flew into Thessaloniki—Greece’s second-biggest city—and started by heading east along a wide, modern, four-lane highway for two hours or so to Kavala, a historic port city perched dramatically on the coast and surrounded by beaches.

There are two international airports in play here—Thessaloniki and Kavala—and both are opening the region up to a new kind of visitor. That’s part of the path of progress we found.

From Kavala we hugged the coast along mile-upon-mile of semi-deserted Aegean beaches—and this was in July, the very peak of Europe’s tourism season.

This is wine country. We drove through vine-studded hills, past olive groves and sunflower fields. We drank local wines like Assyrtiko and Malagousia. The focus here is on quality, not mass production—many of the vineyards are family-run, boutique-scale, and full of personality.

The food was another highlight.

Every meal felt like a celebration. Grilled octopus straight off the boat. Feta baked in pastry with sesame and honey. Wild greens foraged from the hills. Ripe figs eaten in the sun. Simple ingredients, extraordinary flavor. The kind of food that reminds you how good life can be.

We dropped down into each of the three prongs of Halkidiki—three peninsulas, each with its own distinct character.

Often overlooked in favor of the more well-known Greek islands, Northern Greece offers spectacular beaches, charming historic towns, and far less crowds.

Athos, the easternmost, is home to the world’s only monastic republic. Entry is restricted, and only men are allowed to visit the monasteries. But the view of Mount Athos rising out of the sea is breathtaking and visible for miles along the coast.

On the second finger—Sithonia—we found something really exciting: a micro path of progress. It’s early, but we spotted signs of boutique development, with strict building rules and truly stunning natural settings. This could be a place to secure something rare and enduring.

Over on Kassandra, the more developed of the three, we found a character-filled stone village with outrageous sea views, with a wave of stylish renovations. There’s a second-home revival underway here—weekenders from Thessaloniki and early foreign buyers breathing life into forgotten homes.

And then back in Thessaloniki, we wrapped the trip exploring fast-gentrifying
neighborhoods. This is a gritty, working port city—but it’s also got energy, culture, and edge. We found pockets where change is happening fast—boutique hotels, trendy restaurants, and Airbnb-style rentals reshaping entire streets.

This trip was a macro discovery mission. Boots on the ground. We came looking for where the smart money and the new attention are going. To find out where the people are going and get ahead of them…

And we came away with a list of places to dig deeper.

There’s something happening here in Northern Greece.

And this sort of trip is how you get ahead of it.

More to come.

A Bird-Eye View of Panama’s Most Exclusive Communities

Now a note from my scout Ciaran Madden in Panama:

“The chopper blades whirred to life, slicing through the warm afternoon air, and within moments, we were high above Panama City.

Just below us, I could see our departure point—the vast master-planned community of Santa Maria just outside Panama City’s downtown core.

I’d spent the previous days exploring this 692-acre verdant reserve of luxury. I’d toured its vast country club—complete with tennis courts, squash, pools, a gym, soccer fields, and even a bowling alley. And I’d scouted the luxury homes and condo communities that dot its Jack Nicklaus Signature course.

It was hugely impressive up close. But from above, I could see Santa Maria’s true significance…

Santa Maria is a vast oasis of luxury just outside Panama City’s booming downtown core.

With a bird’s-eye view, I could make out the metropolis of Panama City pushing up right up against Santa Maria, towering skyscrapers arriving almost right up to its gates. Yet, Santa Maria sat as a lush oasis of exclusivity.

It was impossible not to be impressed by the scale and ambition of Santa Maria.

But then scale and ambition seem to be the bywords in contemporary Panama. This is a small country that thinks big.

My scout Ciaran (right) toured Santa Maria in the company of RETA members Doug and Mary, who were in town to understand for themselves the scale of the opportunity in Panama.

I was taking a chopper flight down to see Playa Caracol, a beachfront community emerging on the nicest, closest stretch of sand to booming Panama City.

Ronan first scouted this coast more than a decade ago, when it was merely an empty stretch of pristine beach. Today, there are hundreds of condos…beach homes…and a Radisson hotel. Panama’s first Margaritaville resort is being built here. A beach town emerging on the sands, virtually all frontline to the coast.

RETA members have been ahead of this transformation.

In January 2023 RETA members were able to buy ocean-view condos in Las Olas at Caracol starting from $254,600. Now similar condos are listed with the developer for $355,580—that’s $100,980 more.
RETA members bought in Surfside residences back in March 2020 at prices starting at $214,600. Similar condos are now on sale by the developer at $330,000—a boost of $115,400.

Playa Caracol on Panama’s Pacific Riviera offers true beachfront living.

As with Santa Maria, Playa Caracol had been impressive when I was on the ground. But to see it from above—to see the condo communities and homes set right up on this long sweep of sand, with the Chame mountains towering behind—was mesmerizing.

The sheer ambition of it all!

Our chopper trip to Playa Caracol was fleeting. With the light beginning to fade, we had to return to the city. A literal flying visit.

Not a problem. As you’re reading this, I’ll be back on the ground in Playa Caracol to do some more in-depth scouting.

As our chopper returned to Panama’s glistening capital, we passed over the long lines of gigantic container ships waiting to enter the canal. Then the city’s skyline came clearly into view…rows of glistening skyscrapers hovering over the Bay of Panama.

Few sights more perfectly convey Panama’s global significance.

It’s incredible to think so few of these skyscrapers existed 25 years ago (45 of Panama’s 50 tallest buildings have been built since the 2000s.)

The world is coming here—for commerce and trade…and increasingly for rest and relaxation on its stunning beaches. This is a global center.