[0:00] For decades, we've been told where it's safe, where it's smart, and where we should or shouldn't build our lives. But
[0:06] what if the real story of living and investing abroad isn't what the headlines say? Today's guest has spent
[0:13] more than 25 years developing communities across Latin America, from Bise to Nicarawa and Panama, helping
[0:19] thousands of people rethink retirement, wealth, and what it truly means to live globally. Nicaragua has been so like
[0:27] slammed in like just the press, right? I mean, it just gets such bad public
[0:33] relations. My one top tip is forget what the media is telling you about
[0:38] Nicaragua. Forget about what the US State Department website, Travel Alert, you know, orange alert or whatever they
[0:45] call it, right? I mean, forget all that. That's just garbage. It's absolute garbage. Get on a plane and go to
[0:51] Nicaragua. buy plane tickets to Nicaragua for a week and see it with your own eyes.
[0:56] This is a conversation about challenging narrative and thinking for yourself, but it's also about something deeper.
[1:02] Because when you build a life abroad, you are not just building or investing in a new home. You're building something
[1:08] bigger. What we realized was that we were going to be building a small town, right? I mean, 3 and 1/2 miles by one mile,
[1:15] that's a small town, right? We hired some of the best urban planners in the world that that really know how to build
[1:21] community. One of the things that's really important, community is a group of people who share values, ideals,
[1:27] mission, enjoyment together, right? It it's a it's a place where people gather to become more than they are by
[1:34] themselves, right? That that's what community is, right? Today on Almost Local, the living abroad story of my cop. Let's start.
[1:49] Who is my c? Yeah, that that is the big question, isn't it? Socrates, know thyself, right? Well, we won't go there
[1:55] today, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So, is in in, you know, relation to this audience and and and you know, I I I love talking
[2:02] about this because I was an expat for 14 years. I I packed up a container full of
[2:07] stuff. My wife and my two-year-old daughter, we moved to Nicaragua back in 2002. and and we lived there for 14
[2:15] years. We had another little daughter who came along. Uh so we really raised our our family in in Nicaragua which was
[2:21] a a wonderful tremendous expat experience. I I I I you know it's interesting. So I've been working in the
[2:27] region 33 years. I started a little mortgage company in Bise uh which actually became a bank. Uh so I I helped
[2:33] found a bank in Bise. But the bank itself provides mortgages. We're really a mortgage company for uh North
[2:40] Americans and Europeans who who want to own properties throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, but need to have a
[2:46] mortgage because no bank in the US or or Europe will lend you the money to buy a
[2:51] a home in Bise, for example, or Costa Rica, and no bank in those countries will lend you the money because you're a
[2:57] foreigner, right? And so there was this big hole in the marketplace. So 33 years ago, my business partner and I started a
[3:03] little mortgage company. I lived in Bise for for six months and uh uh at that
[3:09] point uh came back I've done a lot of work in Panama over the years but we lived in Nicaragua for for 14 years and
[3:15] and we we're in the banking business. We're in the real estate development business and we're also in the teak
[3:21] timber business. Those are our three big businesses in the region. But have been working down there for 33 years. uh and
[3:28] and living uh uh you know and you know that 14-year period but you know I've I've spent two to three weeks a month in
[3:34] Central America for the last 33 years. So I really you know even though it wasn't you know a lot of it wasn't a
[3:41] full-time expat experience. I've been immersed in that environment uh really
[3:46] for for three decades and and and truly love the experience. you know, it's um
[3:51] there's this spirit of adventure, Mark, that I find in people who who go overseas either to live or to work. Uh
[3:58] and and they're really just super fun, interesting people to be around. So,
[4:04] yeah. But you're originally from United States. Originally from north of Pittsburgh,
[4:09] Pennsylvania. Mhm. And then lived in the Washington DC area for about 10 years after college before
[4:16] then moving overseas. Yeah. I see. Yeah. So maybe the first question that I have is why you were working at that
[4:23] moment of time, did you change do a change of career? Why Nicaragua specifically? And why packing your whole
[4:30] family and go away? No, like it's it's a drastic change. It it is. So So when I graduated from college in 1986, uh I
[4:37] moved to the Washington DC area. The western Pennsylvania was a big steel producing part of the United States. And
[4:43] in the late 70s and and into the 80s, there was an incredible loss of jobs. I
[4:48] mean, there was an economic depression. They they called it a recession, but but unemployment in the county I lived in
[4:54] was formally and officially 18. It was probably more like 25%. So, one out of four adults uh were unemployed. And so,
[5:02] it really was a tough time. And so, I moved to the Washington DC area and got involved in the computer business. And I
[5:08] just was lucky, Mark. I was very lucky that I I didn't know anything about computers and I got in on the PC side of
[5:14] things at the right time, right place. And obviously, you know, PCs went, you know, went gang busters and and I did
[5:20] very very well. But, uh, somewhere uh, in the middle there about 93 into 94,
[5:26] uh, that's when I started my little part-time business in Bise. I just went there on vacation, uh, with a buddy of
[5:31] mine and we bought a couple condos. We started, uh, you know, this is long before Airbnb. There was no such thing,
[5:37] right? I mean, we put advertisements in the back of the Washington Post and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette newspaper,
[5:43] physical newspaper, right? And we would mail people keys. We'd say, "Rent my condo for a week for a thousand bucks or
[5:49] whatever it was." And somebody would say, "Great." And we'd mail them the keys, right? They could, you know, they could go
[5:56] crazy. Crazy. So this was uh in the '9s, but but then in 1998, left the computer
[6:01] business because our mortgage company was really going very very well. We'd started our development company. We'd
[6:08] bought a small resort in Bise to rehab it and and complete some condos that were under construction. And and that
[6:14] was really we got started. We got started in Bise and then we started to look around the region for other
[6:19] countries where people might want to live because but because here's the reality not you know different like if
[6:25] you go to a pizza restaurant right some people want pepperoni some people want vegetarian some people want Hawaiian pizza right I don't know why anyone
[6:32] would want Hawaiian pizza but they do I don't think the Italians would like this but yeah sure they would but anyway
