[International Mini-Series] Investing In Emerging Markets With Ladislas Maurice

This is the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, where we uncover the alternative investments and strategies that billionaires use to grow wealth. The tools and tactics you'll learn from this podcast will make you a better investor and help you build legacy wealth. Join us as we dive into the world of alternative investments, uncover strategies of the ultra-wealthy, discuss economics, and and interview successful investors. Welcome back to the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast. We've got a really fun episode today and this is part of our international segment series. This is the first one of several that we're going to do. And so as you guys know, on most episodes we're targeting kind of US-based investments. But, you know, we live in a global world and increasingly we live in a global world. You know, it's surprising being in the US, you don't think about it outside much. But it's something we love. We have some international investors in our funds and just love getting these broader perspectives on other countries, what it's like. And so we really dive into, you know, different European countries as well as South America with Ladislas Maurice, who's been doing this. He calls himself the Wandering Investor. He's got actually—

this is so interesting. He's talked about some of these other countries and, you know, really, really amazing investment opportunities. That have kind of side benefits with of citizenship and other things. So this is definitely a super interesting, super interesting.

And to be clear, we love US real estate. So this is not, you know, us saying it's time to leave the US, but it is interesting just to look at other options and compare and see what's out there. So enjoy this episode. Hope you like it. Welcome back to the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast. I am your co-host Ben Fraser, joined by fellow co-hosts, Bob Fraser. And today we have a really awesome guest. It is Ladislas Maurice, and it is nighttime where you are at in Turkey, isn't that right? And, uh, super excited to have you on the podcast today. And so for our listeners, this is kind of going to be a new topic. So this is investing in international markets. Ladislas is an expert in this, has been living overseas, has been investing overseas for a long time. And we're doing a little segment here on our podcast on international investing to kind of highlight other alternative investments outside of the United States where most of our investors are kind of most familiar with. So, Ladislas, thanks for coming on.

Thanks a lot for having me over. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. So, so tell us a little bit of your journey and your background, just how you ended up where you're at today.

Sure. So went to business school in Canada, then I went to business and law school in Australia. And I found a job in corporate in Switzerland working for Nestlé, the big food company. And then they sent me to Africa. So first to South Africa and then Ghana. So I lived for 7 years in Africa. And my last role there was being in charge, being on the executive board of Nestlé Ghana, in charge of the dairy business for a few West African countries. So essentially I spent most of my 20s in Africa. And then when I hit 30, I thought, cool, it was exciting. I did all that with this one company. It was great. I'm getting into my 30s now. I want to try something new, but before I do that, my plan was initially actually to move to Dubai and look for another corporate job there. I was like, let me go traveling for a bit. So I went on a road trip from Oman near Dubai to Paris by car. So I went through all of Iran, Armenia, Georgia, all of Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Central Europe, and then Paris. So I did that over a few months and it was— it just opened my mind to a world of opportunities because the reality is when you work full-time in corporate or any job for that matter, you know, you're working 50, 60, sometimes 70 hours a week. You're always thinking about that next presentation, those targets, all the issues, et cetera, et cetera. And you don't have time to just reflect. And I'm not just talking about it from a philosophical point of view, but mostly to reflect about your own money and how you invest your savings. And along the way, I just saw all of these opportunities that I was able to explore. So I'd go into Georgia, for example, in Tbilisi, beautiful city.

