Make More by Buying Abroad?

Dave :
Do you ever think to yourself, man, I wish I had started investing back in 2010 when prices were low, or even just last year when rates were lower. Well, it turns out you still kind of can. Our guest today is talking about the time machine opportunities that exist in international investing.

Dave :
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. I am Dave Meyer, and today we’re talking to Michael Cobb, who’s a seasoned investor who owns properties all over the world, and he’s going to walk us through how to think about international markets so you can pick one that’s right for you. He’s also going to just talk to us about the trade-offs, and Michael does a really good job explaining why international investing is good for some people, hint, there’s really good cash on cash returns and there’s big opportunities, but that comes with some trade-offs, which hint is a little bit harder than investing in the United States, but I think Michael does a great job explaining who this is right for. So you’re definitely going to listen to if this is a strategy you should consider. And then at the end of our conversation, we’re going to talk about what concrete steps you can take if you’re interested in international investing, because I’m sure if you’re anything like me, you think it sounds interesting, but you wouldn’t even know where to begin. Michael’s going to help us with that, and this is a really broad topic. We could probably do a week’s worth of deep dives and content on it, but today we’re trying to give you sort of a high level 1 0 1 level course for anyone who wants to learn about this and is curious. Then you can go off and learn more on your own. So without further ado, let’s bring on Michael. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here,

Michael :
Dave. Glad to be with you. This is going to be fun today.

Dave :
Yeah, this is a topic I get asked about all the time and I know nothing about, so I’m going to steal everything that you tell me and use it in my everyday life. Well, good. And the topic I’m talking about is of course, international investing. That is Americans investing in non-US markets. So tell me about this. What are some reasons that real estate investors should look outside the US for real estate

Michael :
Investments? There are several powerful reasons. One is just simply diversification. The idea of having all of your eggs in one basket, right? Say the US for example, or Canada, whatever. But if all of your eggs are in one basket, that’s pretty concentrated. I think we can, sometimes we think about stocks, bonds, real estate, maybe metals, whatever. So we’ve got this diversified portfolio, but geographically they’re all still in one basket. And so diversification is really the primary driver, I think, for a lot of folks. But my favorite reason is that going overseas in many cases, if you go to the developing world, is getting in a time and going back in time and having this chance to do over what you might’ve missed another time. So to me, those are really the two reasons. I think the fun one is the time machine concept. It kind of broadens very quickly, but maybe something to explore on this too. So

Dave :
Can you explain a little more about what you mean by the time machine? Is it just that prices are cheaper? Well,

Michael :
Yes, I think in many cases they are right. But this idea, if you go to the developing world, I’ve got this popularity curve. That’s what I really call this a popularity curve. And so we’ve worked in Central America, that’s been our home turf now for 32 years. And so a country like say Nicaragua where I lived for 14 years, Nicaragua is not very popular. And a place like Cancun, Mexico is very popular. And the reason that we can look at it that way is to say, well, if somebody from Des Moines, Iowa got married this weekend, where would they go on their honeymoon on Monday? Lots of them going to Cancun, The Bahamas, maybe the Cayman Islands, very, very popular. Not very many of them going to Honduras, Nicaragua or maybe El Salvador. And so popularity has a lot to do with cashflow. It has a lot to do with appreciation, but it also has a lot to do with the kinds of opportunities that are available.

Michael :
A country like Belize for example, is really in the sweet spot of the curve. It’s maybe halfway up. It’s not nearly as popular as Cancun, but it’s far more popular than say Nicaragua or Honduras. And as a country moves to these stages of popularity, different things happen in the marketplace. So I know we’re dealing with real estate investors. If you are a real estate investor in the US and you like branded hotels, right? You’re probably not going to do so well in a country like Honduras or Nicaragua with the branded product because it’s just not mature enough. It’s not popular enough. And if you said, I’m going to go put a branded hotel in Cancun, you’re way too late. I mean maybe, but whatever. But a country like Belize for example, it’s the sweet spot. They’ve just got a very few branded hotels. And so if you’ve missed an opportunity, say in the US marketplace or the Cancun marketplace, the ability to have a do over is powerful. That’s the time machine concept that we really see a lot of real estate investors understand and grasp very clearly and then can take action on it.

