What's the cost to rent an apartment in Puerto Vallarta?
Carl Timothy - Timothy Real Estate Group
You can get a nice, regular, month-to-month rental here in Puerto Vallarta for the season of six months or longer or long-term for between US $600 and a $1,500. There are a lot of rentals here in the Romantic Zone (downtown, near the beach) that are very accessible in that range.
For $1,000 a month, a typical rental would be one or two-bedrooms with one to two baths, a block or two from the beach, newer construction built in 2007 or 2008, with marble...
You can get a nice, regular, month-to-month rental here in Puerto Vallarta for the season of six months or longer or long-term for between US $600 and a $1,500. There are a lot of rentals here in the Romantic Zone (downtown, near the beach) that are very accessible in that range.
For $1,000 a month, a typical rental would be one or two-bedrooms with one to two baths, a block or two from the beach, newer construction built in 2007 or 2008, with marble floors, granite countertops. The amenities would include an elevator and swimming pool. It would be absolutely safe, totally furnished, with an equipped kitchen, including coffee maker and everything else. Utilities would be paid for. There would probably be a television in every room and cable TV, Internet, and phone line. Even electricity would be included.
We have another extreme as well. We have some incredibly sexy, beautiful, modern properties here for which you can spend $10,000 or $20,000 a month. It just depends on your taste and what you’re looking for.
(Rental in the Romantic Zone a half a block from the beach, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, pictured.)
How much does it cost for a housekeeper or maid in Portugal?
Duncan MacGregor - Duncan MacGregor Accounting
Normally, housekeepers or maids in Portugal get paid by the hour at the going rate of €6 (US $6.50 or £4.50) to € 8 (US $9 or £6) an hour.
You don’t necessarily have to go to a company in order to hire a housekeeper. You can hire anybody who works as housekeeper. There are a lot of Ukrainian, Brazilian, and Moldavia women who do this type of work.
In the Algarve, you would tend to get local people as...
Normally, housekeepers or maids in Portugal get paid by the hour at the going rate of €6 (US $6.50 or £4.50) to € 8 (US $9 or £6) an hour.
You don’t necessarily have to go to a company in order to hire a housekeeper. You can hire anybody who works as housekeeper. There are a lot of Ukrainian, Brazilian, and Moldavia women who do this type of work.
In the Algarve, you would tend to get local people as housekeepers, while in the Lisbon area, there is a more cosmopolitan mix.
(Women in traditional clothes and wearing scarves in the fishing village of Nazaré, Portugal, pictured.)
Is Belize a good place for preppers to have their bugout location? Is Belize a good place for survivalists?
Boris Mannsfeld - Boris Mannsfeld & Associates
Belize is a good place for preppers; absolutely. Belize is a very sparsely populated country (just a little over 300,000 in the nation as a whole). It’s also English-speaking and based on English Common Law, so this makes it a natural place for Americans and Canadians to bug out. Belize has beautiful rainforest and locations you can go to within 10 or 15 minutes that are in the middle of virgin territory.
There are lots of companies here who can provide...
Belize is a good place for preppers; absolutely. Belize is a very sparsely populated country (just a little over 300,000 in the nation as a whole). It’s also English-speaking and based on English Common Law, so this makes it a natural place for Americans and Canadians to bug out. Belize has beautiful rainforest and locations you can go to within 10 or 15 minutes that are in the middle of virgin territory.
There are lots of companies here who can provide you with the abilityto have all your electricity needs run on solar power. There’s also plenty of opportunity for wind power just with the winds coming off the Caribbean Sea. The availability of water is certainly not an issue here. There are homes that have been here for decades that were never hooked up to any water system other than collecting rainfall.
Relative to food, we have an obscene amount of wildlife in the ocean.
Where are the best beaches in and around Nicaragua?
John-Marc Gallagher - GPS Real Estate
It is amazing how uninhabited and how quiet the Pacific beaches are in Nicaragua, all the way from the southern boarder with Costa Rica to the northern boarder with Honduras.
The prettiest beaches in Nicaragua are north of Leon, in an area called Las Penitas. These beaches are about 20 minutes from Leon, all the way to a development called Gran Pacifica. Gran Pacifica sits on about 7 miles of white sand beach that’s absolutely gorgeous.
