A Women’s Guide to International Real Estate With Makeda Smith

Investing internationally is not just a dream, it's a real possibility for women real estate investors looking to diversify while still mitigating risk. In today's episode, we have international broker Marquita Smith. She's going to share how you can invest abroad. Let's get to work. International Investment, it seems like a dream, but we're gonna make in this episode a possibility for all of you that are listening. So, Makita, what is the one stereotype or one myth you would like all the women real estate investors that are listening drop today about investing internationally?

So normally I would say it's the thing when people say that it's a scam. So because people already talk about that every single day, I want to shift focus to talk about. I want to let people know around the world that it's not just for millionaires, multimillionaires, and billionaires anymore. It's actually for people who have the education and the knowledge. So it doesn't take a lot of money. You don't have to be at, like, a higher bracket in order to invest in real estate. You can buy something as little as land for like $5,000, $10,000 versus coming in trying to buy something that is a maybe a 3-bedroom penthouse, you know, off the beach. But at least start somewhere and get your foot in the door in international real estate space instead of thinking that it's not attainable for yourself and for your family.

Absolutely. Scams are everywhere, right? They might be on your backyard, on your neighborhood. I agree with you. It's all about getting the knowledge, vetting people, and making sure you're doing all your due diligence upfront, right? So let's, let's break that down, right? Number 1, why would people consider, should consider international investment nowadays?

Andresa, I would say, you know, for me being in real estate for the last 21 years, the last 3 years international real estate, we have helped about 24 families invest in international real estate. And so for me, I have saw prices in— let's take a market like Punta Cana. When I started in Punta Cana about 3 years ago, helping people to invest, the studio units were about $60,000. Now today, you cannot find a studio unit for about $60,000 in the Punta Cana space because they're like $115,000 and more. And so you don't want to miss the market or to miss the boat. And even looking at some of the statistics out there, they're letting us know that there is 320 $26 trillion in international real estate. And you have, you know, your market share as well, whether it's buying a condominium, if it's buying a townhome, or even like I said earlier, just buying a piece of land.

Lots of questions inside my head, and I bet all of you listening are like, wait a minute, I cannot find anything around my market, and I keep looking, looking, and I need to deploy my funds. So Where are the markets right now that people could consider that are not extremely hot and we already passed, we already missed that boat? What are the upcoming markets that we should pay attention to?

I would say, so upcoming markets, so we sell in the Dominican Republic, we sell in Dubai, we sell in Nigeria, we have Ghana. Ghana right now, I will say that it's like in between. Because if there's still markets and pockets in the country where you can buy at a discounted price, like for studio units that are like $45,000, of course, if you're like 5 minutes from the airport, it's going to cost maybe 3 times that amount of money. But there's still pockets in that country in which you can buy. And in June, I'm going to talk about an emerging market. So in June, we actually took about 30 investors to Zanzibar. And Zanzibar right now Even though there are, you know, little pockets of areas that tourism, tourism is very high, there's still pockets in that area, a majority of beachfront properties that can be bought for a little, like $120,000, $100,000, you can still get in. And then if you have people that have like disposable cash that, you know, maybe pulling something out of their 401k because people are pulling, you know, cash so that they can invest, you can get a whopping 30%, 40% discount on a property that may be $100,000 and something, but then it turns into like an $88,000 studio unit off the beach.

So let's talk a little bit more about the types of assets that we're talking about here. Let's, let's break that down for, for the listener. Are we talking condo? We're talking small multifamilies? Single-family houses? And what is the condition that we are looking?

So for me, I mostly sell in the markets where we are selling off-plan properties. So off-plan, meaning that they are new construction properties. Because I live in the United States, and I am doing real estate from— I always like to say my kitchen table. I, when it comes to people who want to like buy resale, or something that may be further out than like the capital in some of these areas, I I refer them to agents that are on the ground. So for me, I'm selling off-plan. Typically off-plan is going to be where they buy land now, they may build later, or they are buying in a new development where mostly they're condominiums. They could be villas, they could be townhomes. I have not yet sold any single-family homes. Those typically are higher, but I haven't had anyone that has been interested because most of our people who are buying, investors, they're from the United States. And so from the United States, they're not looking to like buy a single-family home. They're looking to buy something that can be short-term rental, something that they can take their families to when they want to go on vacation or want to travel to the country. But they're looking for something, you know, as well that sometimes they just want to flip it, you know, for profit.