Dave :
Got it. So it sounds like you’re looking for places similar to what you would try and do in the us You’re looking for places that are experiencing an increase in demand and you’re trying to identify those markets ahead of time and to invest in them before they get overly popular and prices go up accordingly. So Michael, how did you get started in this? It seems a little intimidating. What’s your story? Well,

Michael :
Many years ago, 32 years ago now, I went to Belize with a buddy of mine. He was doing some work. He’s an asset protection attorney. And so we went down there. He was doing some work for some doctor clients, and I was just along for fun, and I said, next time you come back, let me know. I’ll come with you again. And we bought a couple condos, incredible. And we bought condos on the beach for $80,000, which is just insane, ocean front condos. But what we quickly discovered was that the developer was financing a lot of the condo sales because no bank in the US would lend money on collateral in Belize, and no bank in Belize would lend money to a foreigner. So you had these developers, they didn’t know what they didn’t know. They went down there with a couple, 3 million bucks, they bought the land, they built the first 20 units, whatever it was, and then they had to finance all these sales.

Michael :
So they ran out of money. And so my very first business was to actually set up a mortgage company with my buddy, and we ran that business for about 10 years. We ultimately turned it into a bank. Now, 21 years ago, we turned it into a bank, but it’s still largely a mortgage provider to us Canadian clients buying properties now, not just in Belize, but throughout the region. But the second kind of piece of that was I was the guy on the ground. My buddy’s a lawyer, he does the deal, the titles, the money, that’s his kind of side of things. I’m the guy on the ground. So I’m the guy that has to walk into these condos and homes and look at the collateral, make sure it’s built well, and verify all the details of it. And what was amazing, Dave, was that I would walk into a condo and every door handle, say every door handle would be at a different height. The countertops were too high or too low. I remember walking into one living room where there was one outlet in the living room. They had two outlet strips with extension cords plugged into the outlet strips with outlet strips at the end of the extension cords to get power around this

Dave :
Living right.

Michael :
And my buddy and I, we just said, you know what? We could fix all of these problems basically for free and then deliver a product that would be a North American standard or a North American expectation product for the same money. And that was our genesis of our development company now 28 years ago. Yeah, and it’s been fun. Very

Dave :
Cool story. Congratulations. It’s a very, very cool story. Thank you. Very interesting. Well, I mean, it sounded like you got started early, mid nineties deals sounded great. Are there still good cash flowing deals that are relatively easy to come by in let’s just stick to Central America for the time being?

Michael :
Yeah, sure. And I can talk a little bit about Europe and a little bit about Asia as well generally, but not specifically. But yes, again, on this time machine, this path of progress, popularity curve, whatever you want to call it, different elements are relevant at different points. So if somebody said, look, I want cashflow. I’m okay to sacrifice a little bit of yield, but I want very high predictability, then I would say owning something in the Mayan Riviera like Tulum or Cancun or somewhere along that coastline, or maybe the Cayman Islands a place that’s highly popular, you’re going to pay more for the property. Of course there’s been significant appreciation, but you’re going to ensure the highest probability of strong cash flow. Your yield will be lower, you’re going to pay more for the property. But that consistency of traveler of renter is there. A country like Nicaragua, you’re not going to see much cashflow at all, but you’re going to see tremendous appreciation as that property moves up over time.

Michael :
Again, a country like Belize, Panama, maybe even some parts of Costa Rica, by the way, countries aren’t one thing, of course. I mean, it’s sort of saying the us, right? I mean that doesn’t work, right? So when you talk about countries, but you have to get more specific, but the country of Belize generally, and Amus key, San Pedro, the little town of San Pedro truly is I think in that sweet spot because it’s popular enough to cashflow. I mean, they’re giving away free weeks in agu key on Wheel of Fortune game show mean. So when it hits that popular notoriety, it’s ascendant, but the prices of real estate are still very, very affordable. So I think the combination of yield and appreciation for a market like Amus Key Belize is very, very strong.

Dave :
Okay, great. Thank you for explaining that and sharing that. And I’ve been to Amus Key once. It was super nice. Definitely.

Michael :
When was that?

Dave :
Oh God, 2020 maybe?

Michael :
Yeah. Okay, so 10 years ago.

