How to sell property abroad
How to Manage Overseas Property
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as someone who's owned real estate on
four different continents and someone
who maintains a portfolio property
across numerous different countries
today I'm often asked not only how do I
maintain my properties that I live in
when I'm not there
but from an investment point of view how
do you make sure that you're not getting
ripped off how do you make sure that
you're getting the best deal today I'm
going to share with you some of my best
tips for managing properties overseas
[Music]
hey guys I'm Andrew Henderson and what
we do here at Nomad countless is we help
people who are successful entrepreneurs
and investors diversify themselves
overseas we have a lot of content about
lowering your taxes legally through
offshore companies diversifying your
cash with offshore bank accounts getting
second passports and today I want to
talk about investing overseas there are
a lot of opportunities and what people
often ask me is how do I invest overseas
without getting ripped off how do I make
sure I'm getting the right person to
manage my property if it's an investment
or just someone to check on it if I'm
not there if it's my my second home do I
need to speak to local language people
speak English you know how do I make
sure that I'm getting a good deal and
what I found you know I've talked a lot
about maintaining empty homes I have a
portfolio of properties that I use and
that my friends and my team members can
use when they're in these places in
cities like Bogota Kuala Lumpur
Montenegro Tbilisi Georgia and more in
the pipeline these are places where I
personally live and what I haven't had
so many problems I've talked about how I
haven't had really any problems with
safety you know keeping people out
keeping things maintained and I've
talked about that in other videos about
maintaining empty homes it's a bit of
organizational work but it's relatively
straightforward and more so than it
would be in the United States or
Australia or anywhere else there's a lot
of different bills a lot of moving parts
there are a lot fewer moving parts in a
lot of other countries property markets
but let's talk about investors you want
to make an investment in one of these
markets or a different market it's a
good opportunity to potentially get a
second residence permit get a second
passport higher yields higher returns
some of these foreign markets that we
talked about have not gone down in years
even as markets Evan flow they have been
steady gainers and so there's a lot of
opportunities but the concern is you
know our foreigners charged more because
as we know you have to make really money
in real estate when you buy you can't
just rely on the goodwill of the market
to to skyrocket and to give you returns
on a bad buy if you do a bad buy you're
not going to do well with a property
investment okay and obviously once you
have that good buy you want to make sure
that you're not running into problems
where you have tenants you know screwing
the place up and basically you know
raising your cost of acquisition
substantially cuz you got to go and do a
bunch of renovations more
just normal wear and tear and so what I
found in my years of actually investing
in different property markets seeing a
lot of people talk about theory all
right I actually do this and there are
times that I've had some minor mistakes
I haven't really had any fatal mistakes
but you know what I found is investing
in property overseas is often like
investing in property at home
managing property overseas is often like
managing property at home let me explain
what I mean
a couple years ago I had some of our
non-american clients who we're looking
for high-yield investments and one of
the places that popped up in our
research was where I'm from in Cleveland
Ohio now not the suburbs where I was
from but some of the up-and-coming areas
sometimes you could get people who would
rent in these areas that had government
subsidies and so basically the
government was paying a good part of the
rent very low prices
pretty good yields and so as a test I
went in put a very not a lot of money
and bought two houses and very very
cheaply and it came with tenants it was
a turnkey kind of deal and I said I'm
gonna see what happens and if it works
then I'll tell people to do it it
doesn't work then I'll temple it didn't
work well fast forward the end didn't
work and now this is this is a country
that I'm from him from the United States
I'm from that particular area
now obviously the the people that I was
working with in this up-and-coming area
were different than people that if I was
if I was buying rental properties in the
most affluent suburb right you have a
different kind of ecosystem in this area
but what I learned is that you know
being able to communicate with people
being able to not be ripped off or taken
advantage of it's not a function of
where the property is it's a matter of
who the people are having the right
people is what you need and so I've
proven that I found great people in
countries all around the world the
country that I'm from I couldn't find
good people now some of you have invest
in the US and you found the good people
