International Investing

There are several reasons to invest internationally. You can shelter the falling US dollar, you might have more favorable tax breaks, the cashflow might be better, the appreciation might be better, or it might be a place you love to go and want a second home there that you rent out when your not there. Many Americans have purchased property all over the world. Some of the most popular places are Europe, Mexico, Costa Rica, New Zealand etc. In this crazy new age of real estate investing there is plenty of information on the internet to help invest abroad. If you are thinking of investing abroad try to find someone who has done it succesfully and ask them how they did it. In some countries it is easier to go through the purchase process there than in the US. I like New Zealand for it's ease in the purchase process. As a foriegn national I am required to put down 20% of the purchase price. I'm not able to buy an island or very large sheep station. Other than that the market is wide open to us Americans. When I was down ther in 2003 I read an article in the newspaper about how over 50,000 Californians had bought beachfront property due to its affordability. There is only so much beachfront property in the world and in New Zealand its some of the nicest I've ever seen. If you were lucky enough to have bought in 2002 or 2003 most of the beachfront property appreciated at around 30% per year. Now days places like Costa Rica and Panama are seeing lots of Americans buy beachfront property for investment and second homes. There are even magazines about international living. So if you want a foreign investment property it's easier than ever to research and buy it. The book that got me started was Hide Your Assetts and Disappear. In that book it talked about where Americans like to move to abroad and why. When I asked tha author which location was his favorite he said New Zealand. Within one year I was down there and bought my first international investment property. So pick a location and give it a try. It's a very cool thing to be able to hop a plane to one of these places and stay in your own property or write off the trip to go check on your property.