Best Places In The World To Retire

The first thing to do if you are going to build in Los Cabos and La Paz is to get the property. A foreigner who comes to the country and buys a property close to the beach should have a fideicomiso because that is a legal requirement. If you are building close to the ocean and you are a foreigner, you cannot own land within 50 meters of the ocean but you can buy it through fideicomiso, which is a trust. Never start with your construction until you get every legal document that is...

The first thing to do if you are going to build in Los Cabos and La Paz is to get the property. A foreigner who comes to the country and buys a property close to the beach should have a fideicomiso because that is a legal requirement. If you are building close to the ocean and you are a foreigner, you cannot own land within 50 meters of the ocean but you can buy it through fideicomiso, which is a trust. Never start with your construction until you get every legal document that is required. (You don’t need a fideicomiso if you are a Mexican.)

 

Once you have all your documents and you have legal ownership of the property, have an idea of what you are looking for. Think of the concept of the home that you want to build. Get a rough estimate of the construction cost and work the budget. When you have done that then you can start with the design process. Once that is done then you can proceed with the construction plan and getting the permits.

 

In Los Cabos and La Paz and in La Ventana (a small village about 40 minutes from La Paz), you need to have permits and legal documents before you can build. It is important to have everything under your name once you start this stage of the process because once your name is on the permits, then every office in the area will assume that you are the legal owner of your property. Your name should appear on everything and not just on your fideicomiso. You should have your power contract and water contract under your name. It will make things easier for you.

 

(House designed and built by Jabre construction, La Ventana Bay, Baja Mexico Sur, Mexico, pictured.)

 

In La Ventana, there are some restrictions for construction. Cabo also has construction restrictions and they have architectural restrictions as well. However, in La Paz, you would only have construction restrictions if you are building downtown but all the other areas are very open. You can build anything you want. If you want a traditional American, you can build that. If you want Santa Fe style, you can do that, too.

 

There are also inspections done by the government to make sure that you are building what you said you will build. In Mexico, I am proud to say that we build fine construction. The buildings here are made to withstand earthquakes. Construction inspections are done by DRO (Director Responsable de Obra). They check the construction style of all the houses and buildings here. Not a lot of people know about the quality of beams, bars, etc. so it is the responsibility of the DRO to check that these things are up to standard. What most people check for quality are the obvious things like the flooring, the walls, the tiles. This is the responsibility of the builder. So it is always my suggestion to go with good builders so you get good quality. Do not go for the cheap ones. In Mexico, we say, “lo barato, sale caro”, which roughly translates to, “cheap things turn out expensive in the end”.  

 

(House designed and constructed by Jabre Construction, La Ventana Bay, Baja California Sur, Mexico,  pictured.)

I don’t have any figures on the crime rate in Panama but here in Veraguas in the western Azuero Peninsula, it is pretty crime free. There were some incidences in the past, but they were usually between Panamanians. I am sure there is petty theft everywhere. When you go to the beach on New Year’s Day, for example, there are a hundred cars parked, someone might try to steal something out of a car but there are very few armed robberies and home break-ins. That is why people...

I don’t have any figures on the crime rate in Panama but here in Veraguas in the western Azuero Peninsula, it is pretty crime free. There were some incidences in the past, but they were usually between Panamanians. I am sure there is petty theft everywhere. When you go to the beach on New Year’s Day, for example, there are a hundred cars parked, someone might try to steal something out of a car but there are very few armed robberies and home break-ins. That is why people like it here in Veraguas.

 

There is only one way in and one way out here in Veraguas and there is a couple of police checkpoints in between. So you could call the checkpoint and say, “Hey, this guy robbed us, I think they have a white Toyota. There are four guys.” By the time, they get there, they will be stopped and they will not leave the area. We have a nice net of security around here.

I found the expats in Nicaragua to be very helpful, very willing to connect, and all basically have said, "I wish I had come here sooner." Most expats I've known in Nicaragua are from the United States, but there are other nationalities of expats living in Nicaragua from places like Europe and Canada.
 
Typically, the expats who retire in Nicaragua are older, about 50 years old and above, but you do see a younger crowd who are probably taking timeout to...

I found the expats in Nicaragua to be very helpful, very willing to connect, and all basically have said, "I wish I had come here sooner." Most expats I've known in Nicaragua are from the United States, but there are other nationalities of expats living in Nicaragua from places like Europe and Canada.
 
Typically, the expats who retire in Nicaragua are older, about 50 years old and above, but you do see a younger crowd who are probably taking timeout to travel.
 
The expats in Nicaragua are a mix of couples and singles. There are also people who move to Nicaragua to start a business, because it's easy to start businesses like restaurants, bars, and hotels in Nicaragua. There are also startup property developers who see the potential in this wonderful country of Nicaragua.

