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We closed on our first property, Condo Boom, in October 2017 and then on our second property, Casa Salita, just under two months later. Why two investments so close together? Having expanded our real estate portfolio from two rentals in our first eight years of investing to two or three per year since then, we’ve seen the benefit of volume. When you have two properties and one goes vacant, you [...]

There is a long-running debate about whether to buy real estate to receive cash flow or to profit from price appreciation, with passionate supporters on both sides. When we started our real estate investment journey in 2005, I was firmly on Team Cash Flow. When you buy for cash flow, you start collecting money immediately. With appreciation, you only benefit when you sell or otherwise pull out the equity (e.g., a cash-out refinance);

Before our first trip to Costa Rica in March 2017, we had checked out the Philippines two months earlier. Scott, our oldest daughter and I took a 2-week trip to Manila in January 2017 – their first trip and my fourth, although my previous trip was 25 years ago, so it felt like my first time too. I was already primed to possibly live there because the favorable exchange rate (currently over 50 Philippine pesos to one US dollar) meant that we could drop everything and retire -- no job required -- right now.

In our first trip to Costa Rica, we split our week between Tamarindo (the “Gold Coast”) and Ojochal (the “Southern Zone”). These were two areas we had read about, and we wanted to compare them back-to-back. We opted to start our Costa Rica journey with a small condo in the heart of the Gold Coast, walkable to everything. It suits our needs for a hassle-free, income-producing, and driverless vacation property. Now that we have two Gold Coast properties in our portfolio, maybe we’ll reconsider the Southern Zone. I’m afraid to look at where prices have gone even in just one year.

On our first trip to Costa Rica, while driving around the different beaches in the Guanacaste area, we stumbled on an Open House sign for a development near Playa Flamingo. We saw multiple lots, where we could develop a property, and we also saw an already built spec home we could have immediately. It was 1,950 square feet, with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. It had a garage and infinity pool, with a view of the ocean in the distance. It was listed at $399,000. We ended up passing on the home, and here’s what factored into that decision.

When we decided to buy real estate abroad, one of the critical steps was figuring out where we would get the money to buy. Since we had settled on desirable Tamarindo, we knew that properties would sell relatively quickly so we would have to decide quickly and be able to close quickly (or at least show we could close quickly). Here are eight options we considered for financing our international purchases.

We first visited Costa Rica in March 2017 and closed on two properties before the end of the year. For our first property, we knew we wanted to be in Tamarindo, a popular beach town. Our intent was to buy a vacation rental investment for now, and “popular” ensures strong rental potential and “beach town” fits in with our priority to retire by the water. Buying in Costa Rica was important to us because we look at it as our FIRE Plan B – if we can’t afford to retire early in pricey New York City, we could definitely do it here.