[6:39] um but but you know different strokes for different folks and so as we started our development company what we realized
[6:45] very quickly was is some people want bise but just Caribbean and island and that kind of thing but some people want
[6:52] Pacific Ocean, they want the big wide beaches and surfing, right? or they want the mountains or I mean so what we
[6:59] really very quickly realized was if we were going to build a development company that would serve a North
[7:04] American predominantly North American consumer although I think about 10% of our clientele are European um uh and and
[7:13] and what's interesting is about a quarter of our property owners are actually from the country we work in
[7:20] like in Nicaragua I think it was like 23 over 23% of our property owners are
[7:25] Nicaragua one, right? Because I think there's this idea that if you build a planned community, it's going to be this
[7:30] expat enclave, right? And there certainly are expat enclaves all over
[7:35] the world. One of the things that we figured out very early was, look, we want to build something that's inclusive
[7:41] and and we we're very very honored that people in these countries have decided to own a home in one of our communities
[7:48] because it's by choice. I mean, like we we build wonderful communities and we don't care who the owner is. Does it be
[7:53] a American, Canadian, European, Nicaraguan, whatever, Chinese, it doesn't matter, right? We want to build
[7:59] communities that work and feel good and and again that spirit of adventure is maybe the the thread that weaves through
[8:07] most people looking at being outside their home countries. So, okay, makes
[8:12] sense. And when you were working in Bise, for example, or you started the mortgage company and then become a bank
[8:18] at whatever point, you were going going back and forward. Yes. So when that grow up the move to
[8:25] Nicarawa was because you felt that it was necessary to be in the region in the
[8:31] area that you were working with or Good question. You know it was interesting because you know the the property in
[8:38] Nicaragua was is a huge property. I mean it it's three and a half so let me use
[8:43] kilometers. It's six kilometers of coastline. Three and a half miles a little over three and a half miles of
[8:49] coastline. You know 1,000 hectars, right? which is 2500 acres. It is a
[8:54] massive piece of property. And so as we got into it and we realized that, you
[8:59] know, and this sounds a little bit strange to say, but what we realized was that we were going to be building a
[9:06] small town, right? I mean, 3 and 1/2 miles by one mile. I mean, like that's a small town, right?
[9:12] Yeah. And so we went out and we hired some of the best urban planners in the world that that really know how to build
[9:18] community. One of the things that's really important, I I use the word community, but I use it very intentionally. Community is a group of
[9:26] people who share values, ideals, mission, enjoyment together, right? It it's a it's a place where people gather
[9:32] to become more than they are by themselves, right? That that's what community is, right? It's a family. It's
[9:38] a larger family, right? And so there are ways that you can build physical infrastructure, the way homes are
[9:44] aligned to streets, things like a sidewalk on both sides of the street, right? with shade like in in hot
[9:50] environments, right? Nicaragua is a warm envir tropics, right? In the tropics, you want to have shade on your sidewalks, but you want to have a
[9:57] sidewalk on both sides of the street and you want to make sure that people's homes front to the street. They have
[10:03] front porches. Um, you want to create walkable neighborhoods and and when you
[10:08] create walkable neighborhoods, and the sidewalks are just one part of it, but it's an important part of it. Um what
[10:14] you and and the other thing they know is that if you can walk from one point to another in less than five minutes, most
[10:20] people will walk. If it's more than five minutes, just a a stroll, just a comfortable walking pace. If it's more
[10:27] than five minutes, they'll drive. And so what you do is you create clusters with things like restaurants and services and
[10:34] maybe a the pool and other things that that are places where people collect tennis courts, the golf course,
[10:39] whatever. You put all of these things within a fiveminute walk and then you give people shady sidewalks to walk on,
[10:46] right? People will walk. And when people are walking down the sidewalk and they see somebody sitting on their front
[10:51] porch, like you say, "Hi, cuz you're just, you know, 20 feet away. Hi, good morning." Or, "Hey, I saw you at the tennis courts yesterday. I didn't know
[10:57] you played tennis, but why don't we get together tomorrow and play tennis in the morning or whatever it is." Or so you
[11:02] you create opportunities for people to encounter one another. And when people
[11:07] encounter one another in pleasant environments on the sidewalk or you know at the tennis court or at the bar or
[11:13] whatever they start talking and when you put these things together here's the key word community can happen. It's not
[11:20] guaranteed to happen right but it cannot happen if people don't have places and happen stance meeting like you give
[11:27] people the opportunity to connect with one another. Uh do that community can happen and it almost always does because
[11:34] people are generally social. We want to make new friends and build networks and community, right? And so when it was
[11:40] time for us to take our Grand Pacifica land, the big land that we owned, and turn it into,
[11:46] you know, the beginnings of a small town, it really required a full-time presence by one of the principles of the
[11:53] organization. Uh, and and and and I stuck my hand up and said, "That's me. I'm going. I want to go." You know, and
[11:59] and and and I'm really glad I did. You know, my girls, they people because we
[12:04] we went to Nicaragua. I spoke no Spanish. My Spanish is still miserable. But we had two-year-old who didn't speak
[12:10] any Spanish. My wife spoke none. We went to Nicaragua and we put them in a German school. We put Eandandy, the oldest, in
[12:16] the German school. Why? Because they they taught in Spanish and they learned German as their second language. We
[12:24] spoke English at home, right? So, you know, so so Mandy and then Emily who came along a couple years later. I mean,
[12:29] they are truly triilingual, but more importantly bicultural. They are
[12:35] bicultural and and the and the powerful thing and this is this is really important for parents. I don't know how
[12:40] many parents are listening to this but but as a parent I think the greatest gift I have ever given my children is
[12:47] the conscious understanding that there's something that's called culture right I
[12:52] think if you grow up in a single culture like the US is is pretty tough I mean Europe I think you've got a good
[12:58] blending of cultures people move across and there I think it's a lot more natural but in the United States and
[13:03] Canada what tends to happen is you grow up in the US you grow up in Canada and you never experience a second culture.
