Today, you can find opportunity on Roatan, but you need to be smart…to be in the right place at the right time
Everyone knows the world is in crisis. Yet I’m looking forward to the New Year…and you should be, too—because you could make some serious money.
From fire sales in Panama to a market meltdown in Ireland, there are deep discounts to be had. If you’re smart and do the research and make the right buys, you’ll stand to profit.
But these aren’t the kind of opportunities that announce themselves. You need to know where to look. The world’s a big place. I’ve been traveling far and wide to find these pockets of opportunity and what I’ve found makes me excited about 2011.
Take Roatan for instance. An island located just off mainland Honduras, close to the world’s second-largest reef, Roatan is anyone’s idyllic, Caribbean-dream.
There was major real estate and tourism development on Roatan in the 1990s and in the first half of the last decade. Cruise ships, resort developers, direct flights from the U.S…and retirees…started to come in droves.
With good reason. I can hardly imagine a nicer place to be—and it’s mostly English-speaking.
When I was there four years ago the real estate market was screaming “bubble!” New projects were poorly thought out, overpriced and underfinanced. Since then we’ve seen the U.S. property market collapse. We’ve also seen a global financial crisis.
Today, you can find opportunity on Roatan, but you need to be smart…to be in the right place at the right time.
Returning to Roatan recently for example, I caught word that the owner of a resale lot previously listed at $160,000 was reducing his asking price to $50,000. He needs the cash. I visited the lot. It’s stunning…with views to the reef and breaking surf. Neighboring lots are in the $150,000 to $180,000 range. And I received word of other deals like this… hot deals that you have to snap up fast.
In Panama, too, there are motivated sellers if you know how—and where—to look.
Find one of these guys and you can buy here for as much as 50% less than peak prices. At the pricing peak in 2008, condos on the waterfront were pre-selling for up to $350 per square foot. Now you can find deals on condos there for $170 per square foot.
Panama saw quite a real estate boom in the middle of the last decade. Then the economic slowdown in the U.S. hit. Americans comprised up to half the buyers of prime city condos at the height of the boom and that pool of buyers dried up. Coupled with that, banks tightened their already conservative lending policies, leaving buyers without the funds to purchase property.
So the market slowed. It hasn’t crashed Florida-style, though. You don’t see foreclosure auctions. You don’t see properties advertised at 50 cents on the dollar, either.
You have to find them… To get the low down on these deals—or other deals like a half-acre lot in a beachfront community in a great central American retirement haven for only $25,000…or Mediterranean condos at one third off 2007 prices …get your December issue of International Living magazine here…and read on…
Editor’s note: Ronan McMahon is the Executive Director of Pathfinder (International Living’s preferred real estate advertising partner), which focuses on opportunity for gains in strategic pockets around the world-before most folks have even heard of them. He writes for Pathfinder’s real estate investment service, the Real Estate Trend Alert.
