How To Find Hot International Real Estate Investments with Ronan McMahon

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap them in bacon for business owners, marketing execs, and anyone trying to grow your business, pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week, our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo. Welcome back to Bacon Wrapped Business. This is Brad Costanzo. And today I'm going to continue on a conversational thread that started in a podcast episode just a few previous episodes ago, or as we call them here on Bacon Wrapped Business epicizzles because they're just too hot. And if you've heard the episode with Andrew Henderson from Nomad Capitalist, this is a perfect segue. Because what Andrew and I talked about is the possibilities and the benefits of sometimes just living abroad and moving away and structuring your life and your business elsewhere and going where you're treated best. And in this world of increasing ability to work remote, more and more people are understanding that, you know, they're not stuck in one place. And if you're not stuck in one place, you can kind of like start to just pick the place that you want to be. Granted at this time in 20, early 2021 it is, you know, there are still some travel restrictions pandemic related, but those are starting to go away and options are opening up. And today I invited a guest on the show who's going to talk about what it's like to live and invest internationally, especially as it revolves around real estate. So Ronan McMahon is the founder. I want to say you're the, hopefully you're the founder, but also the owner.

Of internationalliving.com founder of real estate Trend Alert. Real Estate Trend Alert International Living is my publisher.

Publisher. Okay, perfect. I wanted to find out about that. And so Real Estate Trend Alert is something that I personally am a paid subscribing member to where he'll explain how they bring really interesting international real estate deals to their members. And I want to just dive in to a conversation that I would want to have about Ronan anyway, because this is an area that my wife and I are exploring international living destinations, whether it's for investment, part time living, long term living, et cetera. And I can't think of anybody better to have on the show than Ronan. So, Ronan, welcome to Bacon Wrap business.

Wow, thanks, Brad. Absolute pleasure to be here.

So you're down in Cabo right now?

I'm down in Cabo right now. I've just turned on the aircon which is just kind of indicating that it's about my time of year to think about moving on from Cabo. So I.

When you have to turn on the.

Air conditioner, yeah, that's my big push. So I winter in Cabo, I spend the kind of mid summer in Ireland and then I'm in kind of Portugal on, on either end of it. So I kind of work my life and my business around those three bases.

Fantastic. So go into a little bit like give the folks an overview of what real estate trend alert is. I mean I'm a subscriber so I could give them my words but I'd love to hear it from the horse's mouth.

Yeah, absolutely Brad. What we do is me along with my small team, we travel the world in search of real estate investment opportunities for profit. So we look to identify places where something big is happening, are set to happen, put boots on the ground, see if there's an opportunity to profit and then to recommend actionable deals that fit within that overall strategy. So for example, I know Tulum is a place that's very close to your heart and you'll be visiting again soon. That's a place that's been on my radar for well over a decade now. The big idea there is the path, the progress that's been rolling along the Caribbean. From Cancun it hits the Ciancan biosphere. So you've got that kind of supply bottleneck coming in the form of a national park. So that's the big idea. The play we've identified and have been recommending is to buy condos there, buy them pre construction with members only discounts and then make them available primarily for short term rental. But lately the way the market has flipped long term has also become extremely, extremely compelling. We identify opportunities that can be part of a big macro development trend but then also in certain moments, at certain times we find really exciting crisis opportunities. The example there IS Europe in 2011, 13 and 15 post the last cris, you know, there we were able to buy condos in Spain for 20% of pre crisis pricing. So you know, the world is such a vast and complex place. You know, if you're mobile, if you're mobile, if you're willing to travel, if you're willing to put boots on the ground to put in the legwork, there's opportunity to be found somewhere always, you know, no matter what's happening right now.

So you primarily deal with developers and so you're working out deals for these pre development Things as well. Do you also find many deals that have to do like that are already pre built, ready to move in, ready to buy now?

So yes, but to a lesser extent. So the thing is that at RITA we kind of club together with our buying power, so. So I have much more negotiating power when I'm talking to a developer who's got three or 400 units than a random individual who has one unit. So the kind of the economics of the business model makes sense when there's a big volume of relatively homogenous inventory. So there's two scenarios where that can happen. A developer can have that inventory pre development or a bank or a developer can have that completed inventory. Generally if it's completed inventory for our negotiations and our discounting to work, it comes from a bank. So we talk to a bank and a bank who's foreclosed on a project or a community and we come in and make a deal with the bank. Then I guess also in the broad mix of retive, what I call flash alerts, which is just these one off deals cross my desk. It's in a place that I know I may not necessarily have visited the property, but I know the location, I know the people involved and I write it up and send it out. So for example, just today, just an incredible home outside of San Juan del Sura in Nicaragua. Across my desk, just a kind of a dream mansion perched on a hill above a beautiful surf break and beach. It's all stunning and it can be bought for 280 grand. So you know it's a mansion. Yeah, I mean so these are the type of kind of one off situations where you've got a motivated seller, often where you maybe have kind of crisis laid non crisis which is unfortunately the situation with Nicaragua at the moment. So it's a broad mix. You know, I guess at the end of the day for a core REITA deal, the primary criteria is can we expect to double our money here within five years. So if I expect that we can double our cash invested within five years, it cuts the RETA muster as a deal. But also kind of post Covid I've developed kind of like another track within RETA which is just incredibly inexpensive homes in stunning locales. You know, this idea that there's not just the making money side of the equation, but there's your cost based side of the equation. And I mean you can go to rural France and you can find a beautiful country cottage for $100,000. Just incredible values with really, really low costs of living. And it's just the other side of the, the equation that maybe some people, you know, this was in the wake of the wake of the crisis where people were really, really fearful about how, you know, how things were going to go for them right now.

And what I know, I'm on that, that newsletter as well. Something about a dream home.

What is the, the Instagram site your cheese?

Yeah, the Instagram one.

Yeah. So, I mean, I set up just, literally just a year ago, like internally within my business, we had a Slack thread called Property Porn where basically we just shoot up like these really cool properties that we all, you know, we're all into this stuff. And then I thought, geez, you know, why don't I just put these up on. Put these up on Instagram? So you just started putting them up on Instagram and the thing just blew up. You know, I got to kind of 250,000 subscribers very, very fast, pretty much all organically. Then something. Then I moved from Ireland and I think we did something that messed with the algorithm, but our organic search just seemed. Our organic growth just seemed to completely stall. I think the algorithm thought something happened. Anyway, so the organic growth just stalled. But it was just incredible just to see the kind of, the appetite and the desire for that.

I love that. Remind me the. So I can put it in the show notes here. So pick up what is the Instagram handle?

Your cheap dream home.

Yeah, that's right. Your cheap dream home. Yeah, it is fun. I like it. It's property porn. You look at it like, ooh, I could totally live in that.

Yeah. And it's like, you see these villas and mansions in Italy and oh my God, it's like these are George Clooney houses. And you know, we do a Mansion Monday feature and you know, maybe the mansion Monday is 370 grand and it's a 16th century villa with, you know, it's just, it's just a fabulous escape. And the thing is, it's real. You know, you can have it. You know, I can have it. This is a viable option for us. And, you know, I think the way the world has gone, the way work has gone, you know, it's. It really is a viable option for so many people today.

Yeah, I love it. The, the most of the deals that, that Rita looks at for, like, locations, would you say that they're pretty much concentrated in certain parts of the world? Like, for. I've seen several in Latin America. Whether it's Latin or South America. You mentioned Portugal, et cetera. Ireland. Are there many other countries that you take a look at or are there certain geographical concentrations?

Yeah, so there, at any given time there tend to be geographical concentrations because that's where we found the opportunity, you know. So say for example, if you. I founded Reta in 2008 and 2008, 2009, a big part of our focus was the northeast of Brazil, for example. We just had an incredible run of early in pre construction deals in the.

In Fortaleza or.