[13:10] And because you never experience a different culture, you don't even consciously understand that your your
[13:16] beliefs, your ideals, your living, everything is within a culture, right? And so,
[13:22] but when you break free of that and you know that there's something called culture that shapes who you are, how you
[13:29] think, how you act, how you talk, how you believe, right now all of a sudden the world is is infinitely bigger. And
[13:36] and I truly believe that the biggest gift a parent can give a child is is the
[13:42] ability to understand that there are more than one culture. And you do that by putting your kids in another culture
[13:49] so that they have something to compare and contrast, right? I I I truly believe
[13:54] that that that's the best gift any parent can give their give their beyond love. Love is the most important gift
[14:00] you can give your kid, right? But but beyond that, yeah, that's powerful really. I mean a lot of questions that
[14:07] came up in this idea of communities. Yeah. And what you were saying no at the end you you are entering a completely new
[14:13] culture and you are bringing something that it's not exactly what it's the same that they have been doing probably no in
[14:19] Nicaragua when you build this it's not what they are used I had two questions in here maybe they are resolved in the
[14:25] same way. No, but first was like how how did locals receive the idea of someone
[14:31] building this small town or already a town uh from a different perspective
[14:37] probably for different class of of people money yeah different uh status
[14:45] let's say like this and the second question that I had is like how do you try to balance this no how do you do try
[14:51] to bring the cultural respect or integrate the local culture inside of these communities when you are building
[14:57] it with external idea ideas in the sense of like I don't know you bring people
[15:02] who might have urbanistic plans completely different of what the the the
[15:07] country it's used to for example in sense no I great very insightful questions
[15:13] Mark let me start by answering the second part of the question then we'll go back to the first part the second
[15:18] part was you know how how do you kind of bridge the cultural differences or enter into a new country or enter into a new
[15:26] community and and and for me it's really simple and this is I talk about it in my
[15:32] book for people who are not building communities but are just moving somewhere overseas it's the same
[15:37] principle the principle is this when you go to somebody else's country you are a
[15:42] guest right and if you think about it because that's too big but think about it this way if I go to somebody's house
[15:49] right and I'm a guest in their house it's their house right I'm a guest you know and And and and I want I'm gonna
[15:56] act like a guest. You know, maybe I'll take the garbage out. I'll wash the dishes. I'll you know, whatever it is, right? I'm going to be a guest. I'm
[16:02] going to uh you know, the saying that I like is leave the wood pile a little higher, right? And and so when I can
[16:09] when I can leave something better than I found it, right? Especially when I'm a guest in somebody else's country home,
[16:16] right? This this is this is a winning formula. And uh if you go if I you know
[16:21] the the a couple things um you know when you're coming in as as business right if you're just moving into a country
[16:26] remember you're a guest right it's their country it's not your country um so act like a guest right but when you're doing
[16:32] business in somebody else's country there's certainly that level of of of you know baseline right but it's it's
[16:39] definitely a lot more complex real fast it's a lot more complex and you know I think the thing that uh uh that that is
[16:46] important to understand is they're probably not going to believe that you will a leave the wood pile a little
[16:52] higher, right? Why would they believe that about you? There's no reason for them to believe that, right? So, you have to prove it. But to prove it, it
[16:59] takes time. And I would say that it was probably a good two maybe three years
[17:04] before we really started to earn a little bit of respect in the community that we were in because, you know, we
[17:11] said we were going to do some things and we did them. We created jobs, right? We started construction on on the I mean,
[17:17] it was it was a cattle pasture. So we put in water, sewer, um we put in the streets. Uh we started building the
[17:22] first homes and the first condos. Uh you know, we built the very first fiber to the home network, fiber optic cable,
[17:29] fiber to the home network in all of Central America. This was in 2004. I mean, we got written up in a bunch of
[17:35] magazines cuz we were really that far out in front, right? I mean, but anyway,
[17:40] but but like you talk about what you're going to do, but it wasn't until 2 three years later that we'd actually been
[17:46] doing it that people kind of came along and said, "Wow, you guys really are doing this." And and we did a ton of
[17:52] corporate social responsibility, right? And I say we did it, but what we really did, Mark, was we partnered with
[17:58] organizations, right? You have groups like Rotary, Kowanas, faith-based organizations who want to come to a
[18:04] country like Nicaragua or Costa Rica or Panama, and they want to do a project, right? But what they don't want to do or
[18:11] what they don't really know how to do very well is what I would call all of the inbound logistics, right? Who's
[18:17] going to pick them up in a bus at the airport? Who's going to arrange their hotel? Who's going to arrange the meals?
[18:22] And if they need equipment, let's say they're going to put in build fences. We work with a couple rotor groups. They
[18:27] love to build fences around schools, right? They needed the equipment. They needed a welder. So, we would handle all
[18:34] of this kind of logistics so that when that rotary group came in, they could just go do what they wanted to do. And
[18:40] so, we worked with many, many, many organizations. So, you know, we were private sector, we did our corporate
[18:46] stuff, we built the roads, water, we built condos, we sold homes, we increased the tax base significantly for
[18:52] the local municipality. And then we did a ton of, you know, corporate social responsibility stuff that improved the
[18:58] lives of women and children and families throughout this larger community. And and and and again, all of those things
[19:05] over a period of 2, three, four, five, six years are are are are really powerful transformative
[19:13] realities, right? They're they're not gestures. I mean, they're realities. And when you do those things, you you begin
[19:18] to build a a real respect and a real relationship that's professional in this
[19:23] case, right? because we're a business, right? So, a real professional, respectful relationship that's that's
[19:28] meaningful. And I think that's I think that's the lesson for somebody who wants to do business, you know, in the developing world. It's going to take two
[19:35] or three years of you just doing what you say you're going to do to build that respect. But once you've done that, uh,
[19:42] then then you've earned it, right? You've earned it. But if you're coming as an expat just to live, yeah, plug in,
[19:48] go do great things in the community. you know, one of one of our residents uh loves to play guitar. So, he he found a
[19:55] really good deal on guitars. Went to the whatever one of the local uh department stores and I think they had guitars for
[20:00] like 30 bucks a piece. So, he bought 10 of them and he took them up to one of the schools and he said, "Hey, if you
[20:05] show up here every Tuesday, you know, bring the guitars, we'll take class for 30 minutes and at the end of the
[20:11] semester or whatever, if you can play these five songs or whatever, you get to keep the guitar, right?" Because he
[20:17] loved guitar. He loves music. And so he helped 10 kids learn how to play guitar, right? And and he doesn't speak Spanish.