Dave :
Yeah. But super nice, really nice area. Alright, so international investing offers some real opportunity, but honestly it sounds kind of complicated. When we come back, Michael breaks down why it could be worth it. And he also addresses the biggest assumptions about international investing and gives us some simple steps to get started. Stick around. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast. Today I’m here with Michael Cobb talking about investing internationally. Let’s get back into it. So I do want to get into the logistics about how people can pull this off, but if you’ll allow me, Michael, I have some assumptions that are held in my head about international investing and I’d like to understand if what I think to be true is in fact correct, or maybe I’m misguided here. So I am curious if you think this is good for new investors. My assumption that this is better for people who maybe have a small portfolio already in the US and want to diversify and then move into a international market. I

Michael :
Think depending on how you define new, I think that the diversification element of property outside your home country, it doesn’t have to be in central. If you’re Canadian, have a property in the us if you us have a property in Canada, I mean outside your home country is important. But I think that depending on where that is, you would want to position size it very, very carefully. If you’re into the developing world, for example, which Central America is generally considered the developing world, I would never put maybe more than 10% of my investible worth into a property outside in the developing world in Canada, I might go 25 or 30% a different thing. So I think it’s somewhat country dependent. And then you might say, well even drill it down like Costa Rica is probably, again, you’re going to pay more, more popular, but you might do 15 or 20% in a country like Costa Rica or Panama, maybe less in a country like Honduras or Nicaragua. So again, depending on the country position size it, but again, we’re talking about small position sizes, but that give you this diversification element that you’re going to want. I think as a real estate investor

Dave :
That makes a lot of sense. I think it’s similar to, I don’t know how familiar you’re with venture capital investment, these or angel investors where you take small amounts and put ’em into different startups and see which ones hit, which is this interesting approach here for real estate. Okay, so my second sort of assumption that I have here is that it would be hard. I just think when I think about the logistics of finding a reliable team in a country where I don’t necessarily speak the language, that sounds difficult to me. Is that the case?

Michael :
It can be. I think it’s always going to be harder than working in your home turf. The US and Canadian real estate market is very, very efficient. The friction costs to get in and out of a transaction are by far the lowest in the world. Even Europe has higher friction costs than the US does. And so when we go to the developing world, those friction costs of in and out on a transaction actually go up even more so it becomes more imperative to get it right the first time. And so how we do that is vital. The problem for most US consumers is US Canadian consumers is we’ve worked inside this bubble of seller beware. There are so many laws out there that protect consumers laws, regulatory agencies, consumer advocacy groups, Ralph Nader. So you’ve got all these elements that protect you, the buyer, and they’re really leveraged against the seller, right?

Michael :
Lemon laws right now, if you sell me a bad car, I’m coming after you, right? Lemon laws. And so when we go overseas, especially to the developing world, we are moving into the world of buyer beware. And so we as us Canadian consumers don’t really understand how to operate in that new environment. We don’t know how to think, we don’t know the right questions to ask. And so it can be hard. It really can be. But just real quick, I’m just going to tick off a couple of things real fast that are so easy to do. Most countries of the world have real estate agents who are members of the National Association of Realtors in the United States, and they take a class called CIPS Certified International Property Specialists. And so if you go to these countries, hire a realtor, get somebody as your buyer advocate, they’re going to get paid.

Michael :
You’re going to pay them, somebody’s going to pay them, but it’s worth every penny. They get paid to have a realtor. And if they’re part of the national association in the US they’ve agreed to abide by a code of ethics. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but they’ve agreed to. And so I think that’s really, really important. Second thing, get a lawyer. Get a lawyer. You need a lawyer that’s not the salesperson’s lawyer, not the developer, not the seller’s lawyer. You need your own lawyer. And if you hire a realtor, someone who’s part of the national association but me in that other country, they will be able to recommend great lawyers to you. And so I think if you have a great realtor and a great lawyer in your court, you have done two of the biggest things that you can do to make sure that that transaction is as safe and as easy as possible.