The bay of...
It is amazing how uninhabited and how quiet the Pacific beaches are in Nicaragua, all the way from the southern boarder with Costa Rica to the northern boarder with Honduras.
The prettiest beaches in Nicaragua are north of Leon, in an area called Las Penitas. These beaches are about 20 minutes from Leon, all the way to a development called Gran Pacifica. Gran Pacifica sits on about 7 miles of white sand beach that’s absolutely gorgeous.
The bay of San Juan del Sur in the south of Nicaragua on the Pacific coast has gray sand and is much more highly populated. However, if you go 15 minutes either north or south of San Juan del Sur you will hit dozens of beaches in both directions and they’re all small, averaging three to four mile, clam shell shaped beaches that are literally uninhabited. They’ll be a bar, a restaurant, six tiki huts serving cold beer and fresh fish, and you’ll see five or six people on the beach. It’s amazing.
When I say that these beaches on the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua are clamshell shaped, I mean to say that we don’t for example, have 15 miles of uninterrupted beach like you may see in New Jersey. Instead, in Nicaragua, you have all these smaller beaches, and every one has a name.
You can’t get from one beach to the next by walking up and down the beach. To go to another beach, you have to go inland, go a few miles north or south, and then turn back to the ocean. You wind up taking this dirt, sandy road and then end up at this gorgeous, clamshell shaped beach. There’s a rock on the left, a rock on the right, it could be anywhere from one mile to five miles wide, and nothing is there but a couple of small restaurants or hotels, although using the word “hotel” for some of these places is a bit of a stretch. They may charge $10 or $20 per night. The beer is cold, the fish is fresh, and the beach is basically uninhabited. If you’d like, you can go inland again, make another turn, then turn back to the ocean and you’ll find another and different beautiful and uninhabited white sand beach. You’ll have a prominent point that separates each clamshell up and down the entire western seaboard of Nicaragua; absolutely gorgeous.
In general, what do I need to know about FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report)?
Mike Cobb - ECI Development
The FBAR is a reporting for for any bank account overseas owned or controlled by a US Citizen. If you Google TDF-90 you'll be able to get the form and the several pages of exact rules for compliance.
In general, if you have a bank account overseas with more than $10,000 or the total of all your offshore bank accounts is over $10,000, plan to file this form.
The FBAR is a reporting for for any bank account overseas owned or controlled by a US Citizen. If you Google TDF-90 you'll be able to get the form and the several pages of exact rules for compliance.
In general, if you have a bank account overseas with more than $10,000 or the total of all your offshore bank accounts is over $10,000, plan to file this form.
Can I get American or Canadian radio stations in Panama?
Charles Conn - The Visitor
Though there are no specifically American or Canadian radio stations in Panama, of course you can still get them online.
Locally, there is a Canadian guy who does a weekly radio broadcast called The Great White North that keeps the Canadian expats up to date with news and information. He works with a British guy who owns the program. They broadcast about three hours every morning, Monday to Friday on a program called “The Breakfast...
Though there are no specifically American or Canadian radio stations in Panama, of course you can still get them online.
Locally, there is a Canadian guy who does a weekly radio broadcast called The Great White North that keeps the Canadian expats up to date with news and information. He works with a British guy who owns the program. They broadcast about three hours every morning, Monday to Friday on a program called “The Breakfast Show with Gerry D.” They serve the market well and are successful.
While the wheels/tires are 21st century (oh, OK, 20th century), the technology behind this freight mover is thousands of years old. I found it interesting and amusing that the local hauler still uses oxen to pull heavy loads.
What I did not know is that many times, while autos and trucks couldn't pull out mired vehicles on the local roads, a team of oxen could. I guess that eight hooves are better than 4x4 drives sometimes. Slow, but...
We thank Daryl Ries for giving us the idea to have Jet Metier interview select contributors of Best Places who enliven our pages with their experiences and revelations. The conversation began with Daryl talking about a real estate expo she had attended just prior to their scheduled talk, and then continued with Daryl reviewing her life on four continents. In a chronological sleight of hand, we present the second part of the interview first, where Daryl speaks of her...