[20:24] He didn't now he speaks Spanish, but at the time he didn't really speak Spanish, right? But he didn't need to speak Spanish. He just needed to be able to,
[20:30] you know, so like and and he and he really threw himself into the local community and and it was wonderful both
[20:38] ways, right? The kids learned how to play guitar, but he felt good that he'd done something wonderful to help some
[20:43] kids learn how to play guitar, right? So, I think these are the kinds of things we can do as an expat that that
[20:49] make our lives meaningful. They don't necessarily involve money. We had another guy that would go up and and
[20:54] teach uh uh young adults how to do like basic business skills, accounting
[21:00] skills, balancing, you know, books, writing a writing a business plan, right? He did speak some Spanish, but
[21:06] but again, it didn't cost him any money to do that, but he was making a meaningful difference in these people's
[21:12] lives. And no matter where we go outside our home country when we're a guest somebody else's country in their home,
[21:18] whatever we can do to leave the wood pile a little higher is a wonderful thing for us of course but it's a
[21:23] wonderful thing for them and and that's to me that that's the magic of it really wonderful. I mean I was just thinking a
[21:30] little bit no in this sense because you heard I mean I've never lived in one of these communities itself like it's less
[21:37] common I would say here in Europe also like compared to the US or like to South
[21:42] Africa or other places in the world where you kind of live on your neighborhood and everything is already
[21:48] packed as you said no for going walking 5 minutes away from home so I I was wondering like because you hear from
[21:55] from experiences of people that for example in South Africa uh uh this this kind of like condo that you they are
[22:02] closed inside of it and you never live outside of this place. No. So I wanted to ask if it was a little bit different
[22:09] in the sense of like that merging of these communities with the local community and the local culture was
[22:14] really happening. Um thanks a lot you responded to that. I think it's also the willing of everyone going there not to
[22:20] also do it. I would say now that we entered a little bit into Nicaragua itself, I will jump
[22:28] to the to the fast reply questions. Uh I ask always the same same 12 questions to
[22:33] everyone to try to get to know you live 14 years in there. So I'm pretty sure
[22:38] that you have stories around it and you know it but yeah to get to know a little bit more about your life in Nicarawa
[22:46] itself and how was things during that time. And the first question that I have it's how is cultural adjustment the
[22:53] thing that took you a while to get used to or adapt yourself while living there? Yeah, great great question. You know I
[22:59] think that you know culture shock you know I write about this in my book right I think the big things we kind of expect
[23:05] and we're ready to handle them. You know, there is one big thing and I'll come back to it in a second, but but for
[23:10] most people and for me too, it wasn't the big things like you're ready. Like, okay, I got to deal with this. So, we're
[23:17] going to deal with it, right? It's the ankle biters. It's the tiny little titties that just like and one of them
[23:24] that drove my wife nuts with the parking attendants. You have these guys that basically have whistles and flags and
[23:30] they're trying to get you into a parking spot, right? The reality is is most of these people, in fact, I would say
[23:35] probably all of them, they've never driven a car in their entire life. So, here they are whistling and waving flags
[23:41] trying to get you to park and like, you know, whatever. And and they've never done it. And so, like, and they get in
[23:46] your way and whatever. And so, like something like that just like after a while you're just like, you know,
[23:54] whatever. But it's such a little thing. It's such a tiny thing. But but the big things the one big thing that was still
[24:01] you know okay I'll say what it is like class system I know Europe has a class system to some degree right the US sort
[24:08] of does but but at least you know officially we don't have a class system right anyway but you know the US has
[24:15] really held itself out as a meritocracy right that you get ahead in life by what you do what you're good at what you
[24:21] accomplish right and just because your last name is something right doesn't mean you're better or whatever, right?
[24:28] But in Latin America, there's really a class system, right? Where there's a certain set of families that kind of,
[24:34] you know, like run everything, own most things, whatever. And then there's a tiny, that's actually a moderate middle
[24:41] class. It's growing a moderate middle class. And then then a lot of, you know, poor people, right? And what what was
[24:47] hard for me to first intellectually understand was how could somebody think
[24:52] they're better than somebody else, right? because of their last name, which they do. They My last name is something
[24:58] and so I'm better than you, right? I mean, like, I don't understand that coming from a merit system. I'm like, what does your last name have to do with
[25:05] anything? Like, you were born with it, right? So, there's that, right? But the thing that was even harder for me to
[25:10] understand was how somebody who was in the poor class could say that those
[25:16] people were better than they were, right? I'd be like, "Wow." I mean, like I Okay. I mean, so intellectually, I I
[25:22] think, you know, I'm kind of like I understand it intellectually. I've read books about it. Like I kind of get it,
[25:27] but but here in my heart I don't get it, right? I don't get it. I
[25:32] understand it, but I don't get it. I think that was that particular issue was a hard one on the big level for me. And
[25:39] it took me a long time to kind of get there. But what but my experience has has really shown that that it's it's
[25:46] really the small ankle biter things that really are the the more troublesome
[25:51] adjustment issues than the big ones. The little things. Yeah. Yeah. Second one that I has is social life.
[25:57] How did you meet new friends or meet new people in in Narawa during that days?
[26:03] Two two easy answers. One, we went with a 2-year-old school. We dropped her into a school. We met other parents with
[26:09] kids. You know that. But but the other thing was is uh I I joined the Rotary Club and so immediately met I don't know
[26:17] 30 uh you know business people in Managua, many of whom had kids. So there was the kid component too. Um but the
[26:24] professional relationship. So I'm a big fan of immediately joining a club or an
[26:29] associate like wrote like a service organization, right? Or or by the way I do a lot of work in Panama. Panama has
[26:36] has far more clubs like if you're an actor like you love to act or you love to sing or maybe you're gay and so they
[26:43] have you know they have gay groups, they have hiking groups, they have card clubs, they have tennis groups, right?
[26:48] They have rotary and other service organizations, right? So, there's so many organizations and activities uh
[26:54] that are available. I'm a huge fan of as soon as you get there, join a service
[26:59] organization first, but then get involved in different clubs or activities that you like or you think
[27:05] you might like. Uh because you will meet other people. And the truth is that so many people speak English, right?
[27:11] English is is the language of TV and music. I mean, there's other language. I get that, right? But my experience has
[27:18] been I have I have found I was in Mongolia this summer. I went to or last summer I went to Mongolia. I expected
[27:24] nobody to speak English. I had no pro I don't speak Mongolian. I had no problems
[27:29] getting around in English. And so I think if you're an English speaker, you can go and join clubs or activities and
[27:37] find other English speakers native, you know, maybe they're panameanian or Nicaraguan or Mongolian, whatever,
[27:42] right? But you can find that and and and so joining those types of clubs and activities uh are are are critically
[27:50] important for building a new social network. Makes sense. I will skip the third one because you responded was about
[27:55] languages actually. So you're ready to talk about it. I will jump to the to the next one which
[28:01] is basically cost of living like in comparison to the US. Is it much lower? What it's surprisingly cheap? What is
[28:08] surprisingly expensive? A little bit of an overview of what it's cost of. Yeah. You know, I I I for example, you
[28:14] know, let me let me use four quick countries. Bleise, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Costa Rica is by far
[28:20] the most expensive. You know, Nicaragua is the least expensive. Bleise and Panama are in the middle. If you're in
[28:26] an urban environment, you know, if you're in San Jose, for example, you might have a lifestyle that's 20 or 30%
[28:32] less expensive than the US. Not not New York, not San Francisco, but but you know, any other kind of Midwest city in
[28:39] the United States, right? Cost of living is tough because it even in the US it varies a lot, right? Or in Europe,
[28:44] right? But anyway, figure, you know, Costa Rica 20 30% less if you're in an urban environment. Managua maybe half,
[28:52] right? If you're rural, if you're outside these urban areas, your cost of
[28:57] living can can go I mean, I would say in Nicaragua, you could live on a third of what it would cost to live in a rural
[29:05] environment in the United States. It's significantly less expensive. The thing that's surprising to most people is, you
[29:11] know, I would I'd never had a maid in my life. I', you know, whatever. Moved to Nicaragua and we got a maid and we have a gardener that works half time, right?
[29:18] Takes care of everything. Like, talk about a quality of life enhancement. I mean, like your quality of life when you
[29:24] have no chores goes up unbelievably, but your cost to have those people doing
[29:30] those things is is very, very low. And so it's this weird inverse relationship
[29:36] between because I think there's a paradox. People think my quality of life, if I want my higher quality of
[29:41] life, I have to spend more. But if you move to the developing world, whether it's Latin America, Southeast Asia,
[29:47] Africa, right? If you move to the developing world, your quality of life can go up substantially. At the same
[29:54] time, your cost of living drops dramatically. It's a weird paradox. Next one that I have, it's finding a home. I
[30:01] suppose you would s suggest one of your communities, but if you would need to do it outside of that. No, you know,
[30:07] Monica, I'm I'm very pragmatic. Look, I I you know, there are millions of people buying property outside their home
[30:13] countries, right? I mean, we we need we need a few hundred sales a year, right?
[30:19] And so, just like the pizza thing, right? If I have a pizza and the only thing I sell is pepperoni, but people
[30:24] want other flavors, like, you know, send them down to a pizza parlor next door because there you get you vegetarian or
[30:29] whatever, right? No. You know, I believe I I believe that that different strokes for different folks. Here's the simplest
[30:36] advice and it's in my book. People can't believe I write this. I'm we're a development company. We build and sell and you know, build develop and sell
[30:43] real estate, right? In my book, Kim, was early in the book, right? Rent before you buy. Rent before you buy, right?
[30:50] People can't believe I put that out there like because it kind of goes against my business, so to speak. But
[30:56] here's the reality. If you rent somewhere for six months to a year, six months is probably enough, but a year is
[31:02] okay, too, right? But but you rent for six months to a year, you will know if you like where you are or not, right?
[31:09] And my point is is if you come to one of my communities and you rent a house for 6 months and you like it or a year,
[31:15] whatever, and you like it, yeah, great. Buy a house, we'll build you a house, whatever. But if you don't like it,
[31:21] thank God you did not buy a home in my community because you're just going to be upset and miserable and I don't want
[31:27] that in my community and no none of your neighbors want that either. Right. So I think renting before you buy is the
[31:34] single most important thing you can do as a potential home buyer overseas. Makes a lot of sense. Good good tip.
[31:40] Next one that I have it's uh living like a local. I mean, yeah, you are never fully a local, but what
[31:46] one thing that you would say you do in Nicaragua to blend in? You know, that's a good that's a great
[31:52] question. No one's ever asked me that before. I got to ponder that. You know, I think one of the things that we really
[31:57] enjoyed was traveling around the country. We would get in our car on the because we had no chores, right? We had
[32:02] a maid and a gardener. So, like we had no chores. So, every weekend like we
[32:07] would get in the car and we'd say, "Where do we want to Oh, and we just get in the car and we just drive somewhere to a butterfly farm, to a waterfall out
[32:14] in the middle of nowhere, go to the camp at the beach and see the baby turtles or whatever, right? And I think that that
[32:19] those were the kinds of things that that really got us out into areas where we
[32:24] saw no other foreigners. Like we were we were on dirt roads that kind of didn't look like they were roads, right? And
[32:31] and you would bump into people at the waterfall and they were always Nicaraguan. Like there were no other
[32:37] gringoes there, right? So we we we became local in the sense that we found
[32:43] places, we did things that put us into environments where we were the only non-Nicaraguan.
