Best Places In The World To Retire

Yes, absolutely, a foreigner can own land or other real estate in Mexico. They can have title to their property and own it almost fee-simple.  (“Fee-simple” means that you have title to your property, as opposed to leasehold or any other manner in which you can hold property.)

 

 

The easiest way to explain to somebody who is from the US or Mexico how a foreigner owns land in Mexico is through the concept of a trust that...

Yes, absolutely, a foreigner can own land or other real estate in Mexico. They can have title to their property and own it almost fee-simple.  (“Fee-simple” means that you have title to your property, as opposed to leasehold or any other manner in which you can hold property.)

 

 

The easiest way to explain to somebody who is from the US or Mexico how a foreigner owns land in Mexico is through the concept of a trust that functions much like a family trust would in the US.  In that trust you hold your asset, which is your property.

 

When you hold a trust in Mexico, you hire a bank to administer the trust for you.  In order for the contract between the homeowner and the bank to be legally enforceable, it has to have an end date. As a result, here in Mexico, we sign contracts to have a bank administer our trust for us for up to 50 years, with an automatic extension for another 50 years. At any time the bank is administering your trust you don’t like your trust bank and you want to hire another trust bank, you simply cancel your contract with the bank you’re with and take it to another bank to hire them to administer your property.

 

Sometimes people think that because there’s a 50 year time commitment or a 50 year contract that you sign with your bank that it might relate somehow to a leasehold property that somebody might be familiar with in regard to buying property in Hawaii or in Palm Springs California, but that is not the case. You own the property outright, you have all the rights to the property, and that 50-year contract is just simply the amount of time on the contract for the trust bank to administer your trust for you.  Functionally, there is no difference between holding a piece of property in Puerto Vallarta through a trust and holding a piece of property in Los Angeles as you would normally.

 

The cost to have a bank administer your trust runs between $400 and $550 annually at the present time, for the term of your trust. 

 

Real estate trusts in Mexico have many great benefits for a family. Among the benefits, depending on how you set up a trust, is if you pass away and you leave a secondary beneficiary to your trust, there’s no inheritance tax. As a result, you wouldn’t have to pay any inheritance tax like you would in the US and as we know in the US those percentages are extremely high on the amount of tax that they collect on estate transfers.  There is also the added benefit of leaving everything clean for your heirs. In case you pass away it’s a simple process of contacting the trust bank and letting them know that somebody has passed away and they make the secondary beneficiary the primary beneficiary of the trust.  

 

(Casa Alegria, Riviera Nayarit, near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, pictured.)

The average temperature in San Juan del Sur is somewhere in the high 80s. I think it’s fantastic. It’s warm all the time. You can walk out in the morning without needing any sweater. You can walk out in a t-shirt and shorts early in the morning and still be plenty warm.

 

It gets very hot up into the 90s during the peak hours—12 o’clock, 1 o’clock—but then it heads down. If you go up into the hills a little bit it cools...

The average temperature in San Juan del Sur is somewhere in the high 80s. I think it’s fantastic. It’s warm all the time. You can walk out in the morning without needing any sweater. You can walk out in a t-shirt and shorts early in the morning and still be plenty warm.

 

It gets very hot up into the 90s during the peak hours—12 o’clock, 1 o’clock—but then it heads down. If you go up into the hills a little bit it cools down by 5 or 6 or 7 degrees.  I live up in the hills, where it’s much cooler-- in to the low 80s for most of the day except for the real peak when it’s still up at 90.

 

I live at about 900 feet above sea level and I’m just a kilometer back from the beach, so there are very big hills all around us. It’s just as you come back from the town a little bit and I’m 10 minutes south of town.  

 

(Houses overlooking the bay, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, pictured.)

Surfing in the Algarve is fantastic. Algarve is the second most popular region of Portugal for surfing. The most famous surfing spot can be found north of Lisbon, which is called the silver coast, in the area between Peniche and Nazare. They broke the world record there several times.

 

The Algarve has a fantastic reputation for surfing on the west coast of the region, between Sagres and Aljezur, and we have a number of famous beaches there such Bordeira and...

