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Post by Denis-NFA on Apr 12, 2015 18:02:21 GMT 7
You can own a condo in the Philippines but the ground floor is off the buying list. If buying a house i think if you form a corporation that would suffice. You can't own the ground floor because that is the real property. Corporations need the approval of The Philippine Government. When I first came here I paid some money to talk to a fine Philippine lawyer. Old bloke. There is no way I would buy anything in The Philippines, nor any ASEAN country. It will be interesting to see what happens when China get the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on the go.
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Post by Denis-NFA on Apr 12, 2015 18:21:25 GMT 7
I had a bit of a Google and came up with quite a few that allow foreign land ownership, the USA for one. Banjo, I am not getting into some argument about this, that and the other. Suffice to say, and maybe it has changed, I asked a Frenchman and an American "if I bought a farm in your country will I get the same subsidy that you pay your farmers?". What do you think they said? And the folk I asked were heavy duty.
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Post by pjmpjm on Apr 13, 2015 12:58:20 GMT 7
I guess this is how the rich expats retire . . . How We Afford to Live in 2 of Mexico's Best Cities By Donald Murray I was accidentally napping (it happens sometimes) in my favorite chair in the den when I was awakened by the loud, unmistakable lowing of a cow. It was the local milkman announcing his arrival with an amplified recording. In just a few minutes, we received our delivery of milk and cheese from his specially equipped motorcycle and cart. Other vendors regularly wind their way through our middle-class Mexican neighborhood selling fruits, vegetables, prepared food, bottled water, and even pots and pans. It is not only charming, it is convenient. In June of 2012 my wife, Diane, and I left the U.S. for our retirement in Ecuador. We packed the six suitcases permitted by the airlines and moved to a small town on Ecuador's coast, sight unseen, seeking an improved lifestyle at a significantly reduced cost. We would still be there today if only the hospital care on that part of the coast had been better. After two years and with my pre-existing medical conditions, we felt we could no longer roll the dice and began to look at other options. Mexico quickly rose to the top of our list. With thousands of miles of coastline, its shores washed by the warm waters of the Gulf of California, the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the tropical Caribbean Sea, Mexico offered nearly unlimited opportunities to live an affordable coastal lifestyle. Diane began to imagine the long sandy beaches of the Mayan Riviera including Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum while I began to imagine the powerful pull of a sailfish or marlin fought from the gently rolling deck of a fishing boat. Medical care was reported to be excellent in the Yucatan Peninsula, the area of Mexico which had captured our attention. The Yucatan is as safe as Vermont or rural Kansas and offered us a rich Mayan influence with access to a large number of historic ruins as well as crystal clear cenotes (sinkhole rivers and deep pools) for swimming and exploring along with a long and accessible coastline. We found a wonderful home listed for rent in Merida. The home (recently remodeled by its U.S. owners) has three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms. It's completely furnished including linens and kitchen utensils: $650 per month. We didn't know then that we'd find another place about four hours away in Cancun, but we did! It was a small condo with direct access to the world's finest sugar-sand beach directly on the Caribbean Sea. At $750 a month, the cost of the condo was just a little more than our house in Merida. We saw the photos, exchanged a few emails with the local owner and, after poring over our budget, I sent our second deposit. We now had two houses rented and waiting for us in two distinctly different parts of Mexico. As I write, we've been in Mexico for about six weeks. Our Merida house is beautiful and modern and permits a wonderful, truly Mexican experience...while our Cancun condo allows a breathtaking view and direct access to the jewel-like, deep turquoise waters of the Caribbean literally steps away. In our short time here, we have bought and registered a car, acquired our permanent resident ID cards and have made a few new friends in both locations. If our budget forecast is anywhere close to reality, we just might be able to hang on to both places. (If not, we will have a really tough choice to make!) My best estimation so far (remember, we've only just arrived) is that a couple supporting only one household could live a very comfortable life on about $2,000- $2,500 per month in Merida. While we certainly don't have all the answers, there's one thing we know for sure: we won't allow fear to be the thief that steals the life we could have...