So this is on the Black Sea for those Americans who may be thinking about Georgia as a US state.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Georgia the country. Yeah, good one. So, and go into these beautiful historical cities and I'd see stunning real estate, really affordable. I'd run the numbers, I'd go see lawyers, I'd go see real estate agents. And then I started doing flips. So I'd buy an apartment, get it renovated, and then sell it. So I started doing that. And as I was doing this, I kept pushing back my time. Like, I kept pushing back the time I'd be looking for a job. And then at some point, I just wasn't really looking for a job anymore. I just kept doing more flips, more deals. And I'd be posting pictures on Facebook when it was still a thing. And my fellow millennial friends would be asking me, hey, Ladislas, like, you're always in these weird countries, but you don't seem to have a job. You haven't had a job for a while. I was known as like the serious corporate guy, right? I had this like career on track and all that. And then suddenly I'm bumming around in all these places. So I started this blog, just kind of documenting my journey. And it was also to help— it was part of— it became part of my process. When I have a thesis, I just write it down, especially from a macro point of view. I put down all the the macro thesis. And then I go into the exact case study of like an apartment. This is exactly how much I could earn, et cetera. This is the flip, or this is how much I could earn by putting it on Airbnb or long-term rentals, et cetera. And then the blog started having a life of its own. It morphed into, or rather expanded into a YouTube channel as well. So now I do this full-time. I manage my money. I travel around the world full-time looking at opportunities. Mostly in emerging and frontier markets. So Africa, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, um, increasingly Latin America as well. And I now have this, uh, this blog on the side where I help people invest in emerging markets and also immigrate to countries with, uh, lower taxes and often more freedom.

Wow.

Okay, so We're in America, right? So in America, you know, the rest of the world kind of doesn't exist for us. You know what I mean? So that sounds, you know, we love alternative investments. That sounds like, you know, alternative on steroids, right? Right. You know, far alternative, you know, but, you know, hey, why is it so great? What is so great about these markets? I mean, as we sit here, You're just getting ready to buy a couple apartment complexes, you said, in Izmir, Turkey right now. I know Turkey. Okay. I'm— I read the headlines of the American newspaper, you know, and it's talking about, you know, the crazy, you know, kind of right-wing leadership there. And they're talking about the crazy currency that, you know, the current— the currency is falling like, like a rock. And, you know, the stresses on the leadership. And so, you know, tell me why this is a great place to invest.

I mean, you know, I could throw the, the, throw it back to you and say, come on, a few years ago people said that, uh, you know, the US was going down, you had a crazy right-winger, uh, it's the end of the dollar, you're printing all that money, and, and housing has been doing fantastic. So there's not always a complete correlation between what is in the news and what's actually on the ground. And then investing in such markets sometimes comes with other benefits. So for example, Turkey, if you invest for at least, and this is very interesting. So one, real estate is cheap. So you can buy—

Cheap means what? Yeah. Give us a couple examples here and talk about your apartments, talk about your cap rates.

Cool. So I'm gonna have to speak in— I need to calculate because I speak in price per square meter, not price per square foot. So near core in Istanbul, which is a city of 15 million people, right, historical city, etc., I mean, older than anything that exists in the US, you'd be talking about $1,300 per square meter. So in first quarter—

for what? For what?

For a core asset?

For apartments, for residential, right? So renovated, if you want in a good condition, you'd be paying about, yeah, about $150 per square foot. Wow. For near core, in a good condition, in a city of 15 million people with one of the world's biggest airports and direct connections to everywhere.

So, so Cap rate is universal, right? That's percentage. So what is the cap rate? So net operating income, you know, divided by the cost.

So in Turkey, if you're going to be doing long-term rentals to locals, yeah, you'll be making 3 to 5% gross, which is absolutely not interesting by American standards. And you can't even use leverage as a nonresident. So when you invest in a market like this, yeah, like you don't go in there for cap rates on the local market.

Gotcha. So 3 to 5% cap rate is— that's, that's US level, you know, rental yields.

Yeah. So for all the risk, etc., it's not— and you can't leverage.

Okay, gotcha.

You can't leverage as a non-resident. You can't leverage as a, as a local citizen living locally. You can, but it's not always easy. But essentially you can't leverage. Actually, most of these international markets and emerging markets, you cannot leverage.

You're not selling me very well, Ladaslas. Yeah, you're not selling me. That's not—

No, no, but I've got to say what these markets are for what they are, and we'll discuss. So let's first discuss Turkey, and then we'll discuss the whole leverage issue because you're right, it is a point that needs to be addressed. So Turkey, so if you go into midterm rentals, where you target, because now there are a lot of European digital nomads, they're always working, they're traveling, etc. And Turkey, Istanbul is a— Yeah, exactly. It's a fun city. It's a big city and it's very affordable. And there, if you target midterm nomads and Airbnb, you can make net of fees probably between 5% and 7%. Unleveraged. Unlevered, but you're paying a very low price per square meter for such a massive city. And then it comes with two benefits. If you invest at least $75,000, it gives you residency rights. So at any given point, you can move to Turkey with your whole family and you can say, I want to live here. And then you just need to go to the notary, sign a few documents, and you'll be getting a residency card that is valid that you can renew every year as long as you own the property. So it gives you a plan B, beautiful place to live. I mean, it's like Greece. Right now I'm in Izmir. Right across from Izmir are all the Greek islands. The famous Greek islands are right across the—

So you're on— Izmir's on the Aegean.

Yeah, yeah. It's like right there. So it's like same water, same food. Same everything, but like half the price. And if you invest for at least $250,000, though the limit is now being raised to $400,000, all right, you get citizenship for yourself, for your spouse, and for all your underage children. So within 9 months of buying these properties, and it then goes down the generations. So just by putting $400K, for some people it's a lot of money, for others not so much. $400K of objectively affordable real estate in historical cities with all right-ish cap rates, though it comes with a whole bunch of risk, political, economic, currency, blah, blah. I mean, there's a whole list of risks. You get citizenship for yourself, your spouse, your children, and then all your grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren you're making a generational move. So I find this to be unique.

What Americans may not realize about Turkey is that Turkey is actually a NATO country, right? So we think of it as this Islamic Republic or something, but it's not, it's not. It's a secular state. Obviously a lot of Muslims and run by Muslims, but it is a secular state and it is a NATO country. And it's highly Westernized, especially as you point out, the Greek areas, right? Which used to be part of, you know, used to be part of the Byzantine Empire. And so there's a lot of Greek history and a lot of Greek food and everything else. So it's semi-Westernized in some areas, right? So it's, you know, so the currency risk, I'd argue there isn't a lot of currency risk because you are in, you know, you have real estate.

So, yeah.

So the rents, obviously you're offering a real service of real rents. You know, a political risk I can't speak to, you know, I don't, I don't know enough what the political risk is. But, but as you said, you know, that's definitely interesting. You know, although the inability to leverage makes it not that attractive as a true— it's just a purely financial investment, right?

If you become a resident or a citizen, does that give you the ability to leverage at that point? If you invest $400,000, eventually you can refinance and pull some equity out, or how does that work?

Yes. Once you become a citizen, then you have access to leverage. You generally need to live there as well. So be a citizen and a resident, but you're talking interest rates of like 13, 14%, which is rather high, but when inflation is running at 50% a year, actually it makes kind of sense because the interest rates are kept artificially low here.

Yeah. So exactly. Leverage is the way to get rich, right? In a country like that, borrow as much money as you can in the Turkish lira and know that it's going to be devalued like crazy.

So just break this down because a lot of these numbers, they're very foreign to US investors and me especially. You hear 50% inflation, 30% interest. That's very, very different than we're experiencing here. But how you said you look at the kind of macro environments when you're looking at deals. So talk about kind of These deals you're going to be closing on tomorrow, just for little case studies of on a macro level, Turkey specifically, we can get more broad here later, but what makes you comfortable buying these properties and where do you kind of see the value aside from just the cool side benefits?

I'm in it mostly for the side benefits, to be completely honest with you. From a purely financial point of view, I see other markets as more appealing. Okay. One of them potentially being Colombia, which is a lot more accessible to Americans. If you go into Medellín and target midterm rentals, so, you know, 1 month to 6 months, you can get cap rates of approximately 10% net and without the use of leverage, which is—

Wow.

Again, very interesting in the sense that—

and Medellín, people don't realize, is a European city. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's beautiful, right? It's in the mountains. It's just stunning, gorgeous, one of the most beautiful cities you can, you can, you know, in the world, really.