In Fortaleza and surrounds. Yeah, yeah. So we were buying condos just right on the boardwalk there, kind of ground floor as Fortaleza was taking off. And those were kind of doubling in value during construction. Today there's a big concentration in Tulum and the Riviera Maya, the kind of the really successful resort destinations of Mexico. Because the short term rental story is, is so compelling. But there's also an interesting kind of industry dynamic which is that construction costs are really low in Mexico. When a developer has strong sales, it can be an incredibly high margin business here. So that basically creates this much bigger pie that I can then go to the developer and say, hey, over here we've got this community of qualified investors, they're standing by, ready to act. But it all comes down to the level of discount that you're willing to pass on to those people.

What is the average discount that RETA members technically get over what they would get if they just went to the developer on their own?

Yeah. So in the main, our deals come before the retail launches. So we come in first and then the developer launches retail. But typically it'll be in excess of kind of 15, 16, 17% to the developer's launch price. Sometimes it's bigger, sometimes it's less. Then sometimes with our bank foreclosure pricing, it is what it is. The banks in some instances just don't negotiate. But there's a very kind of fun dynamic with bank foreclosures in Spain and Portugal, which is that banks tend to pay no commissions to brokers or they pay only tiny commissions to brokers, which is just the stupidest thing imaginable because all you have then is brokers running around the place saying don't buy a bank foreclosure. They're a terrible idea. So that's a kind of an overlooked inventory category that we can help people out with.

That's brilliant. So if you have good relationships with the banks, et cetera, you can get access to deals that brokers aren't out there pushing and driving up the price on.

Exactly. Brokers won't touch them because they don't make any money.

I mean money incentivizes people. Go figure.

Yeah, I mean, but you see in terms of incentives with the banks and their foreclosures in Spain and Portugal, everything is messed up. The people who control the inventory are incentivized not to clear it because basically when it's on their books they get to charge certain things to it. There is just no incentive for, for it to be moved. So you'll find, I mean, so for example, I've just bought a bank foreclosure in Portugal in the Algarve, in a community called Val Delobo, which is a fabulous high end community right on the beach in the Algarve, great world class golf course. And how I came across that bank foreclosure is I was out for lunch with, with some friends. We basically bumped into a group of bankers we just started, who my contact knew. Well, we started saying, have you got anything, anything good floating around? And one of them just handed us a bag of keys. I mean, something you not like this is how it happens. Handed us a bag of keys for several buildings in Val Delobo and a price list and said, go figure it out for yourselves.

No way.

And we went door. We, you know, we went like literally handed you. Literally, literally. And I mean they're kicking back and you know, drinking the wine over lunch and it's like, you know, don't drop them back to my office until after 4 because I'm gonna be here having lunch until 4. And so.

So you're able to pick up smoking.

Hot deals on those smoking hot deals. But again, it's not shooting fish in a barrel because we looked at about nine or ten propert. There was one standout. I partnered up with my contact because we were there at the same time. The asking price on that condo I think was €460,000. We got it for €410,000. There's an identical unit currently listed at €850,000 because it's direct from the bank. We're buying with no money down. So only cash required is closing costs, which are about 8%. And I mean, don't get me wrong, we had to buy it without being able to see it properly because the electricity was turned off and just all the stuff you expect with the.

But you got to see it a little bit, just not in all its glory.

Exactly. And the good thing was that this apartment had never been lived in. So it's kind of a bizarre story that it was built, probably delivered 20082009 and what happened with the run up of real estate values in Europe in the run up to 2008 and 2009 is that developers stopped selling pre construction. They just got so greedy because they saw every year prices rising by 20, 30%. They said, no, I'm going to wait till delivery. Banks came in, lent all the money. So all of a sudden they're delivering in 2008, 2009, and the buyers are gone. They're just gone. And they've got condos. So then the condos went into some kind of black hole of the banking system. Then there were these bad banks created in Europe and the assets got moved around and next thing someone else bought the assets. Then an Irish group bought them. Then they went bankrupt. So literally this is a condo that was delivered pristine 13 years ago. Never been, never been lived in, never been occupied.

But it's just been kind of sitting there for 13 years.

Just sitting there. Just sitting there.

Those are great deals to find though.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

But those are hard to manufacture. The ones that are easier for you to manufacture, I would imagine is going out to the developers and going out to. And I would imagine that one of the key things is finding reputable developers who are, you know, who've got a. Especially in Latin America, South America, because there's a lot of, there's a lot of, you know, empty buildings and empty.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is.

So you have to make sure that you're got a reputable one. But I love the fact that you guys have the ability to, lack of a better word, kickstart a development. Because if I'm a developer and I know that you come to me with, I don't know how big the RETA subscriber base is, but I'm sure it's, you know, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who are paying attention to this and you say, listen, we can help you get this off the ground, maybe even be able to sell it out. That reduces the risk for the developer. It reduces the risk for the RETA member, It reduces the risk for everybody. So I actually, I love the, I love the overall business model. It's really brilliant that, you know, you build up a valuable list of customers and subscribers of people who want this and then you utilize the power of large numbers and economies of scale to go, you know, get them deals. And at the same time, I know that's probably, you know, part of the business model as well, is that, you know, you. I don't know if it's a commission or you know how it is. But a fee from the developers. So it's a win, win for everybody. And I just remember when I saw this business model, I was like, this is brilliant. Ronan gets to travel to, like, these amazing places, like resort destinations and negotiate beautiful deals and then pass on these deals to people who want them and get paid in the process. So it just like, hats off to you on that.

Yeah, thank you. The, I guess, brilliance, we've kind of stumbled into brilliance, maybe.

Yeah, that's exactly. So you start, you started Rita in. Was it 2008?

Yeah, so I started Rita in 2008. Basically I had that this moment, you know, I was in Brazil. Brazil was just northeast of Brazil. Are you familiar with Fortaleza?

So I haven't been to Fortaleza. We almost went, but I've been to Recife and I've been to like, Rio and Florianopolis, Sao Paulo and some other places.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, the general terrain up in the, up in the Northeast, and I guess Fortaleza is, you know, it's a major city of 4 million people. It's at the time and maybe probably still it's Brazil's biggest tourism destination and it's kind of. It's a regional powerhouse. And it was just exploding because the Northeast had been so far behind the south of Brazil. So Brazil was on a tear. And then the Northeast was just doing particularly well because it was on that tear, but also catching up with the south. And I was investing up there. There was just. It was just a brilliant moment to be there and to be investing. And then I talked to friends and family, whether it's in Europe or in the States, and it's like, oh, my God, they're afraid money won't come out of the ATM machines. You know, it was just. So that was the moment that I founded REIT in April, April 2008. And the, I guess in response to the opportunity that I was finding.

What was your business before that?

So previous to that, I'd worked with International Living, kind of finding. Scouting and finding real estate opportunities. And then from 2004, January 2004 to 2008 or 2008, I had worked with International Living, scouting out locations for them.

Oh, brilliant. So then and now International Living publishes.

Exactly. Perfect.

Perfect. You know, some of the questions, you know, when it comes to looking at and thinking about buying internationally, obviously there's a lot of things that the average person just. We don't know. We don't know because, I mean, real estate transactions can be Complicated just here domestically, but especially investment purchases, although less complicated. And then you go to buy in another country and different countries have different regulations and stipulations, etc. So I know that inside the RETA membership area you have a lot of resources so people can kind of understand that. One of the areas that I know is always can be frustrating is sometimes lack of financing, you know, lack of mortgages. I know I've looked at places in whether it's Mexico or Colombia or whatever. Yeah, pretty much got to pay cash now granted that's for places that are brand new. I'm sorry, not brand new, but livable now. Like if you want to buy a condo and move in next month, you typically have to buy cash because there's not that many mortgage programs. But the pre development deals kind of come with. It's kind of like financing, right. I mean you don't have to put buy everything down right away. Of course you don't get delivery right away. But explain a little bit more how the financing works and then I know part two of that question is I saw the recent deal in Portugal and the RITA member and you're like, well you can get actually really favorable financing from Portuguese banks or European banks. So let's just kind of discuss that whole like can I finance this? What does it look like from that perspective?

Yeah, sure. So the kind of Spain and Portugal and much of Europe, relatively easy bucket mortgage finance is available. I just, I mean I sub 0.5% rates now.