[32:49] Um and and and that was by choice because we wanted to do those things, but I think there are other ways you could kind of go local as well. But but
[32:57] that was our methodology. Yeah. Next one that I have is the work life. How would you describe the work culture
[33:04] in Negra? Yeah. I mean uh you know the country is a lot of different things just like any
[33:10] country has different areas and different cultures but you know Managua the capital city where our offices are
[33:15] our resort property is about an hour west of Managua on the coast right so on the Pacific but the main you know
[33:21] airport in the main city is Managua it's a strong work culture you know people people arrive on time generally you know
[33:29] and and and it was it was a it was actually a great place to find a talent and and we still do we still have a ton
[33:35] of talent talent in Nicaragua where we outsource or insource for example our our architectural and engineering
[33:42] services a lot of our uh uh you know so if we're doing projects in other countries and we need engineering or
[33:47] architectural stuff that all comes back to Nicaragua we've got incredible people there who do that work and then we ship
[33:54] it back to the other countries right talent and and uh a great really a great
[33:59] work culture yeah you touch upon the next one a little bit grab a car and going around But how do
[34:05] you get around? Like there is a public transport system at all. You really require having a private car.
[34:12] Yeah. You know, I I I'm a big fan of I mean you look I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm from the US. I want a car. Give me a car.
[34:19] I saw it coming. Yeah. You know, I grew up with a car when I was 16 that on my 16th birthday I went
[34:27] to get my driver's license. I mean like the car culture in the US is so big. But but one of the things about the
[34:33] developing world and and and and I would say Latin America, you know, we don't really have trains. We don't have um you
[34:40] know, whatever that kind of subways and stuff. I mean, a little bit like Panama now has a subway, but it's it's limited.
[34:46] It goes from like one point to another. It doesn't really have sidelines and stuff. So, buses buses are are a way to
[34:52] get around. I've done a little bit of bus travel in the region and and it actually is very efficient. mostly point to point like going from Managa to San
[34:59] Jose, San Jose to Panama City, right? Like like the express buses and things, but they got little buses, you know? I I
[35:06] think as an American, you probably want a car just because it gives you the flexibility to go where you want, when
[35:12] you want, leave when you want, and I think that's that's meaningful. What I would call the sophisticated public transportation system just simply does
[35:19] not exist. I see. Next one. I don't know how it works at all, but healthcare. Hopefully
[35:25] you didn't touch it much, but how does it work? But we didn't. I mean, we lived there
[35:30] for, you know, for for 14 years, right? I mean, you know, here's the thing about healthcare. You know, the the public
[35:36] system is is is okay, but not great. The private system is phenomenal and so
[35:44] inexpensive. It's it's crazy. As as as someone from the US, our healthcare is outrageously expensive. The insurance
[35:51] premiums are just insane. um you know uh and and and and so a
[35:56] country like Canada, the insurance premiums are lower, but there's a wait. I think I hear that. I'm not Canadian,
[36:02] but I hear that people have to wait a long time to get a doctor's appointment or get an X-ray or whatever. I don't know Europe very well at all. The thing
[36:08] that I loved about Nicaragua, but I've also had some stuff done in Mexico. I broke my arm in Mexico a few years ago
[36:14] and I have stepped down in Panama over the years, right? Is that literally you can walk into a hospital that usually
[36:21] the doctor's offices are in a hospital complex, right? So, you're not actually going to the hospital, but you go to the doctor's complex, it's right at the
[36:27] hospital. Like, you can literally call and walk in and like, "Oh, you need an X-ray? Well, here, let's go get you an
[36:33] X-ray." Boom. Oh, it's 30 bucks. Okay, get out your American Express card. 30 bucks. Here's your X-ray. Right? Like I
[36:40] mean it's so affordable and so like right now it's immediate.
[36:46] It's phenomenal and and the quality of care is is world class. I mean the
[36:51] private care in certainly the developing world but you know Thailand I'm not familiar with Thailand in India I mean
[36:57] they're doing medical tourism now they're doing heart train transplant heart surgeries and like real
[37:03] stuff big stuff scary stuff right in Thailand and in India and other countries. So you I think the idea of
[37:10] medical care needs to be kind of tweaked a little bit. Private care overseas can
[37:16] be phenomenal. It usually is phenomenal and it is also in most cases very
[37:21] affordable. Yeah. Yeah. I have three more. The next one is the one that everyone hates normally.
[37:27] All right. I want to hear like from bureaucracy perspective, paperwork, visas, permits
[37:32] and so on. Yeah. You know, it can be bureaucratic. What I found is there, so for example,
[37:40] at the immigration office, right? If you're a foreign resident, you have to get your residency card and blah blah blah, right? Literally across the street
[37:47] from the immigration office, there are a whole bunch of tents. I mean, they're like tents. I mean, they're, you know,
[37:52] they're they're not like, you know, this kind of tent. They're, you know, just the shade military ones. Yeah. Yeah. The shade tents, right? And
[37:59] underneath people have set up computers and printers and and they're they're lawyers. They're actually lawyers
[38:05] offices, right? And and if you need anything done inside the immigration office. Yeah.
[38:10] You can go in there and you can do it yourself and good luck. God bless you. See you next Thursday cuz you're not
[38:17] coming out. Okay. Or you can go across the street and you can talk to one of these guys and literally they'll say,
[38:24] "Okay, we'll come back at, you know, can you come back at 4:00 today?" "No, no, I'm busy." "Okay, come back at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. We'll go in
[38:30] together." And literally at 10:15 you're done. You walk back out. It's over.