And it's stunning. And again, if you go for long-term local rentals, cap rate 3 to 4%. But what's happening is, as in Europe, but even more so in America, there are millions of Americans who now can work entirely remotely, who earn very decent money typically when they're able to work online, and 3, who have— who now believe that America is just completely toxic and they don't want to be associated with the place anymore, so they're very happy to leave America. And I'm talking, you know, both Democrats and Republicans, etc. Like, I'm not here to talk politics, But I'm pretty sure you can agree that a lot of people think that the US has become a toxic place. So they just move south within the same time zones. They can cut down their cost of living by half and then get to live in Medellín, save money, amazing lifestyle. And the good thing with Americans compared to Europeans, Europeans are often, I mean, I'm European myself. We're often quite cheap. We're always trying to like cut corners and try to save and stuff. But when Americans go to Medellín, They just want the best. They want American standards in Medellín. So when you're able to target that market, which locals are typically not really capable of doing because culturally they just like to cut corners, then you find yourself in a niche and are able to get these really profitable customers. And there isn't that much supply either, because it's one of the advantages of investing in markets where there isn't a lot of leverage? Because I understand the leverage game. You put 20% down and you cash flow positive from day one and it's the tenants that pay your rent, et cetera, et cetera. It's fantastic. But what happens when interest rates rise a lot and you are in a, not a fixed-term mortgage, but your variable terms, you can go underwater, you can be underwater very quickly. But when you're in markets like Colombia, the fact that interest rates are going up doesn't matter because the market is essentially pretty much all cash-based. So your investment is not dependent on interest rates and central bank policy. So investing in markets like this, though they often provide less upside in the long run, because often they deal with issues like currency devaluation, what they do provide is a lot of diversification in your portfolio. So not just from a jurisdiction point of view, from a political point of view, from a lifestyle point of view, from a plan B point of view, if you invest in real estate in Colombia, depending on how much you invest there, you can get either a visa or even residency. But it also provides you a hedge and diversification from an interest rate and from a central bank policy. So as part of a wider basket of real estate investments, having some of your investments in such markets makes sense. Would I tell anyone in your audience, forget about the US, the dollar's finished, go all in Colombia, go all in Turkey? Hell no. Keep assets in the US. Your assets are probably a lot more safer there. But you want that diversification, especially once you start to reach a certain level of capital, of wealth. That's when you need to start thinking, cool, now's the time for me to diversify in case things take a bad turn in my own country. At least I have a plan B and I have savings abroad.

Yeah, it'd be great if you could find the plan B and good, you know, financial investments as well. Especially, you know, that's super interesting, Medellín, because it is so beautiful and it's super accessible. I mean, it's a short plane flight from, you know, anywhere in the United States, pretty much.

So I have to say, though, I have to say there are elections coming up in Colombia. There's a crypto communist that's up there kind of leading the polls. It'll be a Cointa. So it's like when you invest in these countries, right, you know, there's always, there's always risk.

So could be the next Venezuela. And yeah, you, you know, they want to nationalize all the assets and demonize the foreigners.

And, you know, I'm looking at land right now in, uh, in Venezuela, actually agricultural land, and I am— it's about $50 per acre of agricultural land.

Oh my God. That's sad. That is so sad.

Yeah.

Here's an economy that's been destroyed by politics basically.

I was looking at two plots. So one was 500 hectares. So that would be over 1,000 acres for $60,000. Oh my gosh. With like a lake, like water everywhere, there are fruit trees.

Oh my gosh.

And you're allowed to buy as a foreigner there. It's just, it's a bit of a process, etc. And there's always the risk of, I mean, how you need to maintain it because it's, you know, things grow very quickly. So you need to pay people locally. It costs about $150, $200 to have someone full-time then you need to trust people.

It costs you what, obviously, $150 to have someone full-time?

Yeah, $150 to $200 to have someone full-time to manage a month. Yeah, but then, you know, everyone's gonna—

it's very, very eye-opening.

But like, if you want an inflation hedge, does it get better than that?

No.

Yeah, but especially like buying agricultural land at $50 per acre in the country with the biggest oil reserves in the world, ahead even of Saudi Arabia, in a world where it would appear that the West is cutting itself from Russian oil, we'll need alternatives. And there's like Venezuela right there.

Yeah, that's so interesting. You know, it's, you know, I think, how do you mitigate the risk on that? I mean, but, you know.

Has your experience been in these countries that have high inflation that real estate in those countries has been a great hedge against that, or what are the additional risks maybe you're taking on in kind of a hyperinflation environment?