Absolutely. Yeah, and that was going to be my, my follow-up question. What type of strategies that they are using? I've seen a lot of women here saying, well, I can have a property and rent it out in a place, but I am not using necessarily that property, right? So most investors are also looking to, well, might as well invest in an area where I would like to go. I would like to spend a couple of days there, and you kind of like enjoy that piece of property. So when it comes down to short-term rentals, I know the United States, depending on where you go, is very strict. Others is like a Wild West. How is internationally when it comes down to the legal piece of short-term rental?

So Andresa, I have a few different ways of looking at it. So let's take— go back to Punta Cana for an example. When it comes to Punta Cana, you know, that is a hotspot. People vacation there. I think last year in 2024, they saw 10 million tourism— tourists come through the country. They expect more for 2025. But when I'm talking and speaking to the investors who are investing in hotspots like that, it is for them to go and take their family. Like, for example, I have one investor from New York who purchased a 2-bedroom condominium in Punta Cana. And for that, she spent about $154,000. For her, she's looking at renting it short-term. There is basically no restrictions in these countries like Dominican Republic, like Ghana, like Dubai. But I always tell people, that is where it is now. Let's take another country like Greece, for an example. I'm just switching over to Europe because we travel to so many areas taking investors. And so going into Greece, To give you an example, we went and we looked at, um, properties that were, you know, near the water, um, inland a little bit. But the difference was that Greece has a Golden Visa program. So if you were to invest in the country as an investor, you would be able to apply for a Golden Visa and obtain residency and eventually citizenship of that country. And that's a major play. But for some of these countries, if people are investing at a record number, and now it begins to affect locals finding housing, which has happened in Greece. And so their threshold for investing to get a Golden Visa at one time was $300,000. When we went last year in April, they raised it to $500,000. And then 3 months later, they increased it to $800,000 investment to slow down the investments. So even though there were no restrictions, restrictions on short-term rental, there was restrictions on how many people can come at the rate that they were coming because people were like, I want citizenship in Greece, because Greece is also a hotspot as well with the multiple islands that you can hop to just taking a ferry. And so the government itself had to look at that and say, although we want investments in the country, we don't have, you know, restrictions, we need to increase the price so we can slow down the influx so that it doesn't affect the local people.

It seems very similar to what happened in Portugal, and I don't know if they still even have that open, right? Because you're in Europe, the population is not growing as fast, but that is the key. I have a quick follow-up question in regards to the buying a project that is on paper, right? That is building. I think one of the most, the biggest concerns that people have is like, I come from Brazil and there were a lot of projects there that people bought while it was still on the plan and it never came to fruition and the contractors disappeared. So I want to double-check with you, what is your relationship with the builders and how do you vet them?