[38:35] Right? And so what I have found, and this is a I I talk about this in my book. I even have a picture of the
[38:42] people across the street in my book, right? Pay somebody to do it for you.
[38:47] Pay them. Like this is what they do. They know everybody inside, right? And so like give this you whatever. And it's
[38:54] usually so inexpensive. And if you even value your time at at $20 an hour, which
[39:00] I hope most people would value their time at 20 bucks an hour, like it's the best money you will ever spend just
[39:06] simply on a on a time value of money. So, yes, it's bureaucratic. Yes, it can be a pain in the butt. Hire somebody to
[39:12] do it for you. Yeah. Nice. The next one, it's the best
[39:18] and the worst. What is the best part of living there? What is the worst thing of living there?
[39:23] You know, I'll start with the worst. You know, the worst thing about living in a developing country for most people, it
[39:30] wasn't really the worst for me, but but it is the worst for many people, and that is that you actually have to see
[39:37] poverty up close all the time, right? I mean, I think it's true. I was in Thailand not long ago and and you know,
[39:44] and and in Cambodia, right? I mean, you see poverty up close. It's right there.
[39:49] Like in the US and in Europe, yeah, there are neighborhoods and cities you probably don't go to because it's the
[39:55] poor area, right? So, you don't really have to see poverty. But in the developing world, you know, you got
[40:00] really nice houses and cardboard shacks and they're right next to each other, right? And I think that's the worst
[40:05] thing for most people because it it can really tear your heart out, right? You see kids struggling and parents and
[40:11] whatever and it it's rough. Um, you know, I think that's the worst thing. I think the best thing is the exact
[40:17] opposite. That when you're in an environment like that, you have the ability to make a meaningful difference
[40:24] in people's lives for very little money, very little, very little resources, right? You can make a tremendous impact
[40:30] in people's lives. I'm not an advocate of giving money to somebody on the corner. I think that's I think that's
[40:35] usually there's a big bully around the corner. It takes all the little kids money, right? So, I don't think that's the way to do it. but getting involved
[40:42] with, you know, Rotary or Lions or a service, a faith-based organization, whatever it is, right? And so, the
[40:48] worst, which is the poverty up close, which really can be heart-wrenching, right? Is actually the best because it
[40:54] gives us the opportunity to do something wonderful for other people and and in
[41:00] ways that probably in the US, Europe, Canada, we we really just can't. So, I
[41:06] think the best and the worst are are very, you know, very linked. Right. Nice. The last one that I have,
[41:11] it's the top tip. If someone who is listening today here willing to move to
[41:17] Nicarawa right now, what would you be your oneline advice? Well, I I would be very surprised if
[41:22] anybody listening would consider Nicaragua because Nicaragua Nicaragua has been so like slammed in
[41:30] like just the press, right? I mean, it just gets such bad public relations. My
[41:36] one top tip is forget what the media is telling you about Nicaragua. Forget
[41:42] about what the US State Department website, Travel Alert, you know, orange alert or whatever they call it, right? I
[41:48] mean, forget all that. That's just garbage. It's absolute garbage. Like, get on a plane and go to Nicaragua. Buy
[41:55] plane tickets to Nicaragua for a week and see it with your own eyes, right? Like that. That to me is the tip for
[42:02] Nicaragua. And and and and here's the reality. The people who do it are blown away. I just had a group of people there
[42:08] last week and they could not believe. They were like, "My god, it's nothing like I thought it was." I'm like, "Yeah,
[42:14] no kidding. It's not what you thought it was cuz everyone's been telling you this garbage. They fill in your head with garbage. Go see it with your own eyes."
[42:20] And and and Mark, I I know this is really a show about expat, but I want to add one sophisticated business concept
[42:27] here because it matters a lot to anybody who's buying a home. When you have a
[42:33] difference between perception and reality, right? The perception of Nicaragua is that it's horrible,
[42:40] dangerous, you know, violent, right? And then you've got a reality
[42:47] that's very different, very nice, pleasant, like really a wonderful place.
[42:52] When you have a gap like that between what's perceived and what's reality, that gap in the financial world is
[42:59] called arbitrage. That's arbitrage. It's an information gap. And what arbitrage
[43:04] in the investment world means is money. That's money. So if you literally if you
[43:10] went to Nicaragua and you went to Costa Rica, they're they're I mean they're neighbors, so at one point they're
[43:15] touching, right? But if you just said 50 miles on one side of the border in Costa Rica, 50 miles on the other side of the
[43:21] border in Nicaragua, you had identical properties, the price difference would be three to five times different. Three
[43:28] to five times different. So an oceanfront house in Costa Rica, right, is probably a mill and a half, $2
[43:35] million. An oceanfront house in Nicaragua is $4500,000.
[43:41] So what's that? Three times different. Four times different. I don't know. Do the math in my head. But but you see the difference. I mean, yeah, four times
[43:47] different, right? 400 versus 1.5 or 1.6, right? I'm sorry. Like that's a lot of
[43:53] money. That's a lot of money difference. And and again, it's only an information difference. It's the same house. It's
[43:59] the same ocean. It's the same sun. It's the same. It's the same glass, the same concrete, the same faucets. The same
[44:05] same same same. The only difference is the word Nicaragua and Costa Rica. And
[44:11] so there is an arbitrage situation right now, which means as an expat, not as an
[44:16] investor, as an expat, you can have the same quality of life, an awesome quality
[44:21] of life for like a, you know, a way less cost of acquisition. That's the
[44:26] arbitrage. So the so the one tip I always tell people is go see it for yourself. Forget the garbage people have
[44:33] been filling your head with. Go see it for yourself. And if you agree, you're going to you're going to get this big
[44:40] chunk of money either, you know, as as an investment or in a savings if you're buying a home for yourself.
