Retirees Aren’t The Only Ones Moving Abroad
Aug 6th, 2008 by Kevin
When most offshore real estate investors think about their target market, it is often the retiree that has the freedom, and the capital to make such a move, but times are a changing…
There is a growing population of younger people starting to relocate outside of their home countries and central America is no exception. Why is this? Part of the reason is the Internet, which has allowed people to work where they want. They could be working from a US based office or from a home in Nicaragua for example. With Nicaragua being in Mountain time, people would not know the difference. When we were there visiting, recently a friend of ours had a house down by the beach outside of San Juan Del Sur. His friend at the top of the hill had a satellite Internet, and he had a dish out his window that he could bounce a signal to the satellite uplink, and he was in business with full Internet access.
This blog post from NuWire talks about Young Americans seeking a life abroad. The post refers to an article from US News and World Report. They talk about people in the age of 25-35, which interestingly enough is the group right between the so called Gen X and Gen Y. I believe this group takes traits from both of these generational groups. They are still used to working hard and grew up in a time still before everything was team based and everyone got a trophy - hungry and often entrepreneurial. They want to seek and build their fortunes on their own, and not have it handed to them like many in the current generation. However they are also tech savvy and know how to use it to their advantage. They read books like the 4-hour work week and can see both sides of the argument on its premise, but in the end want to be successful in whatever they do. They don’t want to wait until age 65 to retire, and are very independent having grown up being taught that the government will not have money to take care of them (nor their parents).
Being in this demographic myself I can definitely relate, and on out trips to central America there are many people we meet in this space. Young couples who are ready to move down there and start the next great tourist business. Or some who at a younger age see the value in owning property offshore for investment and/or vacation reasons - those that run their own business that allows them to be flexible with their time.
The article focus’s on trying to understand why the exodus. Times are changing, culture shifting, but in the end does it matter? From an investors perspective it does, but mostly because its happening, and will likely continue.