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Post by pjmpjm on Apr 13, 2015 13:24:19 GMT 7
The message seems to be to sell your Sydney house (I guess) and live cheaply overseas in a castle! Another funny expat retirement article by Nick Hubble of The Escapologist in Sydney . . . Glad I'm not just starting out in life like he is, hoping to buy a house in another 40-50 years . . . Here's the article . . . ‘I think we made the wrong decision’ my cousin emailed me the night before we picked up the new keys. The link below the message went to a news.com.au article which compared Sydney house prices with French Chateaux prices. Take these two for example. The nine bedroom grand Chateaux is more than $20,000 cheaper than the $689,000 flat in Campsie [an inner Sydney suburb]. Not that Melbourne is far behind. Aussie singer and songwriter Courtney Barnett made it onto the Ellen Degeneres show with a song about house prices in the suburb of Preston. Her song ‘DePreston’ is an utterly brilliant satire of what it costs to buy a home in the sticks. Having profiled Preston for the viewers who don’t know it, she goes on to repeat these lines: If you’ve got a Spare half a million You could knock it down And start rebuildin’ … or maybe buy a nice Chateaux in the south of France. Of course there’s no way I’m buying a house in Sydney or Melbourne right now. At least not until prices halve. Until then, I’m renting. Which begs the question: Who will buy them? The new Aussie economic consulting firm LF Economics has no idea either. After doing the maths, they came up with some figures on how long it takes typical locals to afford a typical home in various cities around the world …. It takes Sydney buyers six and a half years to save enough money for a deposit, about a year more than Londoners. And that’s at a savings rate of 30% of income! Buyers in the US city of Houston take a third as long. Having pulled off that feat, Sydney buyers can expect to take more than 30 years to own their own home outright at the same 30% rate. In other words, buying a house in Sydney means it will take your working life to pay off the mortgage. Worst of all, that’s just the principal. The LF Economics team didn’t factor interest into those calculations. That’s probably to make the results comparable across different countries which have different rates. So what do things look like for first home buyers buying the median home in Sydney? Lindsay David from LF Economics has the answer: ‘When it comes to servicing the first 12 months of a 25-year/80 per cent LVR mortgage, it will cost roughly 65 per cent to 70 per cent of household income to service that debt at current record-low mortgage rates.’ I have one thing to say about that: Good luck selling your property at those prices to us in your retirement, Baby Boomers. It ain’t gonna happen. Which brings me to why I am in Sydney in the first place. The real reason I’ve come is closely related to property prices in a different way. I’m writing a PhD thesis on Australia’s subprime crisis. It explains just how we got to such unaffordable house prices in the first place. If I’m right, some Aussie mortgage brokers have been doing the dodgy on mortgage applications. You see, no bank is dumb enough to lend to someone who has to pay 65% to 70% of their income to service their mortgage. At least not on paper. They’re happy to do it in practice. The reason is simple — house prices always go up. If you believe that, the worst case scenario when lending to someone who can’t afford it isn’t terribly bad at all. The borrower just sells the home at a profit after falling into default. Nobody gets hurt. And so some mortgage brokers are happy to oblige. They simply ‘adjust’ their client’s income a little higher to make them a creditworthy borrower on paper — on the 'Loan Application Form' sent to the bank. The banker sees a solicitor who earns $150,000 a year while the truth is a pensioner earning $50,000. (The brokers sometimes just stick a ‘1’ in front of the true income figure to save time). And so the spiral of rising house prices can continue, with evermore marginal borrowers bidding up prices past the point anyone can actually afford. My research aims to find out how common this is and why brokers do it. Of course we all know how this ends -- from the American sub-prime mess of 7 years ago. Brokers over there used exactly the same practices to turn down-and-outs into borrower material… on paper. They had what was called ‘art departments’ to forge the supporting documentation. In Australia it just takes a false MYOB software package. But don’t get too excited for me and the prospect of unaffordable home prices crashing. A plunge in Aussie property prices isn’t likely to be terribly helpful in the end. A new conventional wisdom busting study from research publisher VOX found property price declines are followed by a period of poor economic growth as countries struggle with the whopping debt load that comes with property. The Europeans and Americans are learning that the hard way at the moment. But what was conventional wisdom busting about the study? Well, it concluded that deflation — falling prices — isn’t a bad thing. In fact, apart from during the Great Depression, deflation tends to be associated with good economic times. The industrial revolution, for example, made things vastly cheaper to produce. And it left society vastly richer too. That’s been a pet peeve of mine for years. The study effectively negates the idea that the Reserve Bank should be engineering 2% inflation a year. It’s not a good thing to devalue money. We should’ve known inflation targeting was a bad idea since the Kiwis were the first to try it. But back to France and its assortment of 'cheap' Chateaux. Should you really swap your Sydney or Melbourne home or unit for one? Remember that the cost of living in the French countryside is about 25% cheaper than in Oz, while the quality of life … well, it depends on what you like, I guess. (Being half German and half English leaves France pretty far down the list for me.) But the real point of Australia’s housing bubble is that now is the time to sell out and go somewhere else. Anywhere else except Vancouver, Hong Kong and Singapore, that is. You’ll find the cost of living in most places overseas vastly cheaper and you’ll also escape Australia’s bursting housing bubble. When it comes time to return to the home country, maybe you’ll be able to afford a property on Sydney Harbour.
