A rental property is the most common way to diversify your investment portfolio beyond borders.
Buy an ocean-view condo on Ambergris Caye, Belize, or a well-located pied-a-terre in the City of Light and you can rent it out for cash flow in the local currency when you’re not using it for well-deserved getaways yourself.
A rental abroad has many advantages, but it brings complications. You’ve got to maintain it. Fix the toilet when it leaks. Clean up after the renters. Pay the property taxes.
There’s another way to generate cash flow in foreign markets that you may never have heard of and that comes with none of those hassles. It’s the most straightforward overseas “property” investment imaginable.
Start Your New Life Today, Overseas
I’m talking about a hard money loan.
This boils down to you earning double-digit returns lending money to a property developer.
This kind of one-to-one lending takes place in the United States, too. An individual or an organized private group lends at an interest rate much higher than the going rate for a bank mortgage. The borrower accepts the terms because he doesn’t intend on accruing interest long. The plan is to pay off the debt in the short-term.
The borrower is able to fund his or her project quicker and more easily than if they had to battle bank bureaucracy.
Developers overseas find it preferable to skip bank bureaucracy, as well.
Start Your New Life Today, Overseas
My first personal experience with a hard money loan was in 2004 when a developer in Australia approached Lief and me looking for financing. The term was 18 months, the annual interest rate 12%.
Total return 18% in a year-and-a-half.
The developer was the sort we like—what we refer to as a serial developer. He had years of experience with the kind of project he was shopping to fund, meaning he could show a track record of getting in and out, from land purchase to sale of the completed units, again and again.
The developer could have borrowed for his next project from a bank, but bank approval, even if you qualify easily for the loan, can take months.
Instead, he opted to approach a short list of investors. Going this word-of-mouth route, he was able to raise the money he needed in a matter of weeks. We were fortunate enough to be on the list.
Turned out to be some of the easiest money we’ve ever made.
Start Your New Life Today, Overseas
Over the years we’ve come across opportunities for this kind of investing in many markets but none as good as one on the table in Panama right now.
The further along in the development cycle, the less risky a hard money investment proposition, and this developer is far along indeed. He has been funding his residential communities through hard money loans for seven years. In that time, he has paid out in full and on time to 272 investors.
And he’s been building houses, creating communities.
These properties are being delivered in real time to private local buyers who, thanks to this developer’s efforts, are able to afford their first-ever family homes… homes of quality they’d struggle to purchase otherwise.
It’s a win-win-win. The developer gets hassle-free funding. The end-buyer gets the new home of their dreams. And you, the investor, earn a completely turn-key, zero-hassle 30% in two years.
Again, for an investment like this, track record is everything. The developer we’ve chosen to work with in Panama has decades of experience, is building houses in real time that are reinventing the future of his community, and is right now closing out his offer.
This is your last chance to get in on what I’d say could be the easiest 30% you’ve ever earned.
Until next time,
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter