Day 27: Step #10, Finding New Digs Overseas

What If You Eventually Decide To Own?

Dear Student,

Rent first. And maybe rent forever in your new life overseas.

That’s my best advice for all the reasons we’ve been discussing.

However, I understand if, eventually, you decide you’d like to put down more permanent roots in your overseas haven of choice.

For each of our international relocations, we have rented first and been very glad we did. In each case, we discovered that the place where we’d settled first wasn’t the place where we really wanted to be. In Waterford, we realized we didn’t want to be in the city but outside it, so we could savor Irish country living. In Paris, it was a matter of a dozen blocks or so. But those dozen blocks made the difference between being at the heart of the chaos come tourist season each year… and being hidden away and removed from it while still having the best of central Paris on our doorstep.

In Panama City, we relocated five times before finally finding the neighborhood and building we wanted to call home.

I’m belaboring the point I’ve been making for the past few days: Don’t invest in a home of your own upon arrival in your new destination. However, after you’ve tried the place on for size and identified the region or specific location that suits you best, then you might want to think about buying… as we did in Waterford and in Paris. Here in Panama, we’re constructing a new family home at the beach.

I see two reasons to make the decision to establish a base of your own in your new place of residence. First because you want to. You want to nest. You want a place you can decorate and furnish as you like, where you can make a garden, install a swimming pool, store your keepsakes…

That’s why we bought in Waterford and Paris and why we’re building in Panama.

The second reason to purchase a piece of real estate in another country is because you have reason to believe that investment will make you money.

These are two very different agendas—buying for personal use and buying for profit or yield.

The best case is when they coincide, when you find a piece of real estate in the place where you want to spend time that also holds out the potential for an investment return (in the form of capital appreciation and/or a yield from rental).

If you’re buying straight-up for profit, every decision is based on the numbers. I’m going to assume that’s not the case here, as this isn’t a Global Property Investing Course… but a How To Launch Your New Life Overseas Course.

Assuming, therefore, that you’re buying for personal use, at least part-time personal use, you want to make your choices based on many things, including some that can’t be quantified in a spreadsheet.