Yeah, that blew me away when I saw that my wife is a loan officer and she goes, that doesn't even seem possible. But less than half a point.

How could that go wrong? How could things go wrong? Where's this going to end? Obviously negative interest rates in the Eurozone at the moment. Portuguese banks have just gone really, really aggressive just in the past couple of weeks. The two mortgages I've got in Portugal in the past three months, one is for an apartment in the Silver coast and I'm paying 1.1% there. That's my primary residence. The bank foreclosure, I'm paying 1.7% on that. Spain and France you're going to be looking at in the region of 1.7% as well. So the criteria to get the mortgage are I guess to kind of sum it up, your income needs to be easily explained. So Bitcoin maybe not great rental stream from properties or from a business that's been solid for three years or more. Good. So it's pretty straightforward. Even in Spain Even people on US Disability and this sort of income I've seen get pretty favorable mortgages in Latin America. Of course, it's a whole different kettle of fish. So with rita, members only finance is an integral part of almost all our deals, not all our deals. And this in some part, Brad, kind of ties to what you mentioned just previously about buying with the right developers, which maybe I'll kind of talk a bit about that too. So with the RETA members only deals, typically you'll pay 50% during construction and then the remaining 50% there's finance of developer finance available and that will kind of typically be at a rate of in the region of 7%, give or take, which it's not low, it's not crazy high. It's a good option to have because typically when you're buying pre construction with these deals, you're going to be taking delivery two to three years down the line. It's a great option to have. But outside of that, finance just generally isn't available in Latin America or is so kind of expensive and difficult to get that it's not really an option. But we get to. So the developers whose deals I put in front of RETA members, I mean I'm looking for the best in class developers. I'm looking for the groups that typically are sitting on a very big land bank, you know, in for example, let's call it the resort markets in Mexico and that you typically have a community, a group of people who built the hotels in the 70s, 80s, 90s, whoops.

We just had a little audio issue that we froze here, but we're back. So Ronan. Yeah. You were talking about working with some of these good developers to make sure that we can get the members only financing, etc.

Yeah, absolutely Brad. So the developers who are the groups behind the deals I offer to RETA members, typically they're sitting on big land banks. They're very frequently the groups that built the hotels in the resort areas 20, 30, 40 years ago. As they built out their resorts, they land banked ahead of the path of progress in many instances. We work with the next generation. So there may be the kids who are maybe about our age and they've studied internationally and they've done their MBAs and they're very kind of clued in. But they've got that grounding of the family grounding of sitting on the big land banks riding out the various crisis that the world and their local places have been through. And those groups are very comfortable offering developer financing because they're not Spinning, they're not moving. They're in all of this for the long haul. And I mean if you're capital rich, if, if that kind of 7%, that's a pretty good. That's a lot better for them than having money in the bank. So the right groups are very open to developer finance and it also shows their long term commitment to you as a buyer and to the project. They're not just looking to get their cash and run.

Yeah, that makes sense. Are there any. Of all the places right now that you typically look for and do deals, what are some of the hottest like, for? Because I know that the two biggest things you probably want to look for is both capital appreciation but also rental potential. Because a lot of people I would imagine are not necessarily buying these places to move there full time, but they might want to spend a few months there and then rent it out when they're not there. I would imagine that's a big portion of. But what are some of the areas, I mean we've talked about like Tulum and the Mayan Riviera is a super hot one, if not one of the hottest that I've heard about. But yeah, what are some of the areas that people should really be paying attention to?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean certainly, I guess certainly Tulum just. It's just been extraordinary just to see the strength of rental demand throughout Covid and throughout the crisis. Now obviously it's been an extremely bizarre year in most resort destinations because travel has been off the table. So Mexico has been the exception there just because Mexico has been very welcoming of visitors from right across the world throughout kind of within markets. We've seen places like Languedoc in France, places within three hours of Paris, just rentals there just absolutely spiking as a direct result of COVID But looking beyond looking to the return of travel, these internationalized places that have been core to the Rita beat, they're just a wound spring right now, it's just ready to pop because these are places I'm talking about places like the Costa del Sol in Spain, the Algarve in Portugal, the Riviera Maya in Mexico. Here in where I am, Medellin, Colombia, these are all the internationalized places that have been attracting people from right across the world. They were on these strong growth trajectories. And now all Covid and this crisis is going to be is just the biggest accelerator imaginable because people are thinking the unthinkable. I'll tell you just even just last summer, there's a Golf trip. I go on with a group of my buddies and they're all kind of corporate and, you know, they're working in consulting and banking or professions. And they. Up to last year, they looked at my life and they just, like, they couldn't understand it. And last summer we had, we had a domestic golf trip within Ireland. And I mean, two of the eight made a three week trip of it. They brought the family, got the Airbnb, and they nipped out for four days. Everyone was working remotely. They were. Their lives all of a sudden were mirroring mine. And all of a sudden it was just completely normal. You know, that is just a game changer because, you know, so, for example, with, with my condo in the Silver coast, in the, in the Algarve. The Silver coast in Portugal. Excuse me. I think I posted like my entire mortgage repayments, plus my holding costs are less than what the property taxes would be for that apartment in California. So it's a beachfront apartment. On my terrace, I see the waves crashing. I bought it with a mortgage. My mortgage repayments are like €700amonth. My property tax and my HOA fees and everything are okay.

We had a quick little Internet glitch and Ronan froze there, but we're back. So Ronan, you were talking about. Yeah, basically the cost of living in this place.

Yeah, exactly. When the world is your oyster, you know, there are just places that you can go where you can just cut your living costs, cut your real estate costs, cut your taxes, you know. So, for example, the home I have on the Silver coast in Portugal, it's a beachfront condo. My, my mortgage plus all my holding costs are less than what that condo. The property taxes would be on that type of condo in, you know, where you are in, in California. So, yeah, so I've got a beachfront condo. See the. See and hear the waves crashing from my terrace. See the surfers. And my mortgage payments are €700amonth. My holding costs kind of top out at about 200.

So for, for a beachfront place.

Beachfront, right on the beach, you know.

One, I know you'd listen to the podcast I did with Andrew from Nomad Capitalist, and I think I mentioned it on there, but it was maybe in this past year that I just had this epiphany. And it's a very common sense one, but when it kind of hit me that, you know, I'm sitting around, you know, I do well. But it always be nice to know, all right, at what point could I just say how much wealth do I Have to accumulate to just say, screw it, I'm kind of done. Or at least I just only do what I want, et cetera. And I was just thinking about, as we all do from time to time, our overall life, our nest egg, our wealth. And because my wife and I are willing and able to live elsewhere, live nicely, but in places that cost a lot less in other countries, et cetera. Like, if I'm able to. If I'm willing and able to live somewhere that costs a third the cost of living in San Diego, which is quite a few places, it's like, does that mean I just tripled my net worth? And it kind of does. When you think about, like, what is your net worth there for? It's there to take care of you for your cost of living so that you don't run out of money. And I was like, you know, we really could get a lot more juice out of the squeeze. And my problem with, like, San Diego is spoiled me so much. I love this city, everything about it. The weather, the people, the scenery, the topography and everything. And all the things to do that. Moving anywhere else in the continental United States is almost like off the table for me. But moving to places that are international, beachfront, cosmopolitan, just maybe even being in a couple places is very enticing to me, especially if you can do that, live as well, if not better, for a lot less of the cost of living. So that epiphany really caused my wife and I to start to open our brains and minds to what's possible. You know, doing this in addition to having friends now who have done this for years and absolutely love it and say, you know, you don't really know what you're missing out on. And I think that's probably the biggest thing is that this is such a lifestyle change for some people. Now, granted, if they just look at it as an investment or investment plus lifestyle. But for your business specifically, I would think that, yeah, this past year has just done more to accelerate people going. If I can work from anywhere, why am I working from here?