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Post by Banjo on Apr 13, 2015 14:10:24 GMT 7
Going on Sydney housing prices I dare say you could sell a house there and upgrade to anywhere else in Australia.
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Post by mikey on Apr 13, 2015 14:56:54 GMT 7
Impressed that his example is pensioners on $50,000 a year all taking out 25 year mortgages.
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Post by pjmpjm on Apr 13, 2015 16:09:57 GMT 7
Going on Sydney housing prices I dare say you could sell a house there and upgrade to anywhere else in Australia. Good point. I know of a house in Lithgow that changed hands last week for only $175,000. So you could sell your 'average' Sydney house and buy four of these. What you'd do with those three extra houses in Lithgow is another question . . .
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Post by pjmpjm on Apr 13, 2015 16:12:11 GMT 7
Impressed that his example is pensioners on $50,000 a year all taking out 25 year mortgages. Well noticed, mikey. Presumably they all hope to be happily owning their own homes by age 90.
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Post by pjmpjm on Apr 13, 2015 16:20:58 GMT 7
Suggested 'affordable five-star holidays' [sic] for Australians . . . and perhaps cheaper retirement destinations. The rest of the article concludes (as Banjo has pointed out) with the advice the Australian dollar is still worth the same as it ever was right in Australia . . . “The Aussie dollar is great value to currencies such as the Euro and the Yen, and most of South East Asia is still affordable for us to visit”, says Paul Gorman, General Manager of travel site LuxuryEscapes.com, which specialises in affordable five-star holidays. “The more you can pay for your holiday in Aussie dollars before you leave Australia, the more you can save. So that means considering a travel package with as many inclusions as possible, such as breakfasts, meals, spa treatments and airport transfers”, he advises. According to Gorman, countries that are more expensive to visit, due to the falling dollar, include the US and New Zealand. “However, we have to remember the Aussie dollar is still relatively strong. Yes, it was very strong for the past three years, and whilst it has fallen against some currencies, we still have a currency that makes for great travelling”, Gorman adds. Here, he lists eight destinations that offer great value for Aussies. Vietnam Vietnam is becoming increasingly popular with Australians as a holiday destination, but the prices in the country haven’t caught up with its popularity, even though our dollar has fallen slightly against the dông. “I would say Vietnam is the best value-for-money travel destination for Aussies at the moment. You can get great airfares and luxury hotel packages, and eating, shopping and touring there is still highly affordable. You can get a three-course meal with drinks for two for about $10”, says Gorman. South East Asia The Australian dollar has only dropped a few cents against the currencies of Aussie favourite holiday destinations Thailand and Bali. However, because those destinations have been popular for so long, they can be quite pricey. “Consider travelling to destinations such as Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Burma or even Myanmar for better value. South East Asia is so much more than Thailand and Bali, and there are so many picturesque beaches and so much history and culture to explore”, he says. Greece, Italy and Spain Europe is still affordable with many options to save money on both airfares and hotels, with the Aussie dollar slightly increasing its strength against the euro. “Have you always dreamt of that wine and dine tour of Tuscany? Well, now is definitely the year to go”, adds Gorman. Mexico North America might be more expensive to visit, so consider exploring the south. “Mexico has for a long time been a favourite hotspot for celebrities, and who can disagree with the A-list? The Yucatán Peninsula in particular is just as picturesque as it looks, and offers great diving options for underwater enthusiasts”, he says. [Of course, says pjmpjm, Mexico is still part of North America.] Japan The Aussie dollar has strengthened against the Yen, making Japan an even more attractive travel destination. “Japan has everything – gorgeous scenery, amazing shopping and world-class skiing. Go discover what thousands of Aussies have already fallen in love with”, recommends Gorman. UAE Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have never been cheap destinations which to travel, but with the Aussie dollar remaining pretty static towards the dirham, now might be the perfect time to fulfil your golden-desert dream. “Many flights stop in Dubai when flying to Europe, but both Dubai and Abu Dhabi are so much more than stopover destinations – so take a few days from your travel itinerary to explore the shopping and the sand dunes”, suggests Gorman.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2015 19:05:02 GMT 7
Going on Sydney housing prices I dare say you could sell a house there and upgrade to anywhere else in Australia. A Family did that recently They visited good Old Murray Bridge With what they sold for in Sydney Bought in Murray Bridge and money left A good result for them
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Post by Denis-NFA on Apr 16, 2015 3:07:38 GMT 7
My son tells me that Sydney to LA and then LA via Dallas to Mexico City is the go.
Then jump a bus to wherever in Costa Rica.
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Post by Denis-NFA on Apr 19, 2015 12:19:22 GMT 7
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Post by pjmpjm on Apr 20, 2015 7:28:27 GMT 7
Costa Rican Electricity Crisis Those who were discussing 'retiring in Costa Rica' recently should read this disturbing article from a Century 21 real estate site. Seems that the continuing boom in overall growth and tourism, plus a very dry season that limited hydroelectric production, plus the reduction of power able to be bought from Panama, has brought this country to a crisis, with major electricity rationing now in place, such as is common in neighbouring Nicaragua. Spoils the vision that has been painted of Costa Rica as a modern but cheap retirement destination. I wonder if anyone at this forum is actually living in Costa Rica and can report to us? Thanks to thegreenman for passing on the news . . .
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Post by pjmpjm on Apr 20, 2015 8:10:36 GMT 7
That Costa Rican Electricity Crisis article could be out of date by several years. After half an hour of searching, I found the following . . .
Costa Rica deserves a huge round of applause, and perhaps even a high five, for managing to produce all of its electricity from renewables for 75 days straight. According to the state-owned Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the country hasn’t had to burn fossil fuels to supply the grid with electricity so far in 2015, a stretch that has never been previously attained by any nation. Of course, we don’t mean all of their energy has come from renewables as their vehicles, for example, still use fossil fuels, but what they have achieved is extremely laudable.
“The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica,” the ICE said in a statement last week.
As reported by Think Progress, the country’s clean streak is predominantly attributable to heavy rains experienced this year, which have kept four of the main hydroelectric power stations busy. In fact, these have been churning out so much energy that virtually all of 2015’s electricity demands have been met through these plants, according to Quartz. The remainder of the country’s grid requirements have been met through a combination of wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy.
In Latin America, Costa Rica ranks second in terms of electricity service provision (behind Uruguay) with a household coverage rate of 99.4%. And thanks to this boon in renewables, citizens are shortly due a 12% drop in electricity rates this year and given the reserves so far accumulated, this downward trend is predicted to continue in the second quarter, Latin American Herald Tribune reports.
Costa Rica is determined to become carbon-neutral by 2021, which seems an achievable goal given that the country is currently meeting around 94% of its energy needs from renewables. Around 68% is sourced from hydroelectric power plants, followed by geothermal energy that contributes about 15%. This dedication to clean energy combined with the country’s broader environmental policies has meant that Costa Rica has been consistently ranked in the top five eco-friendly countries worldwide, according to The Telegraph.
Although what Costa Rica is achieving is something to aspire towards, it won’t be easy for many countries to follow in their footsteps. The tropical country is adorned with a string of active volcanoes that allow for geothermal projects, such as the $958 million endeavor approved last year. Costa Rica also experiences high rainfall and features a mountainous landscape, both of which are ideal for the generation of renewable energy. Furthermore, the country is able to invest substantial amounts into environmental issues due to the fact that it ditched its military back in 1948.
While Costa Rica’s dependence on renewables is commendable, it also has its drawbacks and leaves the country vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A drought, for example, would impede their ability to produce electricity from hydropower stations. Furthermore, hydroelectric dams can have negative effects on fish populations.
Costa Rica is, of course, not the only country dedicated to going green. The EU has set renewable energy goals for 2020, but Sweden, Bulgaria and Estonia managed to meet these eight years ahead of schedule. China is also investing a substantial amount in renewables, which has been proposed to be a key factor in the fact that CO2 emissions stalled last year. Bonaire, a small Caribbean island, also currently produces almost all of its energy from renewable sources.
