This week, I’ve been explaining why I believe Paraguay, and its capital Asunción, could become one of the most exciting growth stories in South America over the next decade.
But when a country moves from the margins to the mainstream, the wealth doesn’t spread evenly across the map.
It pools. It pools in the capital city.
And within the capital, the biggest gains are concentrated in prime neighborhoods.
Today, I want to show you how this pattern has played out before. And let you know exactly where the wealth is pooling in Asunción.
I put boots on the ground in Asunción at the end of last year…and found a safe, walkable and vibrant city on the rise.
History tells us this pattern of wealth concentrating has happened over and over. Here are just a few examples…
In late-1800s America, as the country industrialized and New York cemented itself as the financial capital of the world, the wealth pooled along a single stretch of Fifth Avenue. The Vanderbilts, Astors, Carnegies, and Fricks all built their mansions on the same few blocks. Luxury retail followed. The grand hotels followed. That corridor has remained the most valuable residential stretch in America for well over a century.
Closer to the pattern we’re looking at in Asunción is Houston. When Texas oil wealth exploded in the 1970s and 80s, the money didn’t distribute evenly across a sprawling city. It concentrated on the Galleria corridor in Uptown. The flagship Galleria mall became the anchor. Williams Tower and a cluster of corporate headquarters rose around it. Five-star hotels moved in. The wealthiest residential neighborhoods—River Oaks and Tanglewood—sit directly adjacent.
The pattern is almost identical to what’s taking shape on The Golden Mile in Asunción today: a world-class mall anchoring a corporate tower cluster, with affluent residential neighborhoods pressed up against it.
Miami is the most recent American version of the same pattern. As South Florida pulled in waves of capital from Latin America, the Northeast, and increasingly from global investors, the money concentrated on Brickell. A corridor that was a sleepy second-string banking district a generation ago is today one of the most valuable square miles in the United States. Luxury towers, flagship hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, international schools, private banks all piled into the same few blocks.
Fifth Avenue, New York. When America industrialized in the late 1800s, the richest men in the country—the Vanderbilts, Astors, Carnegies, Fricks—all built their mansions on the same few blocks. They weren’t guessing. They were buying where the wealth was already pooling.
Money flows to where the infrastructure, the talent and the international connections concentrate.
Once it reaches the city, it seeks “the Golden Mile.” The district or corridor where corporate towers, luxury hotels, luxury residential, luxury retail, and the best restaurants form a self-reinforcing ecosystem.
Executives want to live near where they work. Luxury retail wants to be near those executives. Hotels want to be near the corporate clients. Restaurants want the foot traffic. Once a corridor reaches critical mass on all of these elements, everything else piles in. And the real estate on that corridor soars.
And this is exactly what is now happening in Asunción on Aviadores del Chaco—the city’s Golden Mile.
The entrance to the Shopping del Sol mall in Asunción. The upcoming RETA opportunity is on prime real estate close by.
Boots on the ground is the best way I know to understand an opportunity. I flew into Asunción in December.
I came in at night from the airport, which I should mention, sits a short drive straight down The Golden Mile itself. My hotel was just off the Golden Mile, ideal for walking.
When I went to walk the site of the RETA deal I took a moment to go to the front door of the World Trade Center right beside. Four 20-story glass towers, Paraguay’s principal business complex. Around 50 companies already in. The complex is designed for close to 200. This is where the serious money works.
Across the avenue from the site and you’re at Shopping del Sol. Paraguay’s flagship mall. Zara. Nike. Polo Ralph Lauren. Tommy Hilfiger. Calvin Klein. Levi’s. A premium beauty hall. A VIP cinema. At lunch it was full of young executives. At night it was young professionals and well-dressed families out for dinner and a movie.
Walk another minute and I was in Paseo La Galería. Massimo Dutti, Mango, GAP, Lacoste, Montblanc, Swarovski, Pandora. Restaurants. More cinemas. Offices stacked above retail.
And, I kept looking up. Sheraton. Aloft. Dazzler. Esplendor. A new NH Collection going up in what will be Paraguay’s tallest building. Five international-brand hotels inside a few hundred metres of each other—a density I’ve rarely seen outside the largest capitals in the region.
This is where executives work. This is where they stay. This is where they spend. And increasingly…this is where they live.
The residential neighborhoods of Carmelitas and Villa Morra—leafy, walkable, full of boutique high-end developments—press right up against the Golden Mile. I walked them too. On a Wednesday morning they were as calm and pleasant as the best neighborhoods anywhere.
Here is what I came away with after my scouting trip…
Asunción is one of the oldest cities in the Americas, with a rich heritage. But its future is what I find so compelling…
The Golden Mile is the place that wealth is concentrating in Paraguay…people will pay for proximity. They pay for polish. They pay for the ecosystem.
And—right now anyway—there is nowhere else in Asunción that offers it like this.
There are other parts of the city. Good neighborhoods. Up-and-coming districts. Established middle-class areas. I looked at them. There is value in several of them.
But there is only one Golden Mile.
And right there, at the heart of it, is where I’ve negotiated the upcoming RETA-only opportunity.
The exclusive RETA-only pricing is from just $114,548 for a one-bed condo which I expect will increase in value 40% to 50% during construction alone and 3X in a decade.
This off-market deal opens on Wednesday, April 29 at 1 p.m. ET.
Wishing you good real estate investing,
P.S. I’m buying. I want full exposure to Paraguay’s growth story. I hope this is the start of my portfolio there…