I've been, I would say, very blessed because starting off in a market like the Dominican Republic, I joined a local brand there which was Keller Williams Punta Cana in that area. So that developer, well, that owner of Keller Williams, she was actually also a developer. And then she had relationships with other developers that were on the ground, which made it easy for me to tie into a brokerage that already had a representation, you know, on the island. And she already had a network. And so I tied into that network. And then from there, I multiplied. And then I got with a brokerage that was in Ghana And from there, she began to vet and had relationships with developers on the ground until I branched off and started working solo with my own network. And so now what that process looked like is making sure that I work with a reputable, a reputable developer on the ground that may have completed other projects in the past and has finished work. So typically, that's the development in which I'm going with. But I won't say that that's always the case because sometimes some projects come that can be near and dear to your heart. And so like we do have a developer and a project in Ghana and this developer is their first project. But what, what made me, drew me to that person, that developer in Ghana was the fact that I was introduced by someone who I respected. And then even in talking to that developer, he was being mentored by another development company and developer in that country who had already completed 7 projects and had been, you know, developing for 20 years. And so his engineer was overseeing that engineer project, which made it easy for me to say yes. And so I think for the most part, it's just vetting them. You can also go to like government websites and take a look to see what developers that they recommend, if anybody has been reported of doing any fraudulent activity. And just case in point, Andresa, in Dubai, There was a developer, a development there that was very popular, but the CEO ran off with like $400 million of like investors' money. And so what Dubai, what their government has put into place now, especially with new construction, is that the escrow now goes to the government. They charge a 4% for investors who are investing in the country, and then they are overseeing that whole project or transaction. So that they don't have a repeat of people coming into their country. Because you will find that— and I, I had to learn this going out into these international real estate streets— that there's money laundering that's going on at the same time. And so you have to be very careful, and that's why governments are now starting to put rules in place because there, there is laundering going on.

Got it. So when it comes down to Ghana, Punta Cana, uh, Dominican Republic, Dubai, what is the entry point that we are talking about when we, we are looking to an initial investment? What is the, the range that one will have to have in order to even play that game?

So I would say, um, it just depends because you know that when it comes to off-plan properties and investing international, you don't always have to have the cash up front. So we have people who invest and they get on what is a 2-year or up to a 7-year in Dubai payment plan to where they put down maybe 20 20% upfront, or 30%, 40%. The more you put in, the more or greater your discount on the actual property would be. And so for an example, um, we have one developer in Punta Cana. Um, their one bedrooms are $115,000. They're not furnished. However, it's only $2,000 to put down a deposit for that particular development, and then you get to pay over time. And so the initial installment is 20%, and then you get to break it up because a lot these developers that we have been fortunate to work with is that their payment plans are very flexible. So if we have an investor, you know, that puts down 20%, like after they put down that big chunk, most of the developers have been very flexible to say, hey, if you need a break, that's fine. You can start paying 60 days, you know, out from now with your monthly or either quarterly payments, however the investor wants to break it down. But they can get in for as little as $2,000 to deposit.

So let's, let's break down the financing piece a little bit because over here in the US you go to a traditional institution, you get an appraisal, and then you go on the LTV depending on what, what it is. How is it internationally? Do US investors use international banks, how do they evaluate and make sure that the project has the value that is being sold? Is it an appraisal process? Or, because I, I know in Brazil it's not, and I, it's a completely different, uh, blows my mind that they, they don't. It's more towards buyer and seller agreement per se if they are not using a bank. But regardless, how is the international markets that we are, we're talking here?

For all of my investors who have purchased so far, they have not used financing. Everyone is on a cash payment plan because in the beginning when we, we tell them, hey, you can get financing for a foreigner, but this is what the interest rate looks like. And across all of the countries except for the UAE, The interest rates have varied from like 7% up to 15% as a foreigner, because you are a foreigner investing in another country where you may not have residence. And so that is considered to be like high risk. So a lot of times when I show them the difference between them being on a cash payment plan and having an interest rate between 7% and 15%, they have always opted to go for the cash payment plan because they don't want to get tied into having to pay back all of the interest because the cash payment plan, you're not actually paying interest. The thing with me working in 7 different markets, 3 different continents, is that a lot of these countries don't have an MLS like you have here in the United States. So as an agent, I'm so used to going and pulling up comps in one system. But you can't do that international. So what we have asked the developers and what the developers are providing is like, okay, what are other off-plans or maybe something, a project that has recently been completed. Sometimes they will compare to maybe resale in the area. But that is homework that the developer has to provide us. And we have to also go out and find that information ourselves. Because sometimes you don't want to take just the developers, you know, word for it. It just all depends on reputation for me as well. So some developers, I do trust the data that they are providing. But it's going out and seeing those things. So you can look on like Airbnb to see like what studio units, 1-bedroom, 2-bedrooms are renting for. There are some pockets of different MLSs that are popping up in different countries, including in Africa. And they're like taking like maybe 3 or 5 different nations on the continent of Africa and wrapping it into into one system so that you can find some properties. But it is no law to where all the agents have to put their properties into, you know, this system. And so basically, you're on the internet just searching for this information.