So it's a bit, it's yes and no, because when there's a lot of leverage in the system, essentially real estate is not just a real asset, it's also part a financial asset. So when you buy real estate in the US, You may think that what you have is like a real asset that you can touch. Sure. But probably 60% of the value of that real estate is actually the financial part. It's the leverage that's giving the value. So what happens is when there's initially a lot of inflation, you can actually see the prices in real terms go down. Because the inflation is going up faster than the price of the real estate.

But usually that's just a lag. Usually it does track after a while.

Not necessarily. It's not that, it's not that simple. And then I've seen other markets where there was not a lot of leverage and then inflation started showing up. And then what happens is anyone that was sitting on cash then tries very quickly to buy hard assets. So everyone rushes into real estate. You suddenly see a spike in pricing. Once all the cash that was sitting on the side got invested, because it all got invested when everyone was panicking and people weren't selling, then suddenly prices go down, down again in real terms. So I wouldn't say that real estate is the perfect hedge against inflation.

Of this?

It depends on the markets. It depends on the dynamics.

Because as you point out, there's a leverage component. What is the cost of the debt? There's also an income component if there's a massive recession going on. But it will, over the long haul, it will track. But it's not, as he's pointing out, it's not a perfect track. And there's many components to that. But I was actually in Zimbabwe in 2007. In one of the worst inflations ever recorded. And I remember, you know, they were taking grocery bags full of money to fill the gas tank of the car. And a couple of years before that, one of the pastors there of a big megachurch told all of his congregation, go borrow as much money as you can and buy real estate. And he ended up paying off buying this giant, you know, 6,000-square-foot house and, you know, paid, I think, $300,000 for it equivalent and paid it off with a grocery bag full of money, you know. And so, so, so truly, if you, you know, you— it can also be a home run, you know. But yeah, it's not without its risks. And I appreciate your, you know, that you're, you're not telling everybody to go rush out and do it, but also, you know, exploring the opportunities.

And talk about Zimbabwe. So I went there on a trip in 2011 because I lived in South Africa. So I drove up to Harare to It was after the economy had just dollarised, like 2 months after, after the whole crisis, they kicked out all the farmers, etc. And I went there to have a look at real estate. I was hoping to find some bargains. And essentially real estate was one, actually quite expensive after this whole inflationary period. It was more expensive than in Johannesburg.

Wow.

Which is rather, which was rather surprising. So I don't know what it was before, if it became cheaper or more expensive, but it was pretty expensive and no one wanted to sell because of capital controls. So, you know, if you're going to sell and have the money in a bank account, but you can't get the money out of the country and you don't trust the banking system, you just sit on it.

That's right. So you don't think about things like, like that. I remember people at the time, there were, there was a big hotel at Victoria Falls, which is this mega world famous, you know, falls. And there was the ultimate hotel, 100-year-old hotel, historic landmark. And they're trying to sell it. And I thought I was actually interested, you know, for a time. But I also thought about during the great financial crisis when Greece was hitting the wall, you know, wow, what a time to go buy a Greek hotel for pennies on the dollar and something like that. I mean, it's kind of before you got started, but You know, there is a lot of opportunity, you know, and, you know, maybe the, maybe the way to stick the fork in something like that is what you're doing. You kind of have to go there and kind of figure it out and talk to the locals and, you know, figure out how to manage it and the laws and the risks and that kind of thing.

And then what people need to understand, your audience, is when you invest in such emerging markets, two points. One is usually liquidity is a lot lower than in the US. I mean, the US is a blessing. You list a house and then like 4 hours later you can get bids.

It's not always like that, but it sure is lately.

A few days, a few weeks max. In a lot of markets, a house takes, you know, a few months to sell. Yeah, in most markets in the world actually takes a few months just to sell a place, um, even if the, if the pricing is right. Yeah, to sell it quickly, you really need to underprice it. And secondly, the the lack of data. Because again, in America, you are blessed with the MLS. There is, I mean, there's so much data, so much analysis, it's hard to, it's hard to make a bad decision. But in those other markets, there's absolutely no data. There's just you. And then whatever nonsense the agent you're talking to is telling you, which is 80% of agents.

Yeah, there's, there's plenty of risk in getting a bad attorney, right, or a bad agent and getting taken to the cleaners. So you really have to know what you're, what you're doing, you know.

Yeah, it's such an interesting environment in the world we live in right now, especially, you know, COVID accelerated a lot of the remote work. And to your point earlier, you know, a lot of people can kind of live anywhere and do the same jobs that they have. And so it's, it's, you know, kind of a cool opportunity to explore, hey, maybe I want to go, you live in different areas and explore other parts of the world. You know, it seems to me in this discussion that this would be hard to do as a passive investor. Yeah. You know, what, what would you say for someone that's maybe intrigued by, you know, wanting to be the Wandering Investor, you know, 2.0 and do what you're doing here? But, you know, is it something you have to pretty, pretty be hands-on with, or is it something you can do passively? And I know part of your whole blog and your, you YouTube channel you do, you train people how to do this and kind of the hacks of the, of the system of like how do you find the real information, you know, so the broker's telling you. But can you do this passively or is you have to be pretty hands-on?

You can do this passively depending on the markets. So one of the key aspects is talent. So in some markets there just isn't enough talent in terms of property management. So if you're gonna buy something and put it on Airbnb in whatever country, sometimes there's just like one guy. And I made this mistake before where I made an investment in West Africa and some houses. And the one guy who was good, honest, decent, you know, that I could rely on, he got a divorce and he left the country. And And then I was left with a bunch of just like, like, people were just completely useless. And it's just, it wasn't great.

What did you do? What did you do in that scenario?

I'm still dealing with it. I'm still dealing with it. But when you go invest in markets with more talent depth, then, you know, if your current property manager turns out to be incompetent, or leaves, you can always find someone else. So I think this is really important. So a place like Medellín, so I work with a guy, Mauricio. He's Swedish. He's really good. But there, you know, there are also other people.

So I'm super curious about the core European markets. So you've been in Zurich, you're from France. What is the market like there? What are the, what are the cap rates? What are the prices? And, you know, is there any, any investment opportunities there? I mean, honestly, I think we're seeing a lot of European money coming to America right now. Right, seeking American real estate, American investments. So what are your thoughts?

Western Europe, I would stay away from completely. I don't see any interesting real estate investment opportunities, to be honest with you. The cap rates are really low. I mean, Switzerland, you'll get maybe like 1.5%, 2%, which honestly barely covers depreciation. Uh, but what you do get is Swiss franc exposure, which is interesting because it's actually a solid currency in the sense that all the central bank money printing that they're doing, they're printing Swiss francs, getting dollars for them, and then they're buying US treasuries and US stocks with it. So actually the Swiss franc is backed by a lot of assets.

It's not just on paper. It's one of the hardest currencies you can get, no question. It's not on the euro, which is a plus.

You know, so yeah, but, but I mean, a lot of the Western European countries too, you're having negative real rates, right, for borrowing. So if you can borrow, I mean, that is to your advantage where, you know, even though—

so does it make sense if you have a negative interest rate and a negative cap rate, then you actually make money or— I can't do the math, you know, with all the negatives.

Silver lining here. Yeah.

So in Germany and in France, for example, typically you'd get cap rates of 3 to 4%. So rental yield—

On multifamily, for instance?

Yeah, like apartments. Apartments, yeah, 3 to 4%. But then the issue is that there's a lot of government regulation. So increasing rents, et cetera, is very hard.

Right.

And in inflationary environments, in countries that have a tradition of being extremely tenant-friendly, it becomes very politically appealing to put rent freezes in place. And two, Europe is going, is very committed to the green transition. So every year there are new laws stating that if you don't meet certain standards— The money you have to spend. You can't rent out to tenants or you need to make these fixes, et cetera. So there's actually a lot of costs, a lot of carry costs with owning property for rentals in Western Europe. So I would definitely stay away from Western Europe. However, having said this, for example, Italy, for Americans who want to retire in Italy, it's possible. I work with an attorney in Italy and it's possible to retire in Italy, to move to Italy, to retire in Italy. To benefit from special tax regimes that they put in place for retirees from overseas. So you only pay 7% on worldwide income. Again, for Americans, it's a bit more complicated because you get taxed also based on citizenship in the US, but essentially you can get to move to Italy to pay lower taxes. And in the south of Italy, you can buy decent apartments for €700, €800 a square meter. So, so in dollars, let's say for about like $70, $80 per square foot. Oh wow. In the south of Italy. Um, and the government will subsidize all your green renovation costs like windows, insulation, solar panels, etc. All EU money, obviously.