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Post by pjmpjm on Apr 20, 2015 8:22:28 GMT 7
NY Times Mention of Costa Rica
Still trying to find out about the electricity situation in Costa Rica, I discovered this recent NY Times article about the 'Social Progress Index' for 2015, which lists Australia as 10th and New Zealand a surprising 5th! Uruguay and Costa Rica receive a kind of 'honourable mention' for their progress . . . Don't know if any of us could afford to retire in any of the 'top four' countries, but NZ is certainly affordable . . . Anyhow, here's the NYT article . . .
The United States is the most powerful colossus in the history of the world: Our nuclear warheads could wipe out the globe, our enemies tweet on iPhones, and kids worldwide bop to Beyoncé.
Yet let’s get real. All this hasn’t benefited all Americans. A newly released global index finds that America falls short, along with other powerful countries, on what matters most: assuring a high quality of life for ordinary citizens.
The Social Progress Index for 2015 ranks the United States 16th in the world. We may thump our chests and boast that we’re No. 1, and in some ways we are. But, in important ways, we lag.
The index ranks the United States 30th in life expectancy, 38th in saving children’s lives, and a humiliating 55th in women surviving childbirth. O.K., we know that we have a high homicide rate, but we’re at risk in other ways as well. We have higher traffic fatality rates than 37 other countries, and higher suicide rates than 80.
We also rank 32nd in preventing early marriage, 38th in the equality of our education system, 49th in high school enrollment rates and 87th in cellphone use.
1. Norway Sweden Switzerland Iceland 5. New Zealand Canada Finland Denmark Netherlands 10. Australia Britain Ireland Austria Germany 15. Japan United States
Ouch. “We’re No. 87!” doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?
Michael E. Porter, the Harvard Business School professor who helped devise the Social Progress Index, says that it’s important to have conventional economic measures such as G.D.P. growth. But social progress is also a critical measure, he notes, of how a country is serving its people.
“We’re not now No. 1 in a lot of stuff that traditionally we have been,” said Professor Porter, an expert on international competitiveness. “What we’re learning is that the fact that we’re not No. 1 on this stuff also means that we’re facing long-term economic stresses.”
“We’re starting to understand that we can’t put economic development and social progress in two separate buckets,” Porter added. “There’s a dialectic here.”
The top countries in the 2015 Social Progress Index are Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, New Zealand and Canada. Of the 133 countries rated, Central African Republic is last, just after Chad and Afghanistan.
Sri Lanka does better than India. Bangladesh outperforms Pakistan. Both the Philippines and South Africa do better than Russia. Mongolia comes in ahead of China. And Canada wallops the United States.
One way of looking at the index is to learn from countries that outperform by having social indicators better than their income levels. By that standard, the biggest stars are Costa Rica and Uruguay, with New Zealand and Rwanda also outperforming.
“This takes time,” said Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which produces the index. “Costa Rica is an overperformer because of its history.”
Green notes that Costa Rica offered free, universal primary education in the 19th century. In the 20th century, it disbanded its military forces and invested some of the savings in education. One payoff: Some surveys have found Costa Ricans among the happiest people in the world.
Then there are the underperformers that do worse than would be expected from their income level. Saudi Arabia leads that list.
The Social Progress Index, now in its second year, might seem a clarion call for greater equality, but that’s not quite right. Professor Porter and his number-crunchers found only a mild correlation between economic equality (measured by Gini coefficient) and social progress. What mattered much more was poverty.
Of course, wealthy countries with high poverty tend to be unequal as well. But inequality at the top seems to matter less for well-being than inequality at the bottom. Perhaps we should worry less about reining in the top 1 percent and more about helping the bottom 20 percent?
On the other hand, one way to finance empowerment programs is to raise taxes on tycoons. And when there is tremendous inequality, the wealthy create private alternatives to public goods — private schools, private security forces, gated communities — that lead to disinvestment in public goods vital to the needy.
In any case, the 2015 Social Progress Index should serve notice to Americans — and to people around the globe. We obsess on the wrong measures, so we often have the wrong priorities.
As an American, what saddens me is also that our political system seems unable to rise to the challenges.
As Porter notes, Americans generally understand that we face economic impediments such as declining infrastructure, yet we’re frozen. We appreciate that our education system is a mess, yet we’re passive.
We can send people to space and turn watches into computers, but we seem incapable of consensus on the issues that matter most to our children — so our political system remains in gridlock, even as other countries pass us by.
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