Yeah, absolutely. Accelerator is the word. Absolutely. And I guess my business and the RETA deals is finding international investment opportunities. And then this kind of accelerator is pushing people like you and pushing people like me as potential renters into these places, just fueling more demand. And I think it's important to kind of to parse out the investment side and the lifestyle side. So, for example, I have kind of very clear and distinct buckets about what's an investment just to make money, what's an investment in lifestyle. And then in terms of where I physically put myself, I'm absolutely not a tax expert and caveats and all that. But over about the last seven years, I've put together this kind of puzzle of just where to physically organize myself, where I'm just kind of weighing up the various considerations and you've considerations about what taxman do you want to be answerable to? I mean, you don't have the choices that I have in that regard because you have your worldwide consider consideration. So as an Irish citizen, I've got certain advantages in that regard. But I can choose who my taxman is. I can organize my life around weather. You know, I want to be always in spring, like weather. I never want heating, I never want cooling. I want to be close to family, I want to be close to friends. So basically it's actually quite a. It's a really fun puzzle, but it's actually quite, quite, quite complex. Literally. It took me seven years of trial and error to put together. You know, first I moved to the Riviera Maya in Mexico as my winter base. But that is a place I love to spend time to vacation, to hang out, but it's just too hot and humid for me to be working and to be thinking yet. So. So then I moved to Cabo. I was spending more time in Ireland. I've condensed that down and taken Portuguese residents because that's extremely tax beneficial to me. It's not nearly as tax beneficial as other places could be, but I don't want to be in those other places.

Yeah, you got to weigh the financial and the lifestyle thing because it's not just, it's not just one or the other.

Exactly. So I mean, I've 20% tax on employment income in Portugal. If that was in Ireland, it would be north of 50%. If it was in other places, it could be zero. But I don't want to be in those other places.

Exactly.

So it's a very fun puzzle to put together.

I was just going to say, yeah, at least the seven years of trial and error have been probably one of the more fun puzzles.

You could think they've been a lot of fun, but. But then here's the big post. Covid twist is that in my homes I was buying two bed turnkey units and then Covid came along and we do everything on Zoom. So now I need to find a new place with an exercise room and a studio. It's a never ending process.

Absolutely. I came across something just this week and it's. This is Kind of just a side note, but I just. I just remember thinking about it. There's a company I believe it's called. Have you heard of Picasso? P A C A S O.

No.

So I think their website is P a c a s o.com picasso.com. and what they do. They just raised $75 million after, like, after like five months. And their whole business model is letting people do fractional ownership of second homes. So, for instance, I'm on pacaso.com right now. For anybody who's watching the video of this, I'll share my screen and they'll, here, we'll get a little treat. But if you're just listening, you'll have to go there on your own. But here, it's like the modern way to own a second home. So they buy these homes for, let's say, I don't know, what's 200 times, you know, 8, 1.6 million. And then they fractionalize it and, you know, and let people have, you know, right to use. It's not that different than regular vacation ownership, et cetera. I was. I was blown away when I saw this article that they raised $75 million and after just five months of this. But I was always curious on different ways to, you know, different angles on this. I've. I've heard other stories about people going in, like, networks of friends, like, hey, look, I'll buy a place here, you buy a place there, and then we'll kind of all, you know, share in it. Where people buy properties together, like, you and I are friends. We'll buy something.

You'll spend.

You can spend six months there, right? Well, let's say you could spend two months there. I could spend two months there, and then we'll rent it out and share the income. I don't know if you, you guys. Rita.

Ever like.

Like see people doing things like that or help organize it. I just always found it a very fascinating concept.

It's a very cool concept. So, I mean, you could have a situation like, myself and my wife don't have kids. My sister has kids. She's going to want to use a vacation home during school holidays. I don't want to be in a vacation destination at school holidays. So it's really, really complimentary. So we see it a lot. It makes a lot of sense once the personalities and the relationships are right. And, you know, just to be, you know, people should just be very careful about just kind of documenting the rules for how this is going to happen.

I would think that that would be the hard part is like, wait a minute, I want to use it. No, I do. And you get into fights. I remember years ago, I think it was like 2000, 2006, a friend of mine named Dale was trying to organize doing something like that with islands in Belize and buying them and then fractionalizing the ownership to wealthier individuals to like, yeah, you get a month at an island. But I hadn't even thought about that at about 12 years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's an idea that we've been toying with for some time. And you know, way back in 2004 we kind of started and then folded a version of it. But it's essentially a club. And this club membership gives you access to say, you know, you buy it in increments of a month, stay in any of our properties. And the idea is that we create a critical mass of properties in our core destination. So these are the places that we think are really cool and fun places to visit, to live and to spend time. And say you would join as a subscriber, you get access to the properties, you get access to the concierge services, you get access to all the rest of our research that goes along with that. And we just haven't pulled the trigger.

It makes sense. And I mentioned before we started recording that one of my best friends lives down there in Cabo.

Carlos.

If you're listening to this, Carlos, this is kind of episode, look me up, Carlos.

I mean, I'm in Kvira, over the hill from you.

But he, because he sell, he sells vacation ownership for like Weston Marriott, different companies like that. And yeah, I know that that industry even moved from in like the older days, like just general timeshares. You're buying at a single place, et cetera. Now you're more so buying, you're, you're buying access to the network of properties that maybe Marriott or somebody owns. But I could see by having like with Rita, I could, I could see an interesting idea.

We'd do it with our friends at International Living and we'd identify those places that are maybe much more international living places. So, you know, sometimes there's an overlap between say the kind of the resort locations and the more kind of independent minded traveler places. You know, Tulum is an example of that. But then there's a lot of other places like Chiang Mai and Thailand, like Medellin and Colombia. You know, these are places where you won't find the big vacation clubs and timeshare companies. And also I think it's inherently A different experience. So, you know, it's maybe, maybe those resort and vacation club experiences, maybe that's the gateway drug to our world, you know? Right.

Yeah. Because like, for instance, you mentioned Medellin. I love Medellin. I spent a month there, like, like Christmas and a half ago and a week there before that. And I've got friends who live there and I've thought about buying there. But that, that's a great example. It's more of a city you're not going to see like the big resorts, you're not going to probably see timeshare, vacation ownership, places like that. But like, let's say there was a penthouse condo somewhere in El Poblado, you know, area or something of that nature as part of the network. I could see that really kind of.

A cool, curated different experience to kind of to make the business work or to make the experience work, you know, you need a, again, you need a critical mass of properties because, you know, if there's only one Poblado penta. So our idea there is to kind of create nice but homogenous units in a small building, but with really special outside spaces. So in Poblado, you'd have a really cool roof terrace, you'd have a cafe downstairs, you'd have workspaces, you'd have a library and there'd be this kind of club vibe. So nice.

Yeah, that's cool. So would it be like pre development or would you guys take over like a something? I guess it just depends on the deal. But take over something that exists and rehab it?

Yeah, it would be either. But in terms of the pace, if we were to do it, you know, we also looked at kind of leasing some existing condo hotels and, you know, doing them up. So there's a number of ways that could do it. But you know, the kind of the practicalities of putting the puzzle together again is that you want the critical mass of destinations to be, to be there in place. So if I'm offering this club membership to you, you know, we want to be able to say, yeah, today you've got Medellin, Tulum, Chiang Mai Portal coming destinations are A, B and C. So it's a bit of a complicated puzzle to put together. But yeah, you've got me thinking now.

Yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff. And just now, like as we mentioned, there's this new zoom Boom.

Right?

Was that your newsletter?

Who said that?

Or was I?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I, yeah, I don't think, I'm not sure if we came up with the term we probably didn't.

But I like.

Yeah, right.

And it was like, yeah. How to cash in on the zoom boom where people are now just they're opening their eyes to all the different possibilities that never really existed before when it comes to, especially in like the Latin, Latin, South America areas. You know, you mentioned Nicaragua in the very beginning. Are there certain places that just really kind of aren't ripe yet for these kind of investments? Like I've heard of different people who live in Nicaragua and have found like smoking hot deals there, but I would imagine that it's not, I could be wrong here, but that it's not probably not good for short term rentals. Like you're probably, they're not probably getting as many tourists as like a Costa Rica would.

Yeah. So I mean Nicaragua is a kind of a difficult one because well, they had this really, they were on this great upward trajectory of just a fabulous product for short term rentals. Just amazing vacation experience in my opinion. You just get so much more of what would be perceived to be a stereotypical Costa Rica experience in Nicaragua for a lot less. And then there was the issues in 2018. Excuse me. And then after that, you know, you've got Covid. So it's just been crisis on crisis with Nicaragua, which was getting its, getting itself to a really, really good place where it was emerging as a really recognized, really recognized tourism destination for eco travelers and surfers. But it was on its way and I mean it is just a beautiful country. I mean it's just one of my favorite places to visit and spend time and the people are amazing. So it's really, really sad to see the kind of the hardship, the additional layer of hardship they're going through in particular since 2018. So you know, it comes down to niches. So even, you know, again, aside from COVID even after the kind of 2018 crisis, the market there was, was starting to recover in particular for that kind of surfer niche. And I mean, I'm not a surfer, I don't understand it, but I'm told that the surf there is world class and it's reliable because they have these winds that come off the lake. So it's world class and it's reliable and it's an amazing destination. So they just had this really kind of strong market of surfers from young to middle aged. And but so again the blue chip places, just those places like Costa Rica's southern zone, like the Algarve in Portugal, Spain's Costa del Sol, these places are just machines because they Attract people from all over the world from all sorts of walks of life. So. So for example, in Europe when the 2008, 2009 crisis was hitting, interestingly shortly after that, you had say the Arab Spring in Northern Africa. So what did that meant? That meant a flood of money from Northern Africa and the Middle east coming into places like the Costa del Sol. Likewise with Paris. So these internationalized places just suck people and money in no matter what's happening. Likewise Panama City in Panama. When the North American market was really struggling 2008 and 2009, things were rough in Colombia and Venezuela, so people and their money were moving to Panama. So, you know, it's unfortunate, but I'm generally kind of very slow to back until a place has kind of reached a, a critical mass of that it would be really, really difficult to kind of to knock it off track. And again, the Riviera Maya in Mexico is one of those places that gets. It had swine flu, it had the 2008 crisis, it's got Covid and it just keeps coming back stronger and stronger.

I don't see that anything negative happening there. I mean with the only exception of it just getting overrun now. Like the only negative things I've heard about to is people like, ah, it's just gotten so overdeveloped, so congested. Like that street, you know, I'm sure you've been to Tulum, but you try to go down that street to the various hotels. We took a, we took a like a mile and a half cab ride and I think it cost US$30 because it was just bumper to bumper. Yeah, but still love it there.

The.

You mentioned Costa Rica. That's another place that I've, I've heard like I've been to Costa Rica once, absolutely loved it it. But I've also heard that, I mean that's been one of the big hotspots for expats like going back 10, 20 years. I've heard that the cost of living has gone up and that a lot of the deals aren't there, that they used to be and that people aren't really looking there as much. But I don't know. Have you. What are, what's your been your consensus on?

Yeah, so I mean, I guess firstly kind of in terms of when I look at very kind of specific kind of micro markets and micro plays. So Mexico isn't a thing for me, Tulum is a thing and et cetera. But so within Costa Rica, I see very strong opportunity in the southern zone. So this is the area that down south, where up to 10 years ago was almost inaccessible. Or you could get there, but it would take you 13 years to drive there. The early development all came in the Pacific North Northwest. The southern zone was overlooked. Two thirds of the land is national park. It's so difficult to get any kind of permits for water, any kind of development. Their development is really restricted. There's still opportunities there, I think that will stay really boutique. It's, it's relatively high end boutique. It will stay that way. You're going to have more demand chasing very limited supply. So there's an opportunity there outside of that, I mean lots of Costa Rica disappoints me, you know, I mean I was in Jaco. I think it was just. Well, I guess it's a year ago now. Yeah, it was this February last year. And I think we stopped at like a very ordinary pizza place on the side of the road and you know, it's like $40 for two pizzas and a couple of Cokes, you know.

Yeah, it's expensive, right?

It's like expensive by any standards. By New York standards, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean Cabo San Lucas here too is expensive. You know, I'm here my time here, I'm living in a location for weather and family reasons that, that is extremely expensive or is expensive.

Yeah. And it's not, I mean it may be cheaper than some like living in San Diego for instance, but it's not. You don't go down there for like bottom of the barrel prices and just living like a king for pennies.

It's exactly, exactly. And I mean those places are, I mean in January I was in Chiapas, which is in the south of Mexico and oh my God. Anyone looking for a travel experience that I thought is just wonder of the coolest places I've been to in a, in a really, really long time.

I've heard of Chiapas, but I've never heard of anybody traveling there. And I don't think that. I think in Oaxaca like Huatulco is a, like I've got some friends who go down there occasionally. Have you been to Huatulco before?

Years ago, about 15 years ago. I hear it's beautiful and I'm dying to go back. So Chiapas is to the east, right smack bang with your border in Guatemala. It's kind of indigenous area. It's very Central America feeling just the place, just the natural beauty is just absolutely out of this world. The waterfalls and lakes and rivers and you know, it's, it's A place that I would have never even considered. But you know, my wife who's Mexican has been saying for me for years, let's go, let's go, let's go. And finally, finally we went and we're going to go back again next year. But that's a place where, oh my God. You know, just amazing food, like amazing cosmopolitan food from right across the world. Amazing street food and it's all just for nothing. Like right there in chapel in Chiapas. Yes. San Cristobal de la Casas is the kind of colonial city which is just, it's a really, you know, it's just I've been kind of going back and forth as to whether San Cristobal or San Miguel de Allende is my favorite colonial city in that's been on our.

List to go to as well as San Miguel.

Yeah, go to San Miguel first and then maybe the following year go to Chiapas. San Cristobal is a bit more of a travel experience because San Miguel, you know, there's lots of Americans, Canadians and Europeans there and it's. But San Cristobal is, is, it's, you know, us as kind of English speaking visitors are still a bit of a novelty.

That's why I love traveling with my wife. She speaks Portuguese and Spanish fluently. So I got my little translator wherever we go.

Exactly.

That's why I married her. Let's be your translation abilities. But that's, that's super cool. The, the. I gotta admit though, the, the hunt has been a little bit over. Not overwhelming, but it's that feeling of I don't know what, I don't know. And then with like, with Rita, like you guys keep seemingly coming up with new deals and stuff and I almost feel like I don't want to miss out. I don't want to wait for the next one. How, how often do you guys typically release new deals to the community? Because I've only been a member for a few months here.

Right. So the deals come when they come, but typically there'll be a big deal maybe eight times a year and then in between there'll be these flash alerts or these kind of smaller amounts of available ability. So. But pretty much every month there's a meaty opportunity. Yeah.

Are there any, are there any upcoming, as of the time of this upcoming cities that kind of like that you're able to talk about?

Don't get me started. So coming soon, we're going to have a very. I'm just back from Port Vallarta, so we've got, you know, I, I put boots on the ground in kind of 13 different opportunities that I really like. Two or three of them will come in the near future. Some of those are as much as two and three years out. So two of those are imminent. But within the next few weeks, we'll be launching a Puerto Vallarta opportunity. We've got something big and new coming in Tulum. We have a beachfront and marina community just outside, just in Progreso, which is just north of Merida in the Yucatan in Mexico. Coming soon again, fabulous project. From best in class to developer Spain and Portugal. We have of bank foreclosure deals, two cases of completed inventory straight from the bank. They've been just kind of sitting idle for 12, 13 years. They're in the process of being tarted up now and will be released in the early summer. Spain and Portugal is just in the process of starting to reopen again. So a good chunk of that has been.

Well, and those are the ones that typically have some decent bank finance financing, you said.

