Best Places In The World To Retire

You need to hire an attorney when buying a house in Mexico because you want to make sure that all the papers are done properly and that the sellers do own the land they’re selling. Attorney charges here are cheaper, though. Depending on the price of the house and how much work had to be done, an attorney here might charge about $1,000, if everything is on the level.

 

In Mexico, there’s a central registry office where the Mexicans can check to...

You need to hire an attorney when buying a house in Mexico because you want to make sure that all the papers are done properly and that the sellers do own the land they’re selling. Attorney charges here are cheaper, though. Depending on the price of the house and how much work had to be done, an attorney here might charge about $1,000, if everything is on the level.

 

In Mexico, there’s a central registry office where the Mexicans can check to see who owns the land. Every time a house is bought and sold, it’s registered in ‘Catastro’ office, which is a municipal tax office. The city or the state knows who owns every piece of land, and you can’t sell a piece of land that you don’t own. That would be the attorney’s job: to make sure that you have the right to sell whatever property you’re selling.  

 

(Iona Chamberlain next to the original caretaker's home on her property at Hacienda Nohpat San Pedro, near Merida, Mexico, pictured.)

If you move to Belize, you are a tax resident of the US (for example, you're a US citizen), and you open a checking account, you have to sign the FATCA form which allows the bank to report the contents of your bank accounts to the US. The Belize bank says the US cannot take money from your account that the United States is just trying to track money. If your account becomes a burden to the Belize banks they will simply close your account.  

 

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If you move to Belize, you are a tax resident of the US (for example, you're a US citizen), and you open a checking account, you have to sign the FATCA form which allows the bank to report the contents of your bank accounts to the US. The Belize bank says the US cannot take money from your account that the United States is just trying to track money. If your account becomes a burden to the Belize banks they will simply close your account.  

 

(Belize City, Belize, pictured.)

Your neighbors in the Algarve would be a mix depending on where you live. If you live in a town they would more likely be Portuguese. The bigger the town the more likely it would be to have Portuguese neighbors. Further out it is more likely there would be a mixed bag of people. There are certainly municipalities where six or seven nationalities could surround you, a little bit like Florida.

 

When I lived just north of Miami, I had neighbors from three or...

Your neighbors in the Algarve would be a mix depending on where you live. If you live in a town they would more likely be Portuguese. The bigger the town the more likely it would be to have Portuguese neighbors. Further out it is more likely there would be a mixed bag of people. There are certainly municipalities where six or seven nationalities could surround you, a little bit like Florida.

 

When I lived just north of Miami, I had neighbors from three or four nationalities who were very transient. The Algarve doesn’t have quite the same transient society that I felt in Southern Florida, but certainly from a heterogeneous perspective, there are a variety of nationalities that reside in the Algarve. It’s fairly likely that your neighbors will be Portuguese, English, Dutch, or German because of the number of people from those countries who have settled in the Algarve. 

 

Most of the people who move to the Algarve would tend to be wealthy by Portuguese standards and comfortably middle class or wealthy by international standards. Most people who have made the decision to come here so they do so because they are financially able to afford to do so. This is a pensioner’s paradise.  These are people who have their pensions intact and can afford a good living in the Algarve, where you could easily live on a lot less than you would if you were living in London, New York, Stockholm, Helsinki or Paris. And so, what we find is that people here who come from abroad and in particular the pensioners have a much higher quality of life and spending power, than the average across Portugal and from whence they came.  

 

(Jose Mourinho, Portuguese football manager, pictured.)

There are so many things to be happily surprised by when retiring abroad. It really is subject to the individual person. 

 

When you consider moving abroad, you're likely going to pick a place that you feel matches your personality. There's an interesting Facebook thing going around where you can answer a few questions and based on the personality questions you answered, the Facebook quiz picks the country that most closely fits your personality...

There are so many things to be happily surprised by when retiring abroad. It really is subject to the individual person. 

 

When you consider moving abroad, you're likely going to pick a place that you feel matches your personality. There's an interesting Facebook thing going around where you can answer a few questions and based on the personality questions you answered, the Facebook quiz picks the country that most closely fits your personality type. 

 

You can choose the country, the city, the kind of town, whether it's "hustle-and-bustle", the beach, or quiet mountain living. When you do the research to move abroad, you're picking a place that you think is going to make you happy. 

 

In my case, I moved to Antigua, Guatemala. It's a nice mix. There's a bunch of expats here and lots of great restaurants. The weather is always between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I've got children with asthma, so the weather and avoidance of cold weather was really an important criterion for me. 

 

You get to choose the kind of speed, climate, activity level, and type of people in the community. This is the number one advantage that I can think of being an expat. 

 

The second happy surprise is that, in most places in the world outside of the US, you're going to have a much more affordable lifestyle. This is a big concern, not only for retirees, but also for younger people who are building businesses and want a longer runway on the money that they have at their disposal to put towards their business while they're saving on living costs. The cost of living differential between the US and wherever you may be living is an important factor. 

 

Third is the change of pace. There may be a language and cultural difference. When you move abroad, you're exposed to things that are different, which are intellectually and emotionally stimulating.  

 

(Expats in Antigua, Guatemala, pictured.)