Palm Trees and Margaritas

I’m thinking about buying some beachfront property in sunny old Belize. I got a million random thoughts about it and hopefully I can get some feedback. I’m not really sure of the thought process that goes through a person’s head when they’re thinking about buying but mine is pretty simple. I want a piece of property on the water in a tropical location, I always have. Belize seems like the right place to me, so now I’ve got to start to see if doing this now makes sense. Even though this is something I want for myself, it is still an investment so I’m going to evaluate it like one. Sounds like a good topic for a post so lets get started.

How do I get the property?

I’ll start buy showing you the place. It’s about 1.3 acres of bayfront property. You can see in the picture why I’m so interested. I’d love to have this and eventually build a place of my own on it. For now I have to figure out how to get it. Financing the land is really not an option. US banks wont lend money for foreign properties and even if you can find a Belizean bank to rent to a foreigner, the interest rate is going to be outrageous. Some properties sell with owner financing but I’m just plain old not doing that! Maybe its legit, but I don’t give a shit! So cash it is, but where do I get that much from, the land costs $200,000 and I don’t have that much just sitting around (who the hell does??). There are a few options I considered and quickly decided against. First I considered selling stock. I could do that but my money is always gonna make a better return in the stock market so that one was canceled. Id consider selling some to make a down payment but that’s about all. I considered bringing in outside investors but since my girlfriend is interested in buying it with me, I really don’t want to add anyone else. Since we’re going to eventually build on it, having someone else with an interest in it could get messy. Owner financing? hell no!

Now that I have some bad ideas eliminated, I’m really left with only one good option (and a bad hangover), refinance my existing mortgage! This sounds like a very risky option but realistically it’s the safest I’ve found so far. Any other ideas out there??I can pull the money out of the existing equity in the house Sharon and I own, buy the land and still pay a low interest rate. Yes, the payment for the place I live in will go up and yes I will be deeper in debt but I will have the land that I’ve wanted for so long.

Since I said I’m going to evaluate this like an investment I now need to figure out how to manage this hole I can potentially dig myself deeper into. Debt is not a bad thing at all if you can leverage it to make money. It’s something that is done constantly, and just doing the basic math on it, my mortgage payment is going to go up about $1200. I didn’t say it would go UP TO $1200, I said it’s gonna go up an ADDITIONAL $1200 on top of what it already is. That’s a lot, holy shit, that’s a WHOLE LOT! The goal is to make the property generate that that additional $1200 some surplus. That’s also brings me to my next step of the process….

How do I monetize the land?

This is the big challenge!!! Figuring out the best way to monetize the land, so far, is the biggest problem I’ve had and is going to be the most critical decision I make. At this point, if I knew there was no way to earn back my $1200 each month, I would have to stop the process and walk away. That would completely suck. Even though this property is something I’d love to have, if it is going to cost me money, I just couldn’t justify buying it. Knowing there is a way to make a profit I’m going to proceed.

Here I’ve got this vacant piece of land in a tropical paradise which is awesome but what can I do to have it generate income and how do I protect myself in the process? I have some challenges that I’m coming across so far.

• What type of business do I want on the land
• How do I collect money
• How do I manage a business from out of the country
• How can I prevent being taken advantage of

I didn’t even know where to start, hell, I’m still not too sure but I guess we’ll give it a try.

I guess I want to figure out what type of business is going to create the largest return for my investment with the lowest amount of risk. The first thing Sharon and I were thinking was building some small bungalows and putting them on Airbnb. That feels like a good option for a few reasons, bungalows are fairly cheap, Insurance costs would probably be less that if we were to build a large house, we could use airbnb’s services to manage it and also get paid directly by the customer. On the down side, bungalows are cheap but they still cost money, more expenses for maintenance and upkeep, going even deeper into debt, and also additional stress. I already drink my fair share and then some, so more stress could possibly turn me into a full blown alcoholic.  Maybe I’ll take my chances, this option is staying on the list for now.