Right. So, yes, but not always. Okay. So with these bank with the bulk inventory ones, typically it will be 70 or 80% finance from any bank. So the bank foreclosures fall into kind of two buckets. One is standalone properties where they may give 100% financing. Then if they're releasing a batch of inventory, those will typically go through a more conventional mortgage route, which is 70 or 80% finance. So still pretty good. Medellin. One of my research team is in Medellin at the moment. We've exciting things coming, exciting things there which are typically standalone deals. These are one off sales from motivated sellers. We have in Costa Rica's southern zone. We're working on a new deal and a new release of ocean view condos. Those will our ocean view lots. Those will likely be after the summer. Summer within the next kind of two months or so, we're going to have lots in Uruguay with developer finance that are kind of ahead of the path of progress. So I'm not sure if you're familiar with Uruguay, but seen it on a map. Yeah. So you've got this incredibly glitzy resort town called Punta del Este. And that's.

Oh yeah, I've heard of that.

Yeah, yeah. So that's glitz and glamour. It's the, maybe the Saint Tropez of South America. It's where all the Argentines come for their summer breaks. And it's, you know, so you follow the coast along there. The path of progress and development is going into the province of Rocha. It's absolutely beautiful. Actually, Uruguay really reminds me of Portugal. It's basically like a southern hemisphere version of it. They've got the pine forest, the Atlantic beaches, just really nice, kind of quiet, low key, really nice people, hitchhikers everywhere. I mean, even in Ireland people don't hitchhike anymore, but in Uruguay.

No, we just use Uber now.

Same thing. They're out there hitchhiking like it's.

Karen's always told us, don't get into car, don't hitchhike, don't get into cars with strangers. And now that that business model is one of the biggest businesses in the world.

Exactly, exactly. So Uruguay. Uruguay is a really cool place actually too that you know that there are investment. There are investment opportunities now because there's motivated Argentinian sellers. So this is the place where Argentine money flows. And you know, again, Argentina has just been crisis on crisis on crisis. So many of those have been forced to send sell land or sell their Punta del Este vacation condo.

Nice. And Uruguay is the one that they do have beach access. It's Paraguay that doesn't.

Right. One of the correct. Uruguay has. Has fabulous Atlantic beaches right up to the border with, with Brazil.

Right, that's. That's fantastic. Do you guys. Do you guys ever do. Is it all international or do you guys do ever. Anything in the United States proper?

Is that just. Yeah, no, we, we, we, we. I guess maybe I would consider it if there was a moment and an opportunity. But the thing with the US is that there's just so much competition. There's so developed. Yeah, yeah. There's just so much money, so many people. You know, there's so much local knowledge. You see, we can go to places and we can, we can kind of identify the San Diego of the 1930s or the 1940s, identify these mass migration moments, these new middle class, these transformational events. We can bet on not California, but the California of Europe, which is maybe Portugal.

Well, you guys just did a Panamanian deal on. What was it? Playa de Caracol.

Playa Caracol, yeah.

Yeah. And I think wasn't I guess some of the inspiration behind the development going to be like a Huntington beach or that Southern California feel?

Exactly, exactly. So, but most interesting, and thanks for reminding me with this Panama situation at the moment is that basically Panama has created just this incredible tax break for developers and investors in tourism infrastructure. Tourism infrastructure like vacation rentals and hotels and all that. So basically 100% of the cost of construction of vacation condos are hotels that meet Certain criteria is granted as a tax credit and then the developers, our investors, can resell that tax credit. There's an open market for these tax credits. So basically it just changes the cost base of development. They're just beyond all recognition. So that's why we at RITA were able to sit down with the developer of this beachfront master plan community and say, you know, we want savings of $60,000 per condo because we want our piece of. Basically the savings you're making from the tax credit.

Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.

But absolutely, Huntington beach, the developer, Alfredo Alleman, his architect team, the whole kind of inspiration, the whole kind of original mood board for their plans was Huntington Beach. And that's the concept and the inspiration.

You know, that one's gonna take a few more years to get done.

Right.

Because they have to develop that whole area.

Well. So, I mean, already within the community there's about 300 units developed and there's restaurant and there's a surf club. And then for the Pueblito, which is the town centre, that's going to take about four to five years to get done. But things move fast there. I mean, it just blows my mind, you know, to see the pace at which stuff gets done. Whether it's in Mexico or Panama, right across the third world compared to places like Ireland and Portugal. I mean, man, things move sleepily and slowly and it's like we're in Latin America, right? No, in Europe.

Oh, in Europe, okay.

It's opposite, man. Things just happen here at breakneck speed. It's just the.

I thought, I would have thought it would been the opposite of just like the, you know, then taking the time. Granted, I've got. I'm hearing stories from my friend who owns a couple of penthouses in Medellin and he's like, ah, yeah, they kind of get to it when they get to it. Granted, these are private like subcontractors who are working on.

Yeah.

Remodels of the house.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, there is. Is a big part of the manana. But the big stuff you see just all the obstacles, like, I mean, if you look at. You want to build a new Huntington beach up the road from. I mean, can you imagine what's that going to take? Like 30,000 years? You know, just that the timeframes are unthinkable. The red tape is just, it's just impossible. And you know, the developed world is all like that. And things are, things are, are clearer in these other places. Like, I mean, you know, in Ireland, pretty much anyone can object to basically anything. And if I don't like what you're doing with your home, I can tangle you up in an objections process for five years. It just doesn't work like that in places like Panama and Mexico. And of course, that's not all good. You know, of course, in that kind of furious development, you know, not so good, not so nice. You know, bad stuff, bad stuff happens. But. But stuff does move. That's the. That's the reality.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

You know, we, earlier in the thing we had mentioned, like, crypto, do any of these developers. Because as I pay attention to the crypto world, a lot of people are sitting on gains, et cetera, and looking to spend with that. Do any of the developers ever accept crypto as payment or anything of that nature? Because I would think that with such a class of people who are now newly wealthy, that that would be an interesting angle to look at.

It became a bit of a. It became a bit of a gimmick, I think maybe about a couple of years ago, but really they weren't accepting crypto. They were pricing things in crypto and then you had to move. It just seemed like a gimmick. So I'm not aware of it, but I'm guessing, I'm presuming it is happening, but I'm not sure whether they're actually accessible.

Also, when you go international, especially places like Latin America oftentimes are a little bit behind the technological developments of, you know, the. The first world. So there might be like, just pay us in cash.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, again, sometimes they're behind and sometimes they're ahead. You know, you like. I mean, it's like the. The whole thing of cell phone rollouts.

That's a great point.

Yeah.

So America's so far behind the rest of the world in terms of cell phone technology and rollout.

Yeah, yeah. And you have places like Africa that just missed the whole landline thing completely. And so the, you know, the thing about the developing world, it's a very, very mixed bag. It's a very mixed bag in terms of, you know, IC situations in Portugal and Spain and Europe that just blow my mind in terms of just how arcane and slow moving and again, that, you know that. So, yeah, I wouldn't make any assumptions because things can be a very mixed bag with some things very, very sophisticated in these markets and other things much less so.

Speaking of those differences, one of the things my wife wanted me to ask because she, you know, she's in the loan business. And we're looking at, I can't remember which deal it was, I think it was one over on the Algarve whatever. But and you mentioned it here is some of these places have like an 8% closing cost. Now that's expensive compared to closing costs. In the United States if you're just buying a residential piece which might be like 1 or 2%, but is that something that is pretty normal in whether it's in Europe or Latin America is like a little bit high, like higher closing costs as opposed to percentage?

Yeah. So in most of these places you'll have for Americans relatively high closing costs but tiny property taxes. So in Portugal and Spain the range can be like 8 to 12 per percent. Some of them can be extremely high. But then your property taxes are almost nothing. So if you're holding for any kind of land length of time, it works in your favor. It becomes a kind of a big cost. If you're flipping fast, then in places like Mexico it's generally around 5%, so lower.

That's not bad. And then on a lot of these places, especially the developments, let's say in Tulum, for example, are the HOA fees reasonable? Because I'm used to HOAs and like some San Diego and places like that. But so that's obviously something you have to factor in. I would imagine most of these places have some kind of an HOA fee.

Yeah, yeah. So like a kind of a typical two bed, two bath condo in Tulum would probably be in the range of 170, $180 per. Per month.