Michael :
And again, when we move outside the US and Canada and England, we’re also generally moving into a civil law society. And so all of a sudden we’re so used to common law and things like that that we move to a new legal system. It’s all through central and South America. It’s a lot of Europe. And so that’s unfamiliar too. So again, taking our time, going slow, hiring professionals to represent us, those three things really will do a lot to ensure that the transaction happens as smoothly as possible. But David is going to be harder. It is going to be harder, let’s just say it, but for most people who do it, it’s worth it because the hardness deters a lot of people from doing it, which means that once you’re through that door, like the hurdle for someone to come in after you is high. So if you’re willing to jump that higher hurdle, you’re in a marketplace that has a lot less people competing with you because they’re just not willing to make that jump.

Dave :
That’s so true. I think a lot of what you’re saying here, Michael, are similar concepts to what you would do investing in the United States. You should, even if you’re entering a new market, right? You’re going to go and find a really good real estate agent. Certain states you need lawyers, certain states you don’t need lawyers for real estate transactions, but whatever it is, you should always find the necessary professionals to guide you through navigating that market. Same thing is true international, and I do appreciate you saying that it is harder. It does. Like you said, there’s just challenges as someone who lives overseas, there’s just things that are different and it just takes time to get used to it. And they’re not all necessarily good or bad, it’s just different and it takes some time to adapt to that. And you actually, in the course of answering that answered my last question, which was about taxes and laws. I was curious. That is always something I’ve wondered about because as someone who invest in multiple states in the us, it’s confusing enough to me to try and remember all the states laws and local laws, but I would imagine that’s even more so when you’re entering different even types of legal systems.

Michael :
It can be. And one thing I would just point out for US citizens, we are taxed on our worldwide income and depending upon how we own the property overseas, we may have additional reporting requirements on our tax forms. There’s an 89, 38 and a 54 71 a couple forms. And so I think it’s always wise and prudent not just to talk to a realtor and a lawyer in that country, but to also talk to a tax attorney or an attorney or a tax accountant here in the US that can help guide us on any regulatory issues for reporting that we might have here domestically as well. A

Dave :
Hundred percent. This is the one question I can often answer to people when they ask me about international investing. Just find professionals in both countries, you have to

Michael :
Absolutely, it’s

Dave :
A little bit extra expense, but it’s definitely going to be worth it. And it’s super complicated to navigate if you don’t have a professional.

Michael :
And one other element that ties into that is this idea of humility. I think, Dave, I think it’s going to be important for your listeners. A lot of your folks aren’t beginners. They’ve transacted dozens or hundreds of real estate transactions in the us, Canada, whatever, and they know what they’re doing. We’ve done this where I’m an expert, and the biggest attribute that we can have when we go overseas is we don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t know the laws, we don’t know the customs, we don’t know what we don’t know, but we also have to forget what we think we know. And when you blend those two concepts together, what you end up with is humility and a humble approach, asking questions, pretending like you’ve never done a real estate transaction in your life. Ask the dumbest questions you can possibly ask because the more questions we ask, the more likely it is in a buyer beware environment that will sniff out any issues. I mean, look, most people are honest and trustworthy, but some aren’t. And so I think as part of a due diligence process, when we don’t have big regulatory bodies or authorities or consumer advocacy groups looking out for us, we have to do that ourselves. And humility will absolutely be our most powerful attribute and characteristic to really do it well.

Dave :
I love that. That’s fantastic advice, Michael. I think humility in all investing scenarios usually benefits you and just there’s bravado doesn’t get you much in investing. I think airing on the side of, I don’t know, anything tends to work out a lot better. All right, time for one last quick break, but stick around. Michael will walk us through exactly how to get started investing abroad. Hey investors, welcome back to my interview with Michael Cobb. Let’s jump back into the conversation. So Michael, I should have asked you this right at the beginning, but when we talk about buying and investing in real estate overseas, are you mostly talking about people buying a condo and renting it out as a short-term rental? Is that the most common strategy? Yeah,

Michael :
I would say that real estate investors probably make up about two thirds of our clients. And I think we have a pretty large representative sample to say that it’s probably about that kind of across the board throughout Central America, maybe two thirds investor, one third, but for the first, now think about this for a second. This is huge, right? For the first time in human history work and the location of work have been decoupled for many people, right? Wow. I mean, this is first time in human history, like wow. And so what you have is you have a whole segment of pre-retirees, people in their say fifties, sixties, who said, oh, I love to scuba dive or fly fish. I’m going to move to Belize when I retire. Well, now a lot of these folks can just move to Belize. They can fly fish every morning or whatever and work all afternoon or do whatever. And so we’re seeing this transition to more people. That percentage is shifting towards more of a full-timer, more snowbirds. I mean, some people go back and forth six months, whatever, but I call those people full-timers. They’re not renting their property out. It’s not an investment, it’s a lifestyle purchase.