and that's good
I made the high yields for a while I
actually I actually did but then I had
property managers who just couldn't get
the job done they were having me fix
things and I just never had very good
communication you know then I had to get
rid of a tenant and
to mess it's just a lot of work and on
top of that you know the United States
there's so many different fees there's
some different taxes you know the the
lawn care police are coming around and
you know finding you a hundred dollars
because your grass is this much too high
just a lot of work on top of on top of
all the problems with the people so what
I've done when I've gone overseas
typically to avoid that problem and to
avoid being ripped off is I'll often
start with a good lawyer this is one of
the things we do here at Nomad caplets
we're always looking for good lawyers
and countries all around the world we've
got a database of people you know who
we've worked with who hasn't been able
to deliver who delivers but slowly who
delivers but poorly and it sometimes
takes a while to find the best lawyer
what I found those if you find a locally
based internationalized attorney in a
city in a country that can often be the
Gateway to finding a lot of the other
vendors that you need so I'm not going
into a city now a lot of the markets
that I'm going into they're not as
developed and you don't have a lot of
big international firms but you're
seeing some of the countries I mean even
Georgia for example has some of the big
international firms coming in you know
Deckard or the accounting side the big
four other law firms that are very
international I generally don't work
with them and what's been interesting is
I've had numerous people come to me who
are very successful business owners and
say I hired the big four and I was very
disappointed or they made a mistake
and it cost me a lot of money I have
avoided those big firms you know the
McKinsey type firms if you're doing
consulting I mean you pay a lot you
don't get a lot but what you don't want
obviously is just a guy who's got a
shingle hanging when you're walking down
the street who maybe doesn't speak your
language when I first went to Georgia I
was staying on AG motion to belly
streets as many years ago augmenta Belly
Street was renovated by the government
back in I think 2012 it looks like
Disneyland now basically and when the
government renovated all the local
Georgians sold their properties at low
prices and as he got renovated basically
the Turks started buying these
properties up and now the prices on that
street are very very high and so if you
walk down augmenta beli street in
central Tbilisi you will see a lot of
Turkish attorneys I remember
going in and talking to some of those
Turkish attorneys many of them didn't
know what they were talking about they
were largely serving people who were
coming from Turkey doing investments
becoming residents whatever and they
certainly didn't speak very good of
English so I had to go and I had to you
know double my efforts and find a couple
different attorneys who were very
international and focused but who were
local and they understood local things
and what I have done generally over the
years is I have found the attorneys that
are best for me and that understand what
I'm trying to accomplish and kind of
mold them to how I work it's very rare
that you're gonna find someone who
entirely gets it there are a few
countries where I have lawyers who are
members at the bar in let's say the
United States they don't live in the
United States maybe they were there for
university they just joined the bar
whatever so they maybe have a more
international perspective in terms of
you know work processes but you wanted
attorney with an international clientele
you may have to do some training of them
in terms of how you want things done you
know to use my Georgia example one thing
that you know it's sometimes frustrating
for folks from the West is everything
has always discussed multiple times in
Georgia and other countries where if you
have an appointment an attorney they're
gonna call oh maybe you want to change
it to two maybe you want to you know
come on Tuesday instead and and see if
you kind of train people how you want to
work but if you can have an attorney who
has a good relationship with different
vendors they will often turn you on to
good real estate agents I found two good
real estate agents in my entire time in
Georgia
how many seven years now two one does
not speak very good English she has very
good connections in the market in terms
of like locally because her husband is a
somewhat of a a famous person and so she
gets a lot of people with valuable city
center properties who will hire her and
pay her a good Commission and so then
the attorney and she worked together
they find the deals I have another agent
who is a very good English speaker and
very aggressive but was very hard to
find and so I had to get introduced
again I think that we we found locally
that was not through an attorney but
most of the connections you can find at
a place are through an attorney because
the attorney gets a lot of feedback and
who's good who's not people don't want
to mess with an attorney they don't want