Okay, that's not, that's not terrible for sure.

Yeah.

Speaking of that, okay, let's say you're looking for a property. We'll continue on this Tulum example. If you were going to buy a property in Tulum for a combination of like spend a month or two there a year and then rent it out the rest of the time. One bedroom versus two bedrooms. So I've heard kind of like some of the people I've talked to, you get a little bit of differing opinion. One being that the one bedroom is, might have higher demand because it's just like maybe husband and wife going down, they just want to get a one bedroom, two bedroom. You can get more but there may be lower demand. Do you have any insights on what would be better as far as.

Yeah, I mean I'd have a big leaning towards two bed but on the lower of the lower price range of the two beds. So a spacious but not top of the range kind of range, two bedroom. So in particular now this has become even more acute with the working from home to have the extra office space, even for a couple, even for people down there for two or three weeks. But you just have much more options with the two bed.

Yeah, I would think so. And that's one of those that we were looking at. But then I was thinking, well, yeah, I wonder if one bedroom would be just easier to just send people through. But any place that we bought it would be a place that we'd want to spend a couple, at least a couple months in. And I imagine if you're living in Tulum or Cabo or someplace like that, you're going to get some visitors, people want to come down and stay with you.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Granted, that's having a one bedroom was a good way to go. No, get a hotel.

Exactly. That's your case. For one bedroom.

I got no room. Yeah, get a hotel. Ronan, what's in your business right now? And with this, like, what's a nut you're trying to crack? And this is where I or my audience has maybe an opportunity to raise their hand and go, I might be able to help him with that. And by a nut you're trying to crack, I mean, this could be, it could be particularly a particular challenge. You're trying to figure out a person or people you're trying to hire, a thing you're trying to accomplish and just kind of going, man, if I could just get this out of my way, that would be easy. Is there anything kind of on your plate?

Yeah. So, I mean, great, great question. I mean, I suppose the, our business fits in kind of in. Well, it fits in multiple worlds really. You know, kind of, I guess one of the, one of the big things that we've been trying to figure out over this past year is how we can kind of create really cool video content. How we can kind of all our RITA reports and all that, that those have all been written because an integral part of our business before COVID was, hey, we're going to show you in our words what an amazing place and opportunity is. And now we're going to give you a way that you can visit as part of a members only scouting trip. Now those trips aren't happening, so we're trying to recreate that in video. And we've been making some good strides in that. I mean, we're, I think we're making great strides. But again, that's a kind of a nut we're trying to crack. One of the other big Things that we've been trying to crack is how to get better at business to business marketing. So our target for that is if you're a developer in the Dominican Republic and you've got this incredible project and you're looking for a group like us who will take up a percentage of the pre sales, how do you know we're there? So we're extremely strong in many of our core markets and my team has dotted around the place. But there's this broader thing that outside of our core areas, you know, I'd like to see more kind of incoming developer and opportunity seeking you out. Yeah, yeah. And so, and that's kind of, that's a tricky one. So we're trying to do a few things like case studies. Now for example in the, I think we're looking at the Forbes Mexico or the big business press in, in Mexico. So this is the type of publication that the developers we want to be talking to are going to be picking up. And so it's complicated because maybe you're usual, maybe these people aren't on LinkedIn. They might or mightn't. In Mexico they'd all speak English but in other markets they mightn't speak English. So how do we get. And these are typically, you know, big international business people, you know, so you know, do we try and target the marketing managers and move up from there? And you know, interestingly, one of my big ideas for how we do that is just to kind of create an amazing event, an event where to bring all these people to together. So again, you know, maybe we try and make a business out of, maybe we try and make a business out of our lead gen at that level. Because when we bring developers together for our events, amazing things happen. So for example, at our last gathering, which is our annual members only get together, we had kind of micro condo developers from Sao Paulo and Brazil come and meet kind of the premier developers in Panama. And all of a sudden the Panama guy is saying, jeez, I never thought about micro condos and how do you find a fridge that's this small? And he says that's fine, we've our own manufacturing facility. And you get all this kind of energy that's on the margins of the purpose of the event, which is to serve RETA members.

That's great. Yeah. So having kind of an industry event where it's not just for the RETA members to learn about the stuff but it's bringing in the developers, it.

Yeah, yeah.

So that they can connect with each other and you make it A useful. You become the useful hub in this.

Exactly.

With all the spokes of the wheels. Yeah, yeah, that actually makes, that makes a lot of sense because obviously they're all trying to get any edge they can and those relationships are huge. Plus if they know that you've got, you know, a bunch of people who are, you know, pent up demand for these properties, it even gets better. Plus I would think the more developers and the more other people you have from the outside, the more RETA members would want to come and just get.

I mean. Exactly. I mean this is the kind of the virtuous cycle, you know, the more members we have, the more bargaining power we have on reta, the more members absorb, the more bargaining power we have with developers.

Well, it's all about the network effect, right? Like one of the strongest effects in all of business is, is creating that network effect. And I would imagine it's not too hard to find out who the developers are in all of the places that you want to go to because I mean, there's only so many developers in every country and it's probably fairly public information to get who they are. I guess it's getting on their radar and making them pay attention to you.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's explaining the business model. So for example, in, in our core markets we're very well known and we have. And even in Mexico, for example, everyone's only a call away, but if there was a new market that we were looking to target, that could take a matter of years for us to build that up. So it would be great to be able to fast track all of that. Right.

Well I love the case study model and getting that out, out to people and it's direct response marketing. Right. 101. You get it out to those people and you get them to realize that, oh wow, this is how this resort in this country, or not resort, but development in this country sold out in a matter of time by leveraging the power of pent up demand from these people. Very cool. The business model is amazing. I imagine you travel quite a bit. You mentioned the members only scouting trips. Did Covid kind of cut those things off?

Yeah, killed us. Yeah. I mean we're trying to figure out how and when and under what circumstances now those can come back. But that was an integral part of your RETA membership and it will be one once, you know, once they come back. And those are trips to the places where the opportunities are. Typically they're very heavily subsidized by the developers and it's A chance for you to go there and put boots on the ground and do your due diligence.

What I imagine it is hard to make that decision if you've never been to that place before. And number two is once you're there, it's a lot easier to probably get somebody to say. To sign up on the spot and say, I'm in. This is great. Because you fall in love with the place, right? I know. That's one of the reasons. You know, my. One of the ways this whole thing, how I became a subscriber. I was in Tulum a couple months ago, and two of my close friends, Larry and Oksana, if you guys are listening to this, shout out. But they were saying, look, you really need to start looking in Tulum and some other places in Medellin. And so I started to say, okay, let me start exploring. And I found an article about. But I didn't know where to look or to start. I'm just going, I'm open to this, but. But what the hell do I do? And I'm pretty sure I found an article about, like, the hottest international real estate destinations. And it was on International Living and it was content marketing. Perfectly played it, led it.

I read it.

It was like, hey, Mayan Riviera is number one. Okay? You guys aren't dumb. And Medellin was on there. So then I read about Reta and I signed up and I paid the subscription and I dove into this. And then as I've been doing some research, you know, my wife and I were talking about Tulum as a potential option, and she goes, this is great. The problem is I haven't been there in 20 years. Like, I don't know. So, you know, we're going to go down in May, I believe. We haven't booked it yet, but for that reason of. Well, she'd want to take a look at it and get a feel for it. So I can. This kind of goes back to the importance of having the ability to get members there on the ground and going, okay, I get it. Like, I could see myself owning here. So, yeah, yeah, hopefully that is able to come back. I want to go on a members of this scouting trip sometime.

Tulum is a. Is an interesting one. I was there. So the first ever issue of International Living, written by International Living's founder, Bill Bonner, was about Tulum in. Was about Tulum. And he went there like, I guess it was 1979.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So, I mean, literally nothing. And he wrote this story about naked hippies Frolicking in the water. And so it just.

Although that probably hasn't changed too much.

That hasn't changed too much. But I mean there, there, there wasn't naked hippies spending 1500 bucks a night on a beach out there.