Most of the crimes in Belize take place in Belize City and almost all are in one neighborhood where the drug dealers go after each other. This highly skews the Belize crime statistics. Outside of Belize City, if you took the number of crimes, it is safe. 

 

I have had no issues driving the roads. I would not suggest for people to drive at night if they do not know where they are going. Most roads are not paved and you should be aware of the...

Most of the crimes in Belize take place in Belize City and almost all are in one neighborhood where the drug dealers go after each other. This highly skews the Belize crime statistics. Outside of Belize City, if you took the number of crimes, it is safe. 

 

I have had no issues driving the roads. I would not suggest for people to drive at night if they do not know where they are going. Most roads are not paved and you should be aware of the potholes.  

 

Relative to freedom, I would put living in Belize as similar to living in the US in the 50’s before the government "knew" "what is best" for its citizens.  

 

Once you are away from Belize City  it’s really safe. 

 

You may have the random instances where somebody could walk up the street and he is a little bit messed up and he would steal your garden hose. Car batteries are a little bit easier to sell and may be stolen. 

 

I had a condo in San Pedro on Ambergris Caye and somebody entered my condo when I was there, asleep. The fellow took a wallet out of my pants’ pocket. He went through the wallet on the way out, took the cash that was inside the wallet and threw the wallet and the credit cards on the ground. A report was filed with the police. They never caught the felon. 

 

As a point of comparison, my house got broken into three times in California. Also, my cars were broken into quite a bit in California. Comparatively, I had this one incident in Belize. They came in and didn’t bother to disturb me. San Pedro is an area with a lot of people and when there’s no tourists (for example, in the Low Season), people get a little hungry. I would think that the crime in San Pedro is probably a little bit higher than the norm throughout Belize other than Belize City. 

 

In Corozal, where I live, we don’t have bars on the windows. In town, lots of people do because it is just the way that they build houses here. Specifically, I live in Cerro Sands and there are no bars on the windows here. We live on a peninsula. There is one road in, and we are surrounded by water on three sides, so I don’t think we are going to have any issues. Any houses I build are not going to have bars on the windows unless somebody specifically asks for them. A bar for serving drinks on their roof-top is a more likely addition. 

 

In town, if you are going to leave your house for a while, you are probably going to want to have bars on the windows. That is just the way they do it there. They make decorative bars. The houses are close together in town. It’s not like they are on ¼ acre lots. Most town lots are 60 by 100, so your setbacks are small. 

 

Cerro Sands has an entry gate, but it is not walled. Most places here do not have an entry gate or have a guard at the entry.  If they have a gate, likely nobody is stationed there.  

 

We only started building at Cerro Sands 3 years ago, so we are relatively new, but again we are on a peninsula so there is only one road in next to the village.  

 

The villages in Belize usually have a lot of people who are related to each other living there. I heard that some guy from town came to their village and stole a bicycle.  Before he got about a block and a half somebody noticed he was not from the neighborhood, and they knew the bicycle.  Least to say the thief will not be coming back to this village anytime soon. They called the police, who were late in coming. His time was not very well spent. Then they got tired of dealing with the thief, so they dropped him off at the ferry, which goes across the river.

 

 The cops finally came and saw him all bloody, and the guy said, “The people from the village beat me up.”

 

The people from the village said, “You’re the guy who stole the bike.” After hearing this, the police put the thief in the back of the police car. 

 

In Belize, you don’t  worry about violence against your person. You will be called “sir” or “mister” or "ma'am," followed by your first name. I go in the bank and they call me “sir” and I will say, “My dad is ‘sir’. You guys know me.” They’ll say, “Oh yes, Mr. Mark.” 

 

Many folks in our local village have the same respect. If you go to a birthday party like a quinceanos, which is a 15-year's old birthday party, the locals will treat you the way you treat them. Once you assimilate in, or even if you just stay by yourself, you are not going to have problems at all. If you break down on the side of the road there, the people in the first car that goes by will stop and help you.   

 

(Cerros Sand property on the peninsula protected by water, pictured.)

Going north to south, we can start on the coast at Porto, which is smaller than Lisbon. Porto had the very big textile factories as well as port wine, which gets its name from Porto and which the English did with the Portuguese. 

 

Then, still in the Porto region, there is the river D’ouro.  It is a beautiful trip coming down on the D’ouro River by boat for either two hours, two days or four days, going through the wine country in the...

Going north to south, we can start on the coast at Porto, which is smaller than Lisbon. Porto had the very big textile factories as well as port wine, which gets its name from Porto and which the English did with the Portuguese. 