to let an attorney down and so do you
need to speak the local language
generally no
what I found so when you have a good
relationship with again not an
international firm but a local attorney
with international outlook with
international clients they will often be
willing to help you for a rather
reasonable price work with other vendors
and so you know I even had attorneys
helping me with like cabinets for my
home in Tbilisi and they would help me
negotiate and translate for that and so
they're often willing to help you some
of the vendors they will connect you
with will speak English and so that is
certainly something that you you can
just you know work with him directly I'm
not entirely sure that speaking English
is necessarily the best factor for for
success I've got someone right now in
Colombia who's doing a renovation of my
apartment this is probably the best
person to do renovations I've ever seen
in my life I mean I'm getting excellent
details I mean them the quality of the
work the measurements I mean everything
is really outstanding the person's
English is is marginal right and so
sometimes we communicate directly other
times we're communicating through
someone locally and they're helping me
manage that project and they're making
sure the persons on their toes and
they're doing the job so I think an
issue of presence having a good attorney
is important here's what I found right I
have not had so many problems on the
renovation side the property management
side some countries just don't have a
lot of property management but generally
in some of these emerging countries if
you find a good real estate agent they
made it offer property management but
they will offer it to you as something
if you ask they made an offer because
nobody locally wants it you know if you
live in one of these emerging countries
and you own rental property you may just
say I'll manage it myself there may not
be much demand but if you ask the the
agent that was referred to you to help
they might do it for you and I've seen
cases like that before so really the
areas where I see people struggling the
most are on the buy side not on the
management side not on the on the
renovations or any of that stuff buying
and selling is the biggest challenge
selling because a lot of agents just
aren't that good all they can do is sell
you stuff and they're gonna always try
and lowball you when they sell you so
you want to make sure you're getting in
at a good number so you can sell the
property with some level of e
when you want to exit on the buy side is
the biggest issue if you just go on that
line in Google properties in a lot of
markets you're gonna overpay I just
talked to someone there today saying you
know he was looking at apartments in
Lisbon on an english-language website
for 3,000 euros a month and he said I
thought I heard there's plenty of stuff
for like a thousand euros a month and lo
and behold yes our real estate team has
just literally the week before rented
someone something of similar qualities
what this guy is looking for for a
thousand euros a month so if you're
going online looking at stuff in English
that's when you're often gonna pay more
if you're doing stuff remotely that's
when you're gonna pay more that works in
the u.s. it works in the UK and
Australia and all these developed
countries probably in Germany and some
of those too but even in some of those
markets you know I get offers all the
time from you know people who develop
ski properties in Austria it's expensive
and get I know people in Austria who say
answer that's like 25% too expensive so
you know a lot of these things that you
see in line are turnkey
they're marketed to foreigners when I
bought my property in Bogota certainly I
got a deal because we worked with local
spanish-speaking agents that requires a
cultural adjustment and again it
requires often that connection to a
lawyer who has vetted people for you
sometimes I'll go in an event people
myself and then we'll share that with
people that we're helping but you know
there is some vetting required I think
local vendors are often better to you
know the American or the the Brit who
goes into a market it opens up a shop
you're gonna pay more for that and so
it's a matter of do you want to pay more
on the buy side do you want to pay a
premium for a website with nice pictures
for someone who's from your culture or
do you want to work with an attorney and
make that investment or work with
someone like Nomad capitalist who does
all the groundwork and then says hey
here's the guy that delivers the
property to deal either approach could
be good some people just say you know
what I want to invest in Colombia if I
pay 20% too much so be it I want it to
be easy
I personally when it comes to buying a
$200,000 property don't want to waste 40
grand and so especially if you're buying
property for citizenship or residents
buy investment you may be buying
something if it's turnkey that has a 10
to 30 percent commission baked-in I
would much rather rely on my attorneys
to connect me with people who have good
deals and who can manage the entire
process
that's what I've done to keep any
property investment deals running
smoothly
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