Dave :
All of most of the products that you work with or have experience with in resorts, or are there other types of real estate that people should consider? So

Michael :
Let me use Belize as an example. Belize is a country. It’s about 180 miles long, 75 miles wide. There’s this little island at the top, 26 miles long and about two miles wide. Code Hamburg is key. 70% of all the tourism revenue for the country of Belize comes from that tiny little island. And so if we are an investor and we’re looking at yield, then that’s where we want to be. It might not fit us a client. We might like the mountains, we might like a big single family home on the beach all by ourselves, but that’s not where the money is. That’s not where the transactional occurrences are happening. And so to answer your question, I think that if we’re an investor, we want to be where people go. And generally, the answer to your question, Dave, is those are resort areas. They might not be a resort specifically, but they are resort areas because people want lots of choices of dining.

Michael :
They want their bars and restaurants and things and people and liveliness. And so those are resort areas. So I think the answer to your question for an investor is yes, you want to be in a resort area. Our properties are, we call them resort communities. That’s what we build. We build residential resort communities. We have some people that live full-time. We have other people that rent and put them into a rental program. And I would say that that’s generally the case throughout Central America, even into some parts of South America as a model of development in the region. Okay.

Dave :
Yeah, I think the thing I’m just trying to get at here, Michael, is the revenue as an investor comes from tourism, right? You’re not buying things and renting them out to locals. You’re not buying a long-term rental. So you’re buying stuff that appeals to probably American or European, whatever, tourists in general. Yes.

Michael :
Okay. Correct. Got it. You got it. By the way, the digital nomads, you mentioned long-term. It’s not long-term to locals, but it is longer term, month three month even yearly leases to North Americans. So yes, I would look at that because there you’re going to get more consistency of income over time. The time machine concept is one that is powerful. And I think self-storage is a great example of that. Self-storage across the US Canada has been really hit well. I mean, it’s penetrated the marketplace and there’s a lot of it out there. And I don’t know, there’s probably still pockets of opportunity. But broadly and generally I would say self-storage has really maybe plateaued. We go overseas, self-storage is almost non-existent. And so for people who have expertise and familiarity with that particular product type as a real estate investment, there are definitely opportunities overseas.

Michael :
And so the point of that is that while there’s a US marketplace, say for people renting my home or condo in these resort areas, the US person who comes down, they don’t want to haul their dive stuff back and forth, their surfboards back and forth, their golf cart. I mean, they want a place to put it. And what will happen, which is truly magical, is that many of the central Americans, and I’ll just use this as an example, absolutely most familiar with it. Many of the central Americans have lived in the US at some point. They went to college, they started businesses, they spent years or decades living in the US and Canada. And so there is no self-storage. So the moment that there’s a lot of the local folks are going to go, holy smokes, this is great. And they’ll also line up to be your customers at dairy or McDonald’s is already all over the place, but franchises like that. So yeah, time machine, time machine, it’s a do over.

Dave :
It’s a do over. Awesome. Well, Michael, I am curious. Can you give us just a couple of tips if people want to get started with this? I wouldn’t even know where to begin. So do you start by picking a country, a city, a market? I think

Michael :
Picking a country is critical. And what I absolutely know from many years of doing this is that you can rule out a country in three days, but to rule in a country takes longer. And so what I always suggest to people is to plan a trip, and let’s just use Central Americas as an example. So you fly into, say Belize, you fly from Belize to Nicaragua, Nicaragua to Costa Rica, Costa Rica to Panama, Panama home. You’ve hit four countries and say 10, 12, 15 days, whatever, it’s at the end of that trip, 1, 2, 3 of those countries, you’re going to go, nah, whatever, for whatever reason. And one or two of ’em, you’re going to go, yeah, maybe, right? Maybe then you begin to do your homework, right? Then you dig in, you do your homework, you go back for a week or two or three, you don’t have to live there.