Oh my goodness. My sister was actually buying a house in Brazil. And I said, okay, send me the link. And she sent me an Instagram link. And I'm like, I'm like, what is this? Like, she's like, well, that's the house. And I'm like, where are the comps? She's like, well, here are the comps, Instagram. And I'm like, what are you talking about? So I call a friend of mine who is a realtor. I'm like, hey, do you have your quote unquote, your MLS? She's like, no, every broker have their own. And I'm like, how the hell do you communicate among agencies? Over here, it doesn't really matter. We all are under one, one system so we can access everything. I don't know what Keller Williams has versus eXp versus other things. And they're like, well, not here. I'm like, it's so much more difficult. But at the same time, you have to do your due diligence when it comes down to the cash payment. I just want to clarify one thing. So who holds that? Is it like a local bank? Is it escrow? Or is the developer that is responsible for that?

For the most part, it is the developer who is holding the cash. There are purchase agreements. And the wildest thing to me, Andresa, is for me being from the United States, I always recommended my clients here use attorneys. And so I recommend the same thing for those that are purchasing international. But out of the 24 investors who have invested, I want to say only maybe for, have taken advantage of like utilizing attorneys to make sure that those things are in place. And so that also helps protect, but the escrow that the developer has is broken down into the purchase agreement, into the sales contract. But if something happens, like who's going to enforce, and maybe they will hire an attorney at that time. But for now, the attorney fees, you know, they get paid like realtors here in the United States. They get paid by 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%. It's no flat fee like it is here in the United States. And so some people are like, well, I'm not going to spend $2,500 in hiring an attorney, you know, abroad, even though you should make that investment because, you know, who wants to pay for it later just in case something happens? But people have been opting, you know, even out of that as well. But it's typically the developer who is holding the money. And in a few cases, there is an escrow, but you can request if you, you know, get into a contract or deal with an off-plan developer, you can request to have it to put in escrow. Now, whether the developer will agree, because typically they're using that money to actually build the project as they go along as well.

Makes sense. Last question for you in regards to tax, and I know you, I know you are not a CPA, neither a tax advisor, but how does that play into taxes here in the U— in the US? Can we claim anything from— or what is the— what is the implication?

So I'm not an accountant, but because I've been selling international for the last 3 years, we have hosted, you know, conferences and summits. And so I have an accountant to come in to talk about international taxes and what the implications or responsibility would be for anybody who is investing. So this is how she, she has broken it down, is that no matter where you are in the world, as a US citizen, the taxes are going to find you in any country. So it doesn't matter as long as you are still a citizen. However, there is so much money that you can make internationally and don't have to pay taxes on it. I don't know regarding this last bill that the government has put out, but previous to that, what she told us is that you can make up to like $100,000 outside of the United States without having to pay like additional taxes on it. Anything over, you would have to pay taxes. Now, please do go and verify that, you know, with your accountant. And then also, some of our people have opened up businesses in other countries. Some of them have also opened up checking accounts. And so we asked, like, okay, how much can we have, you know, in a checking account? And so it was up to, I believe, $10,000 for outside of the United States for you having like an offshore bank account. Anything over that, you definitely need to report back to the United States. And so Talk to your accountant about what that looks like, but having investments overseas as well is still good for you to be able to write off on your taxes.

Awesome. Makita, thank you so much for bringing such lots of great information about investing internationally. Where the women listening can find more about you?

They can find me on all social media platforms. Makita Smith Global, whether it's LinkedIn, Instagram, where you will see a lot of educational information. I go live with investors all the time. I have went live with my developers, and I'm just always, you know, making sure that we educate, educate, educate, because I want more people to get into this international real estate space. So Makita Smith Global everywhere.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here with us, Makita.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you, Andresa Guidelli, and InvestHer Podcast. Thank you so much for having me.