Kathleen Peddicord - Buying Real Estate Overseas For Cash Flow (And A Better Life)

Here are six more reasons Cayo, Belize, is an ideal option for a self-sufficient, resilient, sustainable, neighborly, and fun life …

Residents of Cayo catch, store, and filter rainwater, and groundwater is likewise in abundant supply. The rivers this area is known for provide a sometime alternative for garden irrigation and an everyday option for fishing.

Living off-grid with solar and rain-catchment doesn't have to mean giving up the amenities of the modern world. In Cayo, you can live a fully self-sufficient life that includes high-speed internet, modern appliances, and all other comforts of the twenty-first century.

During a disruption in the supply chain, as we are seeing now, it's good to be a safe distance from big, dense cities. Belize has a population density of just 37 people per square mile. The whole country feels like a small town. The small population makes it easy to become part of the community, and both locals and expats who've settled here are welcoming and willing to lend a hand or make an effort for a neighbor.

As a former English colony (and still a part of the English Commonwealth), Belize is the only officially English-speaking country in Central America. One of the biggest challenges you can face when making a move to a new country is communicating with your new neighbors. Anywhere you might think about moving, including Belize, you'll have to learn to overcome and adapt to cultural differences. A language difference makes that and everything else – from giving directions to a taxi driver and filling a prescription at the pharmacy to getting your broken hot water heater fixed and negotiating for the purchase of a new home – more difficult. In Belize, you don't have to worry about learning a new language if you don't want to.

The country is blessed with abundant year-round sunshine. The rainy season extends from June to November but, even during those months, skies are sunny more than they're not. The reliable sunshine makes for happy, healthy living and also a great growing environment.

Some small areas of Belize City suffer from a drug trade, gangs, and the activities that come with those cultures. However, those are localized neighborhoods. Avoid them. Otherwise, Belize is one of the safest places on earth and far removed from twenty-first-century troubles.

The surest way to prepare for whatever tomorrow brings is to diversify beyond your home borders, both your life and your investments. If you're searching for options right now, wondering what to do in the face of the current global landscape, we urge you to remember this critical truth. It's crisis times like these when a diversified lifestyle and a truly globally diversified portfolio of hard assets really pay off. So set the worrying aside. It only drains your energy and slows your progress.

How can you make sure you come through this crisis stage not only whole but stronger than ever? You must diversify into hard assets to generate cash flow overseas. It is the smartest strategy for protecting and growing wealth, especially in times of crisis. Gold prices and stock markets continue on a roller coaster. Real estate remains the slow and steady tortoise in the race to wealth and security.

Earning Cash Flow from Real Estate Overseas Is the Same as Earning Cash Flow from Real Estate at Home … with These Three Important Differences

“It's perfect. I'll take it. How much is it?”

So said the Irish hairdresser to the Montenegrin real estate agent.

The agent was touring the young woman through an apartment for sale in the medieval town of Kotor. The woman didn't get past the entryway before making her buy decision. Indeed, she had been ready to invest before boarding the plane from Dublin. She was desperate to take her first step onto the property ladder but didn't qualify for financing at home in Ireland (the “do you have a pulse?” mortgages didn't become common in this country until a year later). No bother. Everyone was buying property abroad. She would, too.

The agent who sold the hairdresser that Kotor apartment told me the story when Lief met him the following week. We, too, were considering an investment in Montenegro.

It was 2004 and that agent (like all real estate agents in the country) was selling properties faster than he could count the commissions. All Europe and a few Americans like us were competing with each other to get into the hottest new property market on the Continent. Unlike the hairdresser, we didn't invest. The math didn't work.

That young woman from Dublin, like too many novice and even many experienced investors, was buying because she was certain the value of what she was buying was going to increase. She didn't bother to ask about the potential for rental yield or try to project the cash flow she could expect.

She (we assume and would have loved to have had a way to confirm), along with multitudes of other global property investors, learned the hard way and only four years later that, when investing in real estate, rising prices are not guaranteed. The 2008 crash wiped out values worldwide and, with them, investors who hadn't run the numbers but had bought for appreciation rather than yield.

Property values move up and down and matter only if you're selling the property. Cash flow can be reliable and is always bankable. Buying for appreciation is chasing paper profits. Buying for cash flow is putting money in your pocket.

Lief's first real estate purchase was in Chicago. He was renting in a three-flat when the owner sent a notice to all the tenants informing them he was listing the property for sale. It was a Frank Lloyd Wright building. Lief's apartment was big, the layout comfortable. He didn't want to give it up, so, rather than considering where he might move, Lief began figuring out a way to buy the building where he was living. Unfortunately, the people living on the top floor had the same idea and approached the owner with a plan to convert the building into condos so they could buy their apartment. That inflated the price in the seller's mind.

Undaunted, Lief put together a spreadsheet to see if he could make the numbers work for an outright purchase. He'd continue living in his apartment, paying himself rent, and rent out the other two. He calculated that he could charge more for those other units, as the current rents were below market.

Banks were offering special programs for first-time buyers. Lief knew he could get a loan. The question was whether the cash-flow math worked. Would the three apartments generate enough income to support the mortgage?

Using leverage to buy a rental property is a common strategy in the United States. The theory is that the rent pays back the bank, month by month, and covers your other expenses, hopefully with some cash flow left over. Meanwhile, equity builds up as the mortgage gets paid down … while, in theory, the property's value appreciates. How to buy with other people's money (OPM) is the first strategy you learn at any real estate investment seminar.

Lief obtained a mortgage with a loan-to-value ratio (LTV) of 98%. However, it wasn't for the building where he was living. His neighbor's condo plan botched that deal. But the seed had been planted and the spreadsheet created. Lief's math showed him what to do next.