Surfing in the Algarve is fantastic. Algarve is the second most popular region of Portugal for surfing. The most famous surfing spot can be found north of Lisbon, which is called the silver coast, in the area between Peniche and Nazare. They broke the world record there several times.

 

The Algarve has a fantastic reputation for surfing on the west coast of the region, between Sagres and Aljezur, and we have a number of famous beaches there such Bordeira and Carrapateira. We also have other beaches in and around the Sagres area, such as Martinhal and Baleal. They all have long, sandy beaches and very good surf. They have a fantastic swell and very evenly spaced waves. It’s easy to get a ride and get it in without being hammered by the next wave. But the water is cold so you need a wetsuit to go surfing. 

 

There is also some surfing on the southern coast of the Algarve. The further west you go, the better the surf. There are small surfing spots just off the beaches around Lagos and around Praia da Luz. The distance between Lagos and Sagres is only about 25 kilometers so you don’t have to travel far to get to surf.

 

It’s safe to go into the water in Praia da Luz. The waters there are just like the Mediterranean most days. It is calm with azure colors; nary a wave so it’s very safe.

 

In the western part of the Algarve, you shouldn’t really go into the waves alone. If you have children, they can certainly play in the shallow water but I wouldn’t be far away because a lot of the beaches in that area are very remote and there are not a lot of people there. They don’t necessarily have protection such as life guards and so on. However, most of the southern beaches do have lifeguards.

 

The Algarve has probably the largest number of “Blue Flag” beaches in Portugal. “Blue Flag” is the European Union symbol for quality of the beaches, infrastructure and water quality. The beaches in the west coast has big waves whereas there are hardly any waves on the southern shores of the Algarve, so there are surf conditions to love for anybody.

 

(Swells at the beach at Carrapateira, Algarve, Portugal, pictured.)

Belize allows its citizens to own guns. If you come to Belize as an expat, then you must check your gun at the airport and you must apply for a permit. If you move to Belize, you must apply for a permit, then you can go and buy your gun. Either way, you must apply for your gun permit first, and then there is a vetting process.

 

They will call you on the phone and bring you in for an interview. They will do a background check on you, and they will have...

Belize allows its citizens to own guns. If you come to Belize as an expat, then you must check your gun at the airport and you must apply for a permit. If you move to Belize, you must apply for a permit, then you can go and buy your gun. Either way, you must apply for your gun permit first, and then there is a vetting process.

 

They will call you on the phone and bring you in for an interview. They will do a background check on you, and they will have a police check done from your place of origin, just to make sure that everybody is doing the right thing.

 

If people buy a property, such as a farm, they usually go and get a shotgun license, but they always have to apply for the permit. Once a year, on your birthday, you must imperatively always remember to renew the license.

 

(Mossburg 500 shotgun pictured.)

The newspaper recently reported that Panama would finish this year with 6.3% growth, which is the highest in Latin America, and above, for example, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. In addition, inflation is significant in other countries. Colombia went from 100 to 3,000 and Brazil is over 4 reals to the dollar, while the exchange rate used to be 1 real to the dollar. In contrast, here in Panama, we don’t have exchange rate or inflation issues because we are a US dollar-based...

The newspaper recently reported that Panama would finish this year with 6.3% growth, which is the highest in Latin America, and above, for example, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. In addition, inflation is significant in other countries. Colombia went from 100 to 3,000 and Brazil is over 4 reals to the dollar, while the exchange rate used to be 1 real to the dollar. In contrast, here in Panama, we don’t have exchange rate or inflation issues because we are a US dollar-based economy.

 

The current administration in Panama is only one year old. They are starting a new train subway system, which will run from the airport all throughout the city, connecting with the first railroad system. The widened Canal will be in operation in 2016, which will bump the economy another $1.2 billion net profit above what the Canal used to provide us every year. There are companies coming into Panama to do mining. We have one of the biggest copper deposits. We have silver and gold. We haven’t looked for oil yet but there are people who are looking for everything here and large companies are coming in. Two big mining companies from Chile and Peru are already here and working.  The future looks bright.

 

(Cobre Mine, outside of Panama City, Panama, pictured.)