 

Then, still in the Porto region, there is the river D’ouro.  It is a beautiful trip coming down on the D’ouro River by boat for either two hours, two days or four days, going through the wine country in the north, which is completely different from the wine from down in the Alentejo, south of there.  You’ll see hillsides full of wine grapes.

 

I have friends who live in Porto and I have been there several times, but I haven’t lived there. I think that it’s perhaps a calmer way of living because the city is not as big as Lisbon. It’s quieter maybe in Porto, even though it is cosmopolitan and a real city.  There are lots of foreigners in Porto.  

 

Moving south, the next significant are is Coimbra.  Coimbra is a university city. It has a lot of big hospitals that are well known, especially the eye hospital there. A lot of the history of Portugal started within that area, when there was still the monarchy here. There’s a very good book for anyone coming to Portugal, written in English, that you can pick up at the airport, written by an Englishman who lives in Cintra, called The First Global Village. It’s very interesting to read, covering from the start of Portugal up until the time of the revolution. It’s exceedingly interesting in that we don’t give credit enough in the history of Portugal. We talk about Christopher Columbus but there are other Portuguese discoverers. This book is very, very interesting in terms of language as well and where the Portuguese where and what they did and how even some of Japanese comes from Portuguese. 

 

Continuing south, there are several other places along the coast where a lot of foreigners would go as well. Then there is Fatima, which is also in that area and is very significant for Catholics.  After that, you start coming towards Sintra and then you come all the way down the coast until you get to Cascais.  Cascais is about twenty minutes due west of Lisbon.  It used to be a fishing village but now it’s a very big residential area where there are separate municipalities. There’s the Bay of Cascais, which has many boats.

 

Going from Cascais, east towards Lisbon, there is Estoril, which has the biggest casino in Europe.  There are several areas until you get to the western outskirts of Lisbon, which is quite historical. In this area is Belem, which in English is Bethlehem, and is where the kings and queens used to come down to wave goodbye to the explorers.

 

There are seven hills in Lisbon, which sits on the Tagus River as it empties into the Atlantic.  There’s a lot more money available in Lisbon now, and there’s a lot of places that have been done up. I compare it a little bit with San Francisco because San Francisco is one of the places that is a little bit more like Europe than many other cities of the States. Lisbon is a little bit like that in terms of architecture and it’s become more built up now.  There has been a lot of restoration work and they’re quite strict about the restoration because of the old buildings and they won’t let you just pull it all down and put up a modern building. If a building you own has historical value you have to keep the façade on the outside and then you can build.

 

Lisbon has a lot of very nice little narrow streets and yet then you have the main street, which is Avenida da Liberdad, and you have the Marquese de Pombal, which is the center. Marquese de Pombal was a marquese (nobleman) at that time of the huge fire that destroyed the whole of Lisbon and who arranged to have it all rebuilt. There’s a huge statue of him in the center of Lisbon and a big main avenue comes down from there. And then there is the castle of St. George. These are all the historical parts of Lisbon and history at the time of the oligarchs. Lisbon has a tremendous amount of history. 

 

Continuing south, before you get to the Algarve there is the Alenteijo, which has very nice beaches along the coast. Most of Portugal’s cork production is in Alenteijo, which has cork trees and the olive trees. It’s a big farming area that extends all the way to the coast; you can be inland or you can go along the coast.

 

And then you come down to the Algarve.  There are several different areas of the Algarve. There is Albufeira, which is the main and the most popular area, and there are many other areas as well.  The roads in the area are plentiful and good quality.  You can get to Seville in Spain in two to three hours. 

 

The Algarve has become very popular with the English, Germans, and other foreigners who were going down and buying family holiday houses and coming out for the summer. It’s a little bit warmer down in the Algarve and the sea is a bit warmer than in the Lisbon area. The Atlantic is not the warmest sea in the world but it is a little but warmer down in the Algarve.

 

The English were the primary group who purchased properties in the Algarve.   Then they started building a lot of golf courses, a lot of big hotels, and it just spread and spread. In the western part of Algarve is Lagos, which is probably the least over developed area.  The month of August is when most of the Portuguese will go down to the Algarve. Foreigners are there pretty well all year round.

 

There is a huge selection of houses and apartments in the Algarve.  You can buy houses from €15 million to €150,000 (about $15.9 million / £10.5 million to $158,000 / £105,000). So there’s a tremendous amount of building, a lot of sailing, a lot of golf, and a lot of condominiums. The lifestyle in some ways is the same as here but it’s more restricted because you’ve got the sea and you’ve got boats as opposed to here where you’ve businesses. Down there it’s more restaurants, hotels and holiday companies.  

 

(Coimbra,the largest Roman settlement in Portugal, pictured.)