[44:46] Nice. Thanks a lot for for all the responses, Mike. I will switch things up a little bit and I will jump to the mini
[44:52] game. I would checking the time. I would do it a little bit. I would reduce the amount of ones that I
[44:58] will do and I'll make my answers really short. Okay, I know that's good. That's good. I call this one global investor or global myth.
[45:04] So basically I would give you a sentence and you must tell me if you from your experience you considered that this is
[45:11] true. It's it's it's really what it happens when you invest abroad and you maybe real estate abroad or it's a
[45:17] complete myth. First one that I have it's you need to be extremely wealthy to invest in real estate abroad. myth
[45:23] direct and straight easy myth. Nice. Uh, next one that I have is
[45:31] international real estate is always riskier than investing in your own home country.
[45:36] Myth. If you do proper due diligence, if you do the same amount of due diligence
[45:42] that you do in the United States or your home country, it is no more risky to own property overseas. you should only buy
[45:49] property abroad if you plan to live there in a full-time myth. You recommend buying in the sense of
[45:55] like short-term or even for for renting in that sense like it depends on it depends on the country
[46:01] or the part of the country, right? I think there are places that you can get short-term cash flow rent and then
[46:07] Airbnb or put it in a manager's uh program, right? A rental management program. So that that would be more your
[46:13] short-term cash flow. I think there are places like Nicaragua, for example, where you've got this big arbitrage that
[46:19] you could just buy a piece of land and sit on it for for 10 years and it will
[46:24] it will double, triple, quadruple in 10 years, right? And you're not doing anything, right? So it it's that's more
[46:30] of an appreciation play. So depending on where what country or what part of a country you're looking at, you can
[46:36] really dial in am I looking for appreciation of asset or am I looking for cash flow? So I think I think in
[46:42] either case there are opportunities to own a property without living in it that will do well for you. Yeah.
[46:48] I see. Last one that I have it's alternative assets like tick are just a niche investment for adventurous people.
[46:55] All right. True. They are a niche investment for adventurous people. I agree with that. But I would say that
[47:00] it's not only for that. But I think that's that's a true statement that it is a niche investment. But I like it
[47:07] because you know we talk about do you have to be really you first question do you have to be really wealthy to invest overseas but with our teik program in
[47:14] Panama which we now have uh several thousand people who have become owners with us and they own teak they own a
[47:21] teak farm they own a small little teak farm that we set up and plant and manage for them right um for as little as 1,500
[47:28] down $1,500 down and then uh I think you know monthly investments of like 250 60
[47:35] bucks or something right I mean So we so we've we've we've really opened up the affordability of the teak ownership.
[47:42] Again, you become a land owner in Panama. You know, you're a real estate owner in Panama, right? With teak trees going on for for as little as, you know,
[47:49] 1,500 down. I think the an outright investment it's about $9,000. So, right.
[47:54] So, like all of a sudden, this world of affordability and accessibility to the the small, savvy, adventurous investor
[48:03] is possible. Yeah. Nice. You talk a bit already about pieces and and bits of
[48:09] your book, but Mike, I leave you now the the space to talk about any project that you're currently working on, your book,
[48:16] whatever whatever it's happening around and also how can my listeners get in contacting you if you if they are
[48:21] interested? Mark, thank you. You know what? I'm not going to talk about our projects. I mean, we've got wonderful things going on all over Central
[48:28] America. Everything from a Bise uh Marriott resort under construction. We've got beautiful communities in
[48:34] Nicaragua and Panama coming online. So, I mean, we've got a lot of things going on in the region. So, if if you're
[48:40] thinking about Central America as a place to to possibly look for an investment or a home, um, you know, I'd
[48:46] love to hear from you. But the thing that I want to put out today is the one single thing is if you're looking for a
[48:52] property outside your home country, you could be in Italy, as you are, Mark, looking for a property in India or
[48:59] Africa or Thailand. You could be someone in Thailand looking for a property in New Zealand. If you're looking for a
[49:06] property outside your home country, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know the rules of the road, so to
[49:12] speak, somewhere else. And so the the trick, the hack, right? That's not a hack, a trick, but the hack is how do
[49:18] you do proper due diligence? I said that's the thing that that makes investing overseas equal to ownership of
[49:25] property in your home country. You have to do proper due diligence and we simply don't know how to do it. This book right
[49:31] here, my book, How to Buy Your Home Overseas and Get it Right the First Time, right? How to buy your home
[49:37] overseas. There we go. How to buy your home overseas and get it right the first time. Mark, if somebody sends an email
[49:45] to podcastevelopment.com, podcastevelopment.com,
[49:51] I will send anyone listening today, I will send them a coupon to download my book for free from Amazon. I'll pay for
[49:59] it. I'll pay for it. Send an email. I'll send you the coupon. You go to Amazon, you can download the Kindle version.
[50:05] It's it's my gift to anyone listening today because truly the most important thing is for somebody to if they're
[50:12] going to buy a property overseas is to get it right the first time and have a wonderful experience. Talked about it
[50:18] before. There are millions of people buying property outside their home country. And most people do a pretty
[50:24] good job of it. But but a big chunk sadly don't because we rush into things.
[50:29] We don't know what we're doing. We don't know the right questions to ask. and it turns out to be a a miserable, horrible
[50:35] experience. And I want to eliminate that to the biggest extent possible. And my book gives you the consumer the ability
[50:42] to ask better questions and do the kind of due diligence that will let you have a wonderful experience in that, you
[50:49] know, overseas ownership. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Amazing. Thanks a lot. I mean, I would I
[50:54] will put the email address in the description and all the links to to to the book. So, thanks. Thanks a lot for
[51:01] the for the offer for the listeners. I I I really appreciate it. Mike, it has been a pleasure. Thanks. Thanks a lot
[51:07] for for accepting the the invitation to the show and and to be for being here today. As always, for the listeners, if
[51:13] you enjoyed today's episode, just don't forget to subscribe and give some love to to the show, but also check out uh
[51:20] Mike's book. Until the next time, keep exploring, stay curious, and see you in the next episode.