Back now it's naked successful hippies.

Exactly.

Sippies.

Yeah, yeah. So it was incredible to. I went down there with Bill and.

Bill lives in Nicaragua, Right.

He, he, he spends part of the year in Nicaragua. Part of the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's a home in Nicaragua and then Ireland for. Ireland for a good chunk of the year and then he's a ranch in Argentina as well.

Nice. That's not a, that's not a bad few places to spend your time. Bill can afford it.

Exactly.

That's fantastic. Well, that kind of brings us to the end of this episode. And for everybody who's listening, hopefully you guys agree that this thing was a, this has been a fun conversation and hopefully it's opened everybody else's, you know, mind and eyes to just really kind of what's possible. I never really, really, even as I said I didn't know what I didn't know and I found the resources. Is it realestatetrendalert.com right? That's the website.

Yeah, that's the members website. I think for any of your listeners, if they're interested in kind of taking a first step, I would Suggest going to internationalliving.com click on the real estate section of the website and there you'll find my free E letter. And there you can go through the free E letter archives and sign up for the free E letter. And once you're on that, Brad, as you'll be glad to hear, we'll give them plenty of opportunities to give us money and sign up for retail.

Oh yeah, well, to me it was a no brainer because I don't even remember what I'm spending. Was it like $300 a year or something like that?

Yeah. So there's a kind of a quarterly offer that will come in at about 500 a year or maybe you got a 399.

I don't remember what it was, but it was inexpensive for what you get. Because all it takes is one deal to kind of come across your desk and trying. Like, I just thought immediately, like, if I'm, if I'm at all interested in this, spending the time and money to do research on my own is just.

No, yeah, you know, I mean, the, like, I mean my whole kind of research and travel operation, you know, it's over a million dollars a year now. You know, there's, we've, there's a lot to this. You know, I mean, even personally, I couldn't do what I do, even in terms of my own investments without my, without my team support. You know, it just gives.

How big is your team?

So the core team is maybe 12 people. And then of course, that doesn't include all the external lawyers. We use all the external other lawyers.

In every country, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the kind of. That's the research team and then also the team who kind of work on all the copy and on the videos and all that. And then that doesn't include the international living team. Who are the marketers and publishers for.

Yeah, well, you know, and before I let you go, I actually was going to ask this earlier and I just remembered. So I've just started to kind of go. Start to see the process. So when a deal comes up and you kind of like, all right, guys, that's open. Explain the process to anybody else who's listening. So you're a member of Real Estate Trend Alert. A deal comes up in Tulum, Medellin, somewhere else like that. Explain the process of when that comes out, what people do in order to find out more information and then potentially put it down a deposit, how that works.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as much as possible, we'll kind of road map for you that the deal is coming, where it's coming, when it's coming. That's quite challenging because right at the moment I've got several deals that are waiting on a final permit. And once that final permit comes in, they go as much as possible. We'll give heads up that the deal is coming. Then for about the week or 10 days before the deal opens, we'll send you a series of reports. We'll send you a series of emails and reports that kind of. Each one focuses in on a particular element of the deal that could be the case for capital appreciation, the case for rental, the macro story about the place, videos about the developer. We'll introduce you to the lawyers and resources that you'll need if you, if you decide this may be for you, we'll introduce you to some of those resources ahead of opening so you can start to kind of get out ahead of your due diligence. Then typically it's at 1pm Eastern time on a Tuesday. We send an email which kind of summarizes the deal and says, now the deal is open to act. You inquire via a form and then you get a phone number. You can call that phone number and either speak with someone or you go. If the lines are busy, you'll get a call back. Then at that call you'll speak with a reservations agent, someone who works for the developer who will walk you through the deal and give you the opportunity to reserve a unit with a $5,000 fully refundable development deposit. So that secures your unit. And then typically you'll have a 15 to 20 day due diligence window where you decide if you're going to proceed or not.

Talking more to the developers, your attorneys, etc, etc.

Exactly. So then that's where you get your contracts. You'll go through your contract with your attorney, you'll pick your unit type. You know, you just kind of get the full picture as it relates to your specific condo and of course get your contract perfect.

Well that's good to know. For personal reasons and for everybody listening, that's, you can kind of see how this works. So if you're open discussing, even exploring the idea of living internationally or investing internationally or a combination of the two of them. I've been really happy, happy with what I've seen that you guys put together. It just kind of really. Yeah, really shortcut the process of trying to get comfortable going, okay, well maybe this is something we're going to, you know, look at and, and do. And now it's just deciding it, you know, do we want to put more emphasis on investment property or lifestyle property versus you know, one of the, one of the other. Because we could always go somewhere and rent for a while.

So. Yeah, yeah. There's also a kind of, of a quasi hybrid way of doing it which you know, I do here with, with my, with my condo in Cabo which is, I live in it part time and then I rent it for the, the, the other portion.

Absolutely.

Of the year. So there is a, there's, there's somewhat of a middle ground where you can kind of have a foot in, in both camps as well.

And that's, that's more of my wife and I's lifestyle. Like my ideal is to have about, about let's just say 2 to 3 what I would call it home bases per year and maybe one where it's like a couple of months, a month or two of just hey, let's pick something somewhere new and not have a. Own a place there, but let's just go spend time. That's ideally where we're trying to get to in our lifestyles. So I Appreciate you providing the resources to help shortcut that learning curve.

Thanks so much. And the journey is a lot of fun, you know, just enjoy it.

Absolutely. So if people want to find out more about this, I will have a link in the show Notes to International Living in the real estate section where they can, they can sign up for the free newsletter and probably get some great information on this. But if, if this is interesting at all, just take the offer, check it out. You'll get a great education on something that like the trial and error on this would be really expensive to try to do it on your own. And plus you've got negotiated discounts at the other places. That's the other beautiful part. You're not. People aren't just buying information from you. They're buying actual access to off market deals at discounts that they wouldn't be able to get if they went straight to the development developer. So that's, you know, fantastic. Ronan, I really appreciate your time on this today and who knows, one of these days I hope I look forward to sending, sending some money your way around about to a developer and an investment and taking advantage of one of your, of one of your Rita deals.

Yeah, well, hopefully I'll get to buy you a taco. A fancy Cabo taco. Or else one of these days I.

Told you about the Valeris deal. We'll have 12 flights to and from anywhere in Mexico here starting I think it is starting tomorrow. And I've got close friends in Cabo. I definitely plan on coming down there a decent amount of time. So I'll make sure to look you up and take you up on that. What was the taco? I had a one of the most amazing tacos in Cabo. I forget what it was called, but they had the band was on the roof roof and it was in this little courtyard and it was supposedly a really popular taco place down there that my friend Damian took me to. But anyway, I'll remember.

I know exactly what. Geez, I'm blanking on it too because I got married here in Cabo and it never rains in Cabo in November.

Let me guess, it rained on your wedding day.

The storm rolled in the night of our wedding day. Now we got the main event on the rooftop and the day after we were supposed to be doing a cruise, kind of a party cruise, but the port was flooded. So that was kind of, you're like, all right. So we had in the middle of a November downpour and it never rains in Cabo in November. We had our kind of day after wedding event there. And I'm just blanking on the name of it too, but it'll come to me and I'll text it to you.

Yes, yes, please do. Well, Ronan, thanks a lot for being on the show and for everybody listening and or watching. If you're watching the video version of this, thank you. If we have done a good job entertaining and infotaining, you subscribe to the show and if you have any questions, if you're a business owner and you've hit a plateau and you just can't really figure out, figure out what your next step is and you kind of like a second opinion or you just like to send a suggestion for another show topic, shoot an email over to ask bradakenwrappedbusiness.com and I'm happy to take a look at that. As always, Ronan, thanks a lot and I look forward to staying in touch with you and seeing what kind of deals you drum up, especially on some of these ones you've got in the pocket. Medellin is top of my list. Tulum and then Spain and Portugal intrigued the hell out of me as well. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what's coming out.

Thanks, Brad. Absolute pleasure.

Now talk to everybody else on the next episizzle.