Best Places In The World To Retire

The cost of living in Mexico is much lower than the cost of living in the United States and Canada.

 

Data for January 2016 shows the cost of living in Mexico as 56% lower than that in the United States (not including rent). Meanwhile, the rent in Mexico is 76% lower than the rents in the United States. This figure is from the cost of living in Mexico index published by NUMBEO. The information is based on submissions from 1,252 different contributors.

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The cost of living in Mexico is much lower than the cost of living in the United States and Canada.

 

Data for January 2016 shows the cost of living in Mexico as 56% lower than that in the United States (not including rent). Meanwhile, the rent in Mexico is 76% lower than the rents in the United States. This figure is from the cost of living in Mexico index published by NUMBEO. The information is based on submissions from 1,252 different contributors.

 

 

Another interesting way to compare prices in Mexico with those in Canada and the USA is a big Mac index. The big Macs index is published by the economist magazine as an informal measure of the purchasing power in different countries The average price for a big Mac in July of 2015 was the equivalent of US$3.11 in Mexico, US$4.54 in Canada and $4.79 in the United States.

In the US, the options to be able to stretch your dollars are somewhat more limited than when you go abroad. One of the best reasons to move abroad is that you can live for a fraction of the price it costs to live in the US. You can get a lot more domestic help.
 
You must do some research, but the healthcare system can be much more comfortable and better wherever you're moving than where you are located in the US. 
 
My background is in the healthcare insurance...

In the US, the options to be able to stretch your dollars are somewhat more limited than when you go abroad. One of the best reasons to move abroad is that you can live for a fraction of the price it costs to live in the US. You can get a lot more domestic help.
 
You must do some research, but the healthcare system can be much more comfortable and better wherever you're moving than where you are located in the US. 
 
My background is in the healthcare insurance industry in the US. I worked for a health insurance company so I presumably had great health insurance. Two of my three kids have asthma. In New York, when you go to the emergency room, money doesn't do anything. Everyone has insurance. You walk into the emergency room in New York and you get horrible treatment. The wait time is too much. You look around and it's not a comfortable and pleasant experience. 
 
Depending on where you're retiring and the research you've done to make sure there's a good healthcare system in place, private healthcare in many countries abroad is great. In most countries, the private health system is geared towards the rich, but it's not that expensive. 
 
My family is now in Antigua, Guatemala. You go to the best doctors in Antigua and it'll cost you US $30. The doctors are English-speaking. They'll give you the medicine. 
 
Recently, I had a routine procedure done in a hospital in a city in Guatemala. I get this exam done every five years because there's a history of cancer in my family. It's like a hotel experience. I have local health insurance because I have three kids. In the US, this routine exam I had would have cost around $5,000 to $6,000 and I would have paid $500 to $600 out of pocket. Here in Guatemala, my out of pocket was $100 to $200. When you walk in the hospital, it's like a concierge service. Everything is clean. People speak English. There's a lot of great follow up care. I can't complain.
 
For retirees, if you've got a pre-existing condition or you've got severe health issues, I would think twice about moving to a Third World country because the risk is higher when you have serious health conditions. However, if you're a reasonably healthy retiree and just looking at general healthcare issues, planning is a very important factor, but your healthcare experience could be dramatically better abroad than the United States, especially if you're living in a big city in the US.

 

(Hospital Roosevelt, Guatemala City, Guatemala, pictured. )

 

 

I do not know anybody here who has homeowner’s insurance in Nicaragua. From a philosophical point of view, I think North Americans have been made to believe or feel that they have to insure everything – their lives, homes, pets, their airline ticket (in case they get sick and cannot make the flight). They even have reinsurance to insure their insurance. We insure properties in North America for loss or damage of course but I think more importantly, we insure our properties in...

I do not know anybody here who has homeowner’s insurance in Nicaragua. From a philosophical point of view, I think North Americans have been made to believe or feel that they have to insure everything – their lives, homes, pets, their airline ticket (in case they get sick and cannot make the flight). They even have reinsurance to insure their insurance. We insure properties in North America for loss or damage of course but I think more importantly, we insure our properties in North America for personal liabilities.