Maybe I could just lease it out for someone else to open up a business. This could be a nice stress free option. Just have a beautiful piece of property, rent it out to a business that is successful and have them basically pay for it for me and in the end I get my dream for free. That could be the best case scenario. In theory I would just have someone sign a lease, provide whatever infrastructure they needed, and collect a check, right? I really don’t know. There are a lot of unknowns on this one for me, I’ve never owned business space. I cant imagine it’s that easy. What if they don’t pay? What if they cant pay? This is an international property and I sure as hell don’t know international laws. Am I legally allowed to remove them? Do I really wanna deal with this kind of shit? Can the liver handle the amount of drinking I would do? Is this the worst case scenario or could it possibly get worse? I’m not sure but there are a lot of unknowns on this one for me. It’s definitely an intriguing option, one I’m going to have to look into more.

Anyone have any experience with these ideas? I could use some help.

I’m gonna leave it here for now but I have a few other ideas for the land that I think I’m going to continue with on the next post.

Everyone remember to have a beer for me

 

 

 

Back here in real life it’s the day after Christmas and the high for Denver, Colorado is 19 degrees. I’m wearing a hoodie, long sleeve shirt, sweatpants and slippers. Sure, around the holidays it feels great to be wrapped up when it’s freezing outside. I gotta say, I’m very comfortable at the moment. I’m sitting  here with layers on and I’m thinking how it’s crazy that just a few hour flight from here people are walking around in shorts and flip flops drinking beers in the sun. I guess its nice to know that you can get a break from the frigid temps just by hopping on an airplane for a few hours. I’m pretty sure most of the Central American and Caribbean countries are within an 8 hour flight away. That’s pretty cool.  I never thought about it until a good friend of mine told me that with so many commercial flights readily available,  we have the ability to fly to any major city on the planet within 24 hours. I thought that was pretty cool, and it really made me realize that going to all of the places I’ve always wanted to go to is a real possibility. I’m thinking that as long as I don’t waste too much money on booze every day, I can afford to make it to all of the destinations I’ve always wanted to go to before I kick the bucket.

Well that was a paragraph of random junk. Probably time to get back to pictures and stories.

I think since this is the first post about actual travel stuff, I’m going to talk about my favorite place on the planet. I don’t know how I first learned about San Pedro, Belize but shit, it’s exactly what should come to mind when you picture paradise. It has pure white sand, luke warm water, palm trees everywhere, and so much sea-life that it really just amazes me. I would regularly walk down the dock and see rays swimming around. This picture to the left is from right outside of the house we rented. Pictures are great and all, but the experience of being there is a whole different thing. Theres peace and quiet if you want it or a little hustle and bustle closer to town if thats of interest. You can hang out on a beach and relax all day or go take your golf cart (everyone drives golf carts there, no cars) into town for some authentic Belizean street food and a few Belikin beers.  The entire island is open container and shoes are not required ANYWHERE (I even went to the casino barefoot). San Pedro has some of the best snorkeling and scuba diving in the world. There are dive shops all over the place, they’re typically willing to accommodate you if you just want to hope on a trip last minute. You really dont need to make reservations to do anything prior to flying down there, the locals are so friendly and helpful that everyone knows someone that owns a tour company or caters meals or sells lobster or provides any damn service you need. So if you’re a procrastinator and you didnt book any excusrions you’re not gonna miss out on anything you want to do. In fact, I highly recommend not making  plans and just winging it when you arrive. I think you’ll be happy with the results. We went on the best snorkeling trip we’ve ever been on because we gave a ride to a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy…. The only thing I would recommend up setting up ahead of time would be reserving golf carts, that way you just hop on and go. It might save a headache.

I didnt realize there was gonna be so much stuff to say, I think I’m gonna have to break this into a few different posts. I’ve never had a blog before so I really have no idea how this shit goes.

To the right is some kind of ray swimming right off of our dock.

Has anyone been to Belize and and had similar or different experiences?  Recommendations that they’d like to share? Points of interest? Questions? It’s just such a friendly inviting place I find it hard to believe how few people have checked it out. I always thought traveling internationally was expensive and difficult but I was seriously wrong. So far every foreign country I’ve been to has been cheaper than any comparable place in the US and travel times have never been bad.

Next post I might have some video and some info about swimming with the sharks but for nowI think it’s time to go grab a beer. Have a good day everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for some great travel blogging!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!