Saturday, November 06, 2021
Dear Your Overseas Dream Home Reader,
Now that I’m back in Latin America for the winter, I’ve been checking in on opportunities on this side of the world and seeking out new ones.
Last week, I spent two days scouting in northern Costa Rica, right at the border with Nicaragua. It’s a place I’ve seen from the air many times as I’ve flown from Liberia airport north to Nicaragua, but this was my first time setting foot here.
It’s a place that captures the best of both Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It has a similarly beautiful landscape as Nicaragua, but it’s neater, tidier, and a bit more developed than its northern neighbor. It has the stunning nature of Costa Rica, but without the overpriced and oversold tourism product.
It’s a complex network of bays and points fringed by beautiful sandy beaches, with lush, tropical vegetation spilling right up to the sand.
I was invited to this secret part of Costa Rica to check out a new opportunity…I share more about it here.
And stay tuned, I’ll be bringing you more on this soon.
What Exactly is RETA?
This opportunity in Costa Rica could potentially turn into a RETA members-only deal (that’s why I was there to check it out).
I realize that I often mention these deals to you but that if you’ve only just recently joined us here at Your Overseas Dream Home, you may be wondering what that means…and exactly what Real Estate Trend Alert is and how it all works.
I recently got an email from a fellow reader about this, so I’m sharing my response here…
Lisa says: Hello; I’ve been following your ads and emails but I confess I don’t understand what you do. Is this a magazine? How does RETA have “group buying power”?
Ronan says: Hi Lisa. Our enterprise is pretty unique, I don’t know any other organization that does what we do, so I get that it can be a little confusing to an outsider.
In short, RETA is about getting the best possible deals on best-in-class international real estate. And I use my decades of experience as an international real estate scout, and my wide network of contacts, to make that happen.
So, let me explain what I mean by “group buying power.”
As you probably know, when you buy a home you normally deal with a broker or real estate agent and you will pay the same price as anyone else who walks in off the street.
But RETA members do it differently. Because we are a group of qualified buyers, I’m able to get access to best-in-class developers and negotiate pricing directly with them—cutting out the middle man.
The developers know that our group can provide them with a large number of quick sales, cutting their marketing costs and increasing their cash flow. But in order to get access to our group they need to give us deep discounts. They need to give us exclusive pricing well below what ordinary buyers will pay.
This is what I mean by “group buying power.” And to be clear, we are not buying as a group or sharing a portfolio or properties. When a member is interested in a deal, they do the purchasing themselves, and they own their condo outright. The difference is, because they are a RETA member, they pay a lot less than retail pricing.
For instance, with our recent RETA deal in Tulum, our exclusive pricing started from $198,600 for luxury two-bedroom condos. That’s $68,685…$88,770 and even $116,781 less than other similar condos go for in communities around us—and they didn’t have nearly as much to offer in the way of amenities as ours.
As for what publications you get with RETA, it all depends on the deals. As soon as I’ve found an opportunity, I bring it to RETA members through email Alerts and a monthly newsletter.
Sometimes I send members what I call “Flash Deals.” These are strong opportunities sent to me by my network of contacts. They don’t come with an exclusive discount but they always offer incredible value for money, and I send them to members as soon as I see them.
For this reason, I don’t produce a paper magazine. Deals like these come and go incredibly fast. By the time a magazine would reach you, they’d be long gone.
You can find out more about RETA and learn how to join right here.
Own an Historic Home in the French Countryside
If you missed Cheap Homes Sunday last weekend, we mixed things up a bit…and increased the budget.
These days in the U.S., and elsewhere, what was once a huge budget for your dream home, doesn’t stretch as far in these days of insane rising property prices. A half million or even a million dollars doesn’t get you what it used to.
But as my research team uncovered, if you look elsewhere, in this case, France, you can buy a historic mansion in the French countryside for the price of a fairly average single-family home in some parts of the U.S.
Check out the stunning listings they found here.
Rum and Communists: Lessons in Inflation From Cuba
And finally…
As you well know, inflation is a hot topic of conversation at the moment. I wrote to you about it recently (if you missed it, you’ll find that article here).
Inflation isn’t new…nor is how people deal with it. Historically, buying real estate has been a popular option as protection against inflation. And I believe it’s still the perfect asset for that.
But what happens if you can’t buy real estate? Like say in Cuba…
My team member Eoin Bassett spent some time in Cuba some years back and this week he shared his experiences…you can read his full article here.
Wishing you good real estate investing,
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Ronan McMahon, Real Estate Trend Alert
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