Wow.

Um, to the tune of 110%.

Okay, they want you to do this. That's interesting.

Even— it's, it's crazy. So I have an attorney, he, he helps people do that. So move to Italy, get the special tax regime, find apartments, do the renovations, and then claim all the tax credits that you can. You get as a tax credit, but then you can actually sell the tax credit.

Wow, interesting. What other markets are— you kind of alluded to a couple of them you like, but what other markets that you like? And then also talk about other tax benefits. I mean, this one in Italy is pretty cool, but are there other tax benefits that you can see?

So look, a lot of these countries have low taxes. So one market I really like is Montenegro, beautiful, south of Croatia. A little country of 600,000 people, and generally you end up paying between 9% and 15% income tax and taxes on capital gains, et cetera. So if you structure things properly, you can lower this. And then with the US, you can also benefit from the foreign earned income exclusion, et cetera. There are a bunch of other exclusions Americans can benefit from. I'm not giving any tax advice here. So Montenegro is interesting because you It's easy to move there as an American and their real estate is pretty affordable. It's absolutely beautiful.

It's on the Mediterranean, right?

On the— yeah, just— it's on the Adriatic, right?

It's right across from Italy there.

Wow. Yeah. And it's beautiful.

Old country.

So that's one market that's interesting because you can get to move there as well. And in terms of European capitals that are So a European capital that is amongst the most affordable and that is absolutely gorgeous is Budapest. So their core center, an apartment that would be renovated in a historical building, absolutely stunning. Let me do a few numbers. In square feet per square foot, you'd be like at $300 square foot for a stunning apartment, like right downtown in Budapest, just historical, which is cheaper than pretty much most European capitals around. So that's quite interesting. It doesn't— if you invest about $200,000, you can get residency out of it if you structure things properly. So you can get to live in, in Central Europe. So that's interesting. Cap rates, you'd be looking at 4-5%, so nothing spectacular, but at least you own something that is pleasurable to own. And sometimes it's, you know, making money off investments, great, getting residency, great. But sometimes, you know, we all have that one piece of real estate that we're happy to own because we just love it and it makes us happy. And Budapest can provide that to people.

Yeah, that's interesting. It may be a little close to Ukraine right now, might be even more on sale.

Yeah.

So talk a little bit just about what you do for investors are interested in this just through kind of, um, your blog and through just helping people navigate some of these markets, right? You kind of help people— so here's the scars that I have from doing some of this, and here's some people to trust in different markets.

So two things. One, I offer consulting. So for people who want to explore opportunities abroad, who want to discuss, you know, various markets and residency, second passports, etc., people want to buy a second passport as a hedge as well. And then secondly, I have a whole bunch of resources. So as I go into all these markets, you know, when you go into a market, typically 70% of real estate agents just talk nonsense, 20% are all right, and like 1% is good. So essentially I have, based on the markets where I was, I have contact, the contact information of, of real estate agents that I vetted. So at least you're guaranteed to have someone who's at least okay. So you're not getting the guy who's talking complete nonsense. So you're going to get at least okay or good. So there's that. So if you want to invest in Colombia or Montenegro or Hungary, wherever, or Turkey, you've got like decent people to work with, decent honest people to work with. And same thing for residencies. I have the contact information out there of of lawyers and agents that can hook you up with residency documents and even passports.

Awesome. What's the best way for people to get a hold of you?

So I have a website called thewanderinginvestor.com. There's a private list which is free, it's like a mailing list, so I really encourage people to sign up to this. And then I also have a YouTube channel, The Wandering Investor, Instagram, but most of the content is on the website.

Awesome.

So interesting.

Very fun perspective.

Really interesting.

Really appreciate you coming on the show, Lattice Loss, and it's been really fun for us to kind of hear some of your, your thoughts and perspectives.