Michael :
If it’s a lifestyle, I recommend people live in the country three to six months before they buy good call. That’s a heart decision, right? That’s a lifestyle decision. As an investor, I think two trips are critical. Sorry, three, that first little one that you bing, bing, bing through and figure out which ones you don’t want. And the two you might say. Then you go back to those countries and you spend a week and you just sort of do your general research. Look at opportunities. If you’re self storage, where would I put it? Is there any competition, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I strongly suggest that you go back in whatever the low season is, the rainy season or the low season, because most people go in high season, they’re just packed everything, restaurant lines at restaurants, and you see it, it is super busy.

Michael :
Go back in low season, see what it’s like when there aren’t a whole bunch of people there. And what I typically find is that some places do well year round, some places do well seasonally. And to the extent that you’re going to get an apartment or a condo or a home that you want to have in a rental program, you want to be in a place that does well year round, not just seasonally. So I think two second trips or the second and third trip, whatever you want to call it, are critically important, but one of them absolutely must be in the low season.

Dave :
That’s great advice, Michael. That’s so true. It’s exactly what you should do with markets in the US as well, is go visit at least once. But I do want to call out that one. I went to college in the University of Rochester, and I went to visit one time, Rochester’s in upstate western New York, not known for the best weather. I went in May Memorial Day and I was like, this is amazing, this place. It was glorious. I still had a great college experience, but the weather was a rude awakening when I actually got there and I learned my lesson because when my wife and I were considering moving to Amsterdam, we came in March. Amsterdam was a notoriously rainy place, and we came in March and it rained for every single minute of the time. We were here for the whole week, every single minute. And we still loved it. And we were like, you know what? We can live here. And I think that’s a perfect thing to say. All right, so once someone picks a market, how do you go about finding the team that you’re going to work with and execute with?

Michael :
Yeah, I think it would be anywhere in the us, right? You’re going to find those professionals. You’re going to go meet them in person. If you’ve taken three trips, that little quickie trip, set up a few appointments with some lawyers and some realtors, when you come back for that next trip, meet with them again, winnow it down. And when you come back on that third trip, then if you still have that good feeling about them and they’ve helped you with whatever you’re looking for and just helping generally with your transaction before they’re getting paid, before they’re getting paid, then you hire them. And I think that you’re going to find people who put service first, right? Zig Ziglar talked about the concept. If we help enough other people get what they want, we can have what we want. And I think that the idea of service is critically important, and you’ll find great service providers everywhere in the world, but you want to align yourself with people who put the service first and the monetary compensation second. And if you do three trips and you’re communicating email and phone in between, you’ll know and you’ll get a really good team.

Dave :
Awesome. That’s great. Great advice. And yeah, guys, it’s of course a little bit more challenging, but it’s the same principles. I know I keep saying that, but that’s encouraging to hear, right? It’s that you’re not having to learn a new business. You’re having to learn, just adapt a business to a different investing environment, literally a different investing environment,

Michael :
Literally. And David, let me just mention, in my book, I talk about there are 30 questions that we should ask when we buy property overseas. They don’t all apply in all cases, but these questions are set up because it is different. It is different. I mean, just for example, one of them that people just can’t imagine is there hot and cold running water in all of the bathrooms? A lot of times you go into a condo or a house and you turn on the faucets, there’s two of them up top, right? One left and hot and cold. But when you get down under the sink, so one of the things we talk about in the book is under, you should get down on your hands and knees in front of every sink in the condo or house that you’re looking for. Because in many cases, you’ll see a cold water pipe coming out of the wall with a Y splitter so that both of the taps up top have water, but they’re both cold. And many times the shower is too, right? And so unless we don’t know what we don’t know, so you got to get down your hands and knees, look under the sink. There are things that are different, and those 30 questions help us start to think about those kinds of things that can be different.

Dave :
Well, thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate you sharing all of your knowledge and insights about international investing with us. I learned a lot from this. I hope our entire audience did as well. We will make sure to put all of your contact information and links to your work in the show description and notes below. So you could definitely check that out there, Michael. Thanks again. Maybe we’ll have you back on some time. We’ll talk about the rest of the world. We can only hit most essential America. We got to hit all the other continents at the future time.

Michael :
Terrific. I’d love that, Dave. Thanks for having me.

Dave :
All right. For BiggerPockets, I’m Dave Meyer. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.