In this week’s Your Overseas Dream Home Digest…
- VIDEO: Discover the “Garden of the Costa del Sol”
- A Swedish Country Home for $25,000
- Your Questions Answered on Why We Scout in Person
Greetings from Cork, Ireland…
The weather has been chilly here this week and the days are getting shorter. That means it’s nearly time for me to pack my bag and leave for warmer climes.
Soon, I’ll set out on another epic scouting trip.
It will take in Uruguay, Morocco, and Japan. But my first stop will be Panama, where the off-market deal I negotiated for members of my Real Estate Trend Alert (RETA) group opened earlier this week.
The community is called Ipanema and it promises buyers something virtually impossible to find: a landmark building on the last prime waterfront land in Panama City, in a city emerging as a true global hub.
Three sail-shaped towers billowing out over the Bay of Panama. Around 7,500 square meters of amenities—that’s more than 80,000 square feet. A private urban beach and waterfront park. A 50-meter pool. A spa and wellness center. Sports courts, soccer fields, golf simulator, a running track, a bistro lounge.
I believe owners have the potential to collect more than $36,000 a year in long-term rent—and see tremendous appreciation as Panama continues its rise. I figure on gains of $224,088 five years after delivery.
I’m now moving on with my due diligence.
Congratulations to the RETA members who got in. See you poolside at Ipanema!
In today’s digest, I show you to a house in northern Sweden that’s on the market for less than the price of a used car. But first, to another part of Europe: the most compelling place to buy in Spain today…
VIDEO: Discover the “Garden of the Costa del Sol”
Spain’s Costa del Sol is one of the world’s most inherently beautiful and desirable destinations. It has incredible weather, exceptional beaches, ancient towns and cities, renowned locally produced food, and world-class marinas, shopping, entertainment, and golf courses.
Located on Spain’s southern Mediterranean coast, the Costa del Sol stretches from Málaga west toward Gibraltar, with the world-renowned luxury enclave of Marbella at its heart.
Over the past several decades, a billion-dollar “Path of Progress” has been moving west from Marbella along this coastline. (A “Path of Progress” is anything that makes a place easier to get to or more desirable.)
Today, that momentum has reached a town known as the “Garden of the Costa del Sol.”
It lies about 15 minutes west of the famed marina of Puerto Banús and 25 minutes from Marbella’s Old Town. Yet it feels a world apart. And I consider it the most compelling place to buy real estate in Spain today…
In a new episode of The Ronan McMahon Report, I explain why.
In this new destination deep-dive, I explore where money is moving on the Costa del Sol—and the kind of real estate I’d target here. Click to view…
A Swedish Country Home for $25,000
Now, from the heat of the Costa del Sol to the cooler air of northern Sweden…
Imagine owning a home here in a serene little village. A 775-square-foot house with red timber siding, white trim, and decorative balcony railings…
It comes with an acre of land…lake views…and forest trails winding through the surrounding countryside.
This property could be yours for just $25,000…
Recently, my scout and Editorial Director, Ciaran Madden, returned from a 600-mile journey across southern Sweden. He found affordable homes in medieval lakeside towns and along the coast, showing just how different the real estate picture can look beyond Sweden’s major cities.
Yesterday, my team shared a listing that lies farther north.
Built in 1945, the house has three bedrooms and one bathroom, with open lawn and mature trees outside.
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…
M. Lynch. asks: With so much information available online, do you really need to “put boots on the ground,” as you say, in other countries to assess real estate opportunities?
Ronan says: The internet is a great place to start looking for an overseas dream home. You can compare listings, research buying costs, and build a shortlist without leaving home.
But it can only take you so far.
A listing can show you the house. It won’t necessarily tell you what the neighborhood feels like, how busy the road outside gets, or whether you’d enjoy spending a few months there.
And if you’re buying for investment, you need to understand what’s happening beyond the property itself—what’s drawing people to the area, what’s being built, and where rental demand comes from.
That’s why my team and I spend so much time on the road.
Take Caminha, in northern Portugal, where my wife and I bought a historic villa two years ago.
When I first scouted Caminha in 2023, the town was completely off the radar of the foreign tourists, expats and second-home owners pouring into Portugal.
That was despite everything it offered: a charming historic center, lagoon and Atlantic beaches, excellent food and Spain just across the Minho River.
But now Caminha is being discovered.
Our 5,000-square-foot villa cost us €410,000. Today, another home on the same hillside—one I consider a step below ours—is listed for just under €1 million.
I would have never found this place if I hadn’t put boots on the ground in an unfamiliar place…
If you’re looking for your own overseas home, start by profiling yourself and getting clear on what you want. A full-time base? Somewhere to escape to for a few months? A property you can rent when you’re elsewhere?
Then use your online research to narrow the search. And if you’re serious about purchasing, I suggest you put boots on the ground before you sign anything.
My team and I spend over a million dollars a year on travel and research. That is not a boast. It is the cost of what we do—of scouting properly, of building relationships with the right developers and lawyers and local contacts over years and decades.
This is what being a member of my RETA group means.
You don’t have to do any of it.
You don’t have to fly to Terceira and walk the streets of Angra photographing renovation projects. You don’t have to drive 75 miles of Albanian Riviera, or 600 miles of northern Greek coastline, or spend three scouting trips in Lagos before you feel sure enough to act.
We do all of that. We filter everything. Across all the markets we watch, across all the places we scout, across all the developers we meet, the vast majority never make it to our members. They fail the filter—the price isn’t right, the developer doesn’t meet our standards, the timing is off, the fundamentals don’t stack up. We walk away.
What gets through to you is what’s left after all of that work. The deal that meets the full RETA standard: the right location, the right developer, the right price, the right moment. The deal where we are confident enough to put our own money in alongside yours.
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.