 

For example, if someone slips in front of your house in the US, they are going to sue you for everything that you own because they slipped and fell on a rock that was on a sidewalk or an acorn from a tree fell on your property and they slipped on the acorn and broke their ankle. Now they want a hundred million dollars from you. That kind of mentality does not exist down here in Nicaragua. Nobody talks like that. If that kind of thing happens to me here in Nicaragua, I am not going to sue the property owner for what happened because there is no damage insurance here. He might pay for the doctor’s fees and for the caste but that is all. There are definitely no charges due to loss of wages or for mental anguish. None of that exists down here.  We do have hurricanes, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions and homes get damaged because of them but even with these events, people do not buy home insurance.

 

As of last year, First American Title no longer offers title insurance in Nicaragua because they cannot keep an office here since homeowner’s insurance is something that people here don’t buy. I built 25 homes in Nicaragua in the last ten years and only one had title insurance. I have sold dozens of real estate and out of those, only two have title insurance. Home insurance is available here through two or three Nicaraguan insurance companies but very few North Americans buy home insurance because we are not suing each other and we are not trying to get compensation above and beyond the simple cost of an accident or damage.

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First of all, when buying a house or other real estate in Portugal, you need to know what sort of property you’re looking for. Is it low maintenance? High maintenance? Do you want a garden? Do you want a bit more land? So it depends on the size of the property. If you’re looking to live in the city center or close to the city center, the properties tend to be smaller because there’s no space. There are a lot of people who want to live in the city or close to the city, so...

First of all, when buying a house or other real estate in Portugal, you need to know what sort of property you’re looking for. Is it low maintenance? High maintenance? Do you want a garden? Do you want a bit more land? So it depends on the size of the property. If you’re looking to live in the city center or close to the city center, the properties tend to be smaller because there’s no space. There are a lot of people who want to live in the city or close to the city, so the properties there tend to be smaller.
 
If you move out of the city center like I am, in Cascais, about 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) away from Lisbon, it used to be an old fishing village, so the houses have gardens and pools. If you go inland to the Alentejo area, there are a lot of farms and agricultural land. Do you want a small property in the city center in the middle of the buzz and museums and theaters and shopping centers or you want a taste of the rural life? So we have a bit of everything in Portugal.  
 
Real estate has been booming in Portugal.  We came with a new law a couple of years ago called the Golden Visa Law. Under this law, if you purchase a property over €500,000 (US $558,300) in Portugal, you get the right to have a Golden Visa so you can enter in and out of Europe as many times as you like. For instance, Asians, Indians, and Russians are dying for these visas, which has created a lot of interest in the real estate market in Portugal. So when there’s a lot of interest in the real estate market, there’s a lot of competition between real estate companies, and real estate companies have to improve their service.
 
There is a study survey for every single region of Portugal which will tell you how much is the selling price per square meter of construction and how much it costs the price of square meter of land.  With this information, you know exactly how much a particular property is worth in the market. And then you just have to compare it with the purchase price or the price that the person is asking for, so there’s not this difference and potentially overpaying.  A seller can try to price their property above market, but if a buyer is interested, he or she can just Google the area and search for price per square meter of that region and it tells you exactly not to pay between this amount and that amount, not over, not under; this is the right price to pay. And then you just have to confront the seller and try to get the right deal.  

 

(Alentejo, Portugal, pictured.)

An American style house that is very modern, with all the amenities, including the laundry room, living room, flat screen TVs in all the bedrooms, two master bedrooms, one guest bedroom, storage, private double car port, fully furnished with infinity pool and with direct access on the beach that is 3,290 square feet in total area would rent for US $1,680 a week and $6,000 a month. Everything is included, including cleaning and maintenance.

 

People come to Pedasi to...

An American style house that is very modern, with all the amenities, including the laundry room, living room, flat screen TVs in all the bedrooms, two master bedrooms, one guest bedroom, storage, private double car port, fully furnished with infinity pool and with direct access on the beach that is 3,290 square feet in total area would rent for US $1,680 a week and $6,000 a month. Everything is included, including cleaning and maintenance.

 

People come to Pedasi to buy beach houses because it’s relatively still very affordable.