Thursday, November 25, 2021
Dear Your Overseas Dream Home Reader,
Happy Thanksgiving! Wherever you are, I hope you’re safe, well-fed, and surrounded by family and friends.
I’m sitting here in my home in Cabo, feeling thankful today for the life that I get to lead.
I’m thankful for this home, which is up six figures from the price I paid (thanks to the group buying power of my Real Estate Trend Alert group) a few years ago. A home that, when I leave I just hand the keys to my rental manager and she sends me checks.
Thanks to my life as an international real estate investor, I have been able to create a life free from heating, free from cooling—living in the sweet spot of weather where central heating and air conditioning both are far from my mind. I’ve been able to become financially independent through international real estate, with income streams right across the world. I’ve been able to live free of the burdens of traffic, commutes, bosses, and corporate politics. Free from the stresses of what’s going to happen in the financial markets.
All in all, I’m a very lucky man. And I owe a lot of it to one meeting that happened almost two decades ago.
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It was about this time 18 years ago that I knocked on the door of a nondescript building in Waterford, Ireland and walked into the office of International Living. I told them I was a real estate investor in search of opportunity, that the market in Ireland felt tapped out and I wanted to look internationally.
They said that they had hundreds of thousands of readers looking for the same thing, and they wanted me to go scouting on their behalf.
That conversation happened in December 2003, and I started to work with them on January 4th, 2004. Within a week, I was on a flight to Nicaragua and Panama to scout for real estate opportunities, and I’ve been on the road since.
As soon as I put boots on the ground in Panama, I knew I was on to something. I saw a set of circumstances coming together that mirrored the property boom we had seen in Ireland in the previous six to eight years, and this was happening at a time when the market in Ireland was already becoming over-inflated— you might remember Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” years when the economy and real estate exploded, and then turned to massive bust in 2008.
While things were heating up back home, I invested in a one-bed condo in a prime Panama City location and made a tidy $72,370 in gains.
I diversified my exposure to the Irish real estate market when it was hot, but before it went bust. I moved things around in Ireland before the market topped out and it worked very well in my favor.
This made me realize that there is always opportunity somewhere, if you are willing to look. No matter how things are where you live, there is always someplace in the world that is set to take off—somewhere you can find real estate deals that will bring you capital gains…earn a rental income…or even just provide you with a lifestyle where you can relax in good weather without needing to ever bother with heating or air conditioning ever again.
As I said, I’ve been very lucky with how things worked out for me. And the reason I started Real Estate Trend Alert is that I want to share my luck and help you experience this life too.
Back in 2008, I was looking for a real estate investing group that worked together to approach developers as a group and use its collective buying power to land excellent real estate deals around the world.
I wanted to join a group that together would have the collective buying power to truly reap the rewards…to do bigger deals…get bigger discounts…
I quickly realized there was no such group.
So I started one.
That was 13 years ago, and at the beginning it was sometimes a challenge to get into the room with the right people. They didn’t know about RETA or what we could do for them.
These days it’s a totally different story. I get pitched more deals than I can count from developers all over who want to get their deals in front of members.
That’s because, as a group, Real Estate Trend Alert wields an awesome collective buying power. You see, developers long for a large volume of fast sales. It allows them to move on to other projects fast, launch to the local market with a bunch of sales in the bag, charge higher retail prices when they do launch. As a result they are often willing to give us at RETA extremely favorable off-market terms. We get in for less, long before anyone else.
RETA is many times bigger today than when I started it in 2008. Our members are all around the world.
That means I can get us deals at prices no one else can even dream of, and I can do it before anyone else even hears about the opportunity.
Developers queue up to pitch their projects to me. It is a win-win. Those developers who make the RETA cut, and can offer the kind of stellar discounts we expect, get quick and discreet sales from our little group. That allows them to go to the local market with sales under their belts and the confidence to charge higher retail prices (i.e. the price everyone else pays)…and we get a massive discount and lock in incredible potential gains.
For instance, on a visit earlier this year to Playa del Carmen in Mexico, I stopped by our RETA opportunity in Siempre Playa. Members bought there in 2017 at RETA-only pricing from $193,800.
It was an opportunity to lock down condos in the heart of what I call the “Zona Dorada,” or the Golden Zone in Playa. Today, the same unit type as the one we could lock down for $193,800 lists at retail for $314,333. A whopping paper gain of $120,533.
The first owners are now moving in. And I know of a number of two-bed condos getting ready to be rented for $1,900 per month.
Just south from Playa, along the Riviera Maya, RETA members are sitting pretty on numerous deals in Tulum…
One stop I made on my recent trip was to the construction site at Gran Tulum—the closest master-planned community to the beach—to explore the progress. On the very same morning I got the latest price list from the developer…
The entry price is now $263,000 and most units are listing for $275,000 and upward.
When I brought RETA members the opportunity in May 2019, our price was from $175,000.
That’s an $88,000 paper gain.
And there is more to come. I am always out here, searching for killer real estate deals with the potential to bring you gains that you just won’t see if you limit yourself to your own national market.
Like the deal I’m working on right now in Portugal’s Algarve.
It’s a chance to own a spacious luxury condo in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods of Lagos, the Algarve’s most historic beach town, with some of the world’s best beaches are only minutes from your doorstep.
I can’t say much more right now, but I’ll be revealing the details to members of Real Estate Trend Alert in the next few days.
I’ll be able to let you know a little more about it then as a Dream Home Letter reader.
But you must remember that only RETA members will be able to act on this deal.
Thankfully, you can join RETA today right here. Then, as a member, you’ll be able to take advantage of the group buying power and off-market deals I mentioned above.
Who knows, maybe in a few years’ time you’ll be sitting in your own perfect-weather overseas home and reflecting on how thankful you are that you went international, just as I am right now.
Wishing you good real estate investing,
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Ronan McMahon, Real Estate Trend Alert
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