Dear Reader,
“He foiled our plan,” Addison confessed in his Rancho Santana Session.
But he can’t really be mad at the guy who snatched up the very lot in Rancho Santana that Addison was planning to build our future Agora Financial Reserve clubhouse on.
Why?
Because this 29-year-old interloper was applying our own ideas to his life.
Imagine that you’re only at the beginning of your career at a promising energy firm when your company goes public.
Instead of taking all the shares and sitting on them, you know they’re only paper. A promise, but not a surety of future profits in jumpy markets easily manipulated. Rather than wait, you cash out now.
But what do you do with the dough? U.S. dollars aren’t on the path to appreciation. Quite the opposite. Soon you’ll be paying the bank money to keep your money “safe.”
So this young go-getter did something better. He came down to Rancho Santana. He saw the new plots nestled into the high hills around the ranch. On your left, you see a rich valley cresting up to far-off volcanic mountains. On your right, you’ve got a clear view of the blue ocean. The wind is strong, blowing all the humid, salty air far offshore. It’s the perfect spot.
He bought up not one, but eight lots. And spent nearly $2 million, which he won’t regret. Why would you keep holding state paper when you could buy appreciating land?
I’m filing this dispatch from the palm-thatched portico of the Rancho Santana clubhouse.
As you may know, we’ve gathered here in Nicaragua for the first ever “Rancho Santana Sessions.” We’re here to discuss and debate the idea of investing retirement accounts or personal funds in assets outside of the United States.
Participating in foreign investment opportunities isn’t always as easy as simply placing a “buy” order with a broker. International diversification seems daunting and complicated, but very few will argue against placing at least a portion of your investments in assets outside the U.S. dollar.
The bigger questions are how is it actually done? What are the risks? What kinds of investments can be made? What are the tax implications? How does it fit with estate planning? And what about the legal aspects?
We’re addressing all of these important issues, and many more, right now at theRancho Santana Sessions. And as your Roving Reporter, I'm here to cover it for you.
It’s late evening on day 1 of the sessions. A family or two gathers round a guitarist strumming a few songs. He takes a break and everyone practices a little Spanish... the surf crashes in the distance.
The vibe here is calmer than it’s been since Monday (because all the Agora Financial guests and editors are “off-campus” at a local restaurant in the nearest town.) So it’s perfect time to take stock of all the great stuff they shared today. Let’s jump right in...
Daily Reckoner, Joel Bowman started us off with the “theoretical” backdrop for our offshore tour by pointing out that the frequency and severity of so-called Black Swan events have never been greater.
Very few communities are equipped to handle them. As the 2008 crisis sent governments scrambling to improve our situation with bailouts and regulations, more and more retirees were heading down to developments in South and Central America — just like Rancho Santana — in record numbers.
They’re even handing in their passports and revoking U.S. citizenship. Others are working on getting second passports to have just in case.
Most agreed with Joel. It’s time to “opt out” of the current paradigm.
Joel gave us the basic crash course in practical answers, like how to get a second passport (hint: a place where the matter is settled in dollars — not days).
(You’ll be able to access his full presentation in your MP3 recording of the Rancho Santana Sessions. See here for details on how to score your copy.)
The main thing if you’re looking abroad, he says, is to look for maximum freedom with minimum harassment.
At this moment, we broke for lunch, pondering how free we felt in a place like Rancho Santana, where nobody cares if you wear your seat belt or whether you dive off your balcony into the pool below. Your life is fully in your hands to enjoy as you wish. The only rule we’ve encountered so far is having to wear a shirt over our bikini when we eat at the club.
After lunch, we returned to hear Agora Financial’s Managing Editor, Chris Mayer, talk about something far more cheerful than Joel’s side of things...
Having just helped edit Chris’ latest book, World Right Side Up: Investing Across Six Continents, I knew we were in for great details on investing abroad.
There are plenty of things you have to ask, like “Will government policy make it easier or harder?”
Having tagged along on Chris Mayer’s last Brazilian farmland excursion, it came as no surprise to me that Nicaragua is a better place to put one’s money to work. (Just days before hitting Campo Grande, before the 2010 presidential elections, severe limits were placed on land investments in Brazil. Well, so much for that deal! We had to look at Rio’s thriving pre-IPO oil explorer instead.)
By contrast, Nicaragua outranks even its beloved neighbor Costa Rica when it comes to ease of doing business. Investor protections and contract enforcement trump its Central American peers.
For example, you, as a U.S. resident, still have the same property rights as a Nicaraguan citizen. Guaranteed.
But that’s not all that’s great about Nicaragua... Chris revealed fascinating tidbits about natural resource plays and other ideas in Nicaraguan investing. Surging exports, booming tourism, it all makes for a great climate for your hard-earned cash.
When you access his full presentation, you won’t be surprised that Nicaraguan foreign direct investment topped $1 billion for the first time in 2011. You’ll want to contribute to that number in 2012 when you hear all of what he had to share.
Everyone we talk to down here says the same thing: “Nicaragua is like investing in Costa Rica 30 years ago.”
Next, Marc Brown, director of sales at the ranch, gave us three keys to investing in Rancho Santana.
He pointed out comparable developments that he, as a longtime surfer, saw take off: Malibu, Cabo San Lucas, Tamarindo... the list goes on. But we note that Rancho Santana is where he chose to settle with his family over six years ago.
Lest you think that such a lifestyle is only for men like Bill Bonner (whose house overlooks Rancho’s best swimming beach, Los Perros) or the lawyer we told you about yesterday (who so far has built only an $80,000 staircase that switchbacks up the hillside to a terraced garden over Escondida beach)... be assured, good living isn’t wasted on the rich in Rancho Santana.
You can easily take that 401(k) or IRA that’s sitting around doing next to nothing and roll it into a piece of land for the future... or perhaps a new condo being built on Playa Santana. (If you want to know more about how to do that, our boss, Addison Wiggin has been doing this very thing, as he explained in his presentation.)
The catch to making money from — and not simply enjoying — your investment is to arrive “way before the Four Seasons comes,” Marc counsels.
Value investors, as Chris Mayer says, go where others fear to tread. But as you’ll find out in the Rancho Santana Sessions recordings, Nicaragua isn’t nearly as daring as your neighbors or friends might think.
They’ll tell you to watch out for kidnappings and Sandinistas... but our experiences so far prove that thinking is way off base.
But that’s a good thing for those like you in the know. The deals won’t go quite so fast.
Don’t despair. You haven’t missed out just because you’re not here with us...
As I told you yesterday, we have sound techs on duty to record the Rancho Santana Sessions from start to finish.
You can have these recordings delivered in MP3 format to your inbox only a few days after the sessions wrap up.
Inside the recordings, you’ll learn how to...
Stay tuned for Monday’s roving reporter dispatch. I’ll give you the exclusive from our favorite frontier investor Doug Clayton. He’s most interested in an East Asian country on the upswing. I’ll show you the specific country, and the benefit for getting in early, in the next dispatch.
For now, I urge you to grab your Rancho Santana Session MP3s at the lowest price available, right here.
But know this... when these sessions wrap up, and just after the final Roving Reporter dispatch hits your e-mail box on Tuesday, the price for these recordings jumps by 30%.
As always, the early movers will claim the best deal. Join them here, before the price jumps.
Yours truly,
Samantha Buker
P.S. You’ll want to get these MP3s sent right to your inbox as soon as our soundman finishes. Don’t wait to open your horizons to new, lucrative investments. As Chris Mayer said today, “Your investment menu has never been greater.” Get your Rancho Santana Sessions MP3s at the lowest price, right here.
Friday, 23 March 2012
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