ABOUT
This is my story and how my relocation journey began.
I began my relocation experience 30 years ago when I transferred with my global accounting firm from New Zealand where I grew up, to the US, starting in Silicon Valley in the Tech IPO boom in 1993, and then to San Francisco and later to Los Angeles where I lived by the beach and worked in the city for a few years. 20 years later I was living comfortably in the hills of LA, with Malibu as my weekend spot, 3 nice cars and a Harley Davidson, and with a boat docked in Sunset beach, a small condo on lake Las Vegas and a cabin 20 minutes from the Big Bear ski fields. I was running my own consulting company working remotely from the above location of my choice, working hours of my choice with clients of my choice, and life was good. I felt set up for retirement.
Five years ago I saw the world begin to change. Specifically in terms of global power-shifts, political strangeness, uncontrolled mass migration, climate activism infiltrating everything, impending national debt, economic and inflationary pressures. I saw a lot of things that just didn't seem to make sense. Many of my neighbors, doctors, business executives, investment managers - smart people, saw it also. I saw policing being stifled, and division amongst the population. Police drones flying across my evening view toward Malibu every night, yet shoplifters doing their thing with impunity. Media and Hollywood sending daily one-sided messages that any person with google or you tube could see were false or at best misleading. COVID hit. I saw rising taxation, money printing and inflation as probable outcomes and recalled the housing market crash of 2008, how many people were trapped in their homes for 10 years, and the large and long reduction in home prices that entailed. I saw banking changes allowing "bail-ins" and I recalled the capital controls that some South African wealthy families struggled with in the 1990's and China in the 2000's. I recalled Nixon banning owning gold in the 1970's and the stagflation and gasoline rationing of the 1970s as I was growing up. I saw the Ukraine conflict, extreme migration initiatives, continued money printing, and PE ratios of the stock market soar to bubble levels. My home insurance annual premium on my main home alone being $6,000, my cars $3,500, and my main home annual property tax more than $15,000, my medical insurance for myself alone $12,000. Looking towards retirement my cost of living was high, and with the global changes, headed much higher. If you are in the US, this is the world you live in.
I started mapping out what I thought was going on globally, a potential threat matrix, possible timeline, some plan B location possibilities, and investigating common strategies for global lifestyles and global tax strategies and wealth protection structures.
My medical research around COVID, opened my eyes to the increasing levels of toxins being allowed to enter our food chain. Even "organic" foods were not exempt. I could write the equivalent on the health and pharmaceutical system.
The food and heath matter was the wake-up for me, and the final straw. I asked myself, what will the next 5-10 years in California, or anywhere in the US likely look like? Where do the powers that be have us headed? Where is the power stacked and is this likely to reverse any time soon? On the bright side, my mortgage would be deflated away, but every other factor was negative. I saw a combination of a rising cost of living, rising taxes, a rising need to work to meet the rising cost of living each month, yet an impending debt and everything bubble that threatened my saved assets, and an economy that in real terms had clearly been declining for years, and was ripe for a crash of epic proportions. Combine that with AI causing uncertainty for employment. To boot, as inflation begins to rise, we will be taxed not only on real gains, but also on nominal gains reflecting nothing more than inflation. I decided to relocate.
My goals were to be in a comfortable location with nice weather, modern conveniences that I could work globally, with a global banking and legal structure but also have a sustainable independent lifestyle, pleasant and close to nature where I was not relying on commercial food and water production, and where I would be left alone by politicians, the tax man would be light-handed, and be able to cross borders easily and change countries if the need arose. I also wanted to be out of the continental US and Europe and likely war zones.
I began the extensive task of unpacking all the options, evaluating my reasons and criteria and creating a global plan to move my business, life and assets from the US and to make it global, while still retaining my ability to do business in the US. While there was certainly an element of wanting to distance myself from bad things, I viewed this as a positive challenge, to create my new dream life. 30 years ago I moved my life from NZ to the US. Now was the time to take it to the next step to design my life as a global citizen. My next big adventure.
My first move was to exit the mainland and get to Puerto Rico and get tax free under Act 60 incentives, both for me personally, and also my business. I figured I could liquidate everything before the housing market crashed, sit on a Caribbean beach for a year or two while I eat fresh fish sip cocktails, and figure out what exactly was going on in the world and where I am best to permanently relocate to, while still retaining my US residency in case things magically fixed themselves. Spoiler alert, they didn't.
Puerto Rico: I established myself in Puerto Rico including setting up a new company, bank accounts, business licensing, mailboxes, apartment, home use permit, legal, accounting, regulatory, real estate, security team, plus a research assistant, and shipped 3 cars and dealt with registration and drivers licenses etc. I was granted my Act 60 incentive tax free agreement separately for me personally and my business. I was lucky to find, really the most beautiful place to live in Puerto Rico - an upscale gated community with 6 miles of coastline, a 160 boat marina, several restaurants and shops, a bank, a postal annex, and a beach club. My apartment was one block to a beautiful idyllic Caribbean beach, and beautiful weather year round, and daily turtles and iguanas sunning themselves in front of my balcony. I very much enjoyed my 3 years in Puerto Rico. I have strong opinions on the right way to do Puerto Rico. Some do it the wrong way, and as a result don't enjoy it. I looked at buying properties on the Caribbean side and Atlantic side and farmland in the hills and there are attractive deals in places. I made a few Puerto Rican friends. I learned a lot and made a lot of great contacts for anyone interested in Puerto Rico.
However about 1 year into my Puerto Rico experience it became clear to me that the US seemed to be a target zone on various fronts and that may include Puerto Rico, and I had been working on my ideal global structure (difficult when the world is changing daily) so as a contingency I set up a back-up residency in Dubai (also tax free).
Dubai: The reason I chose it was it is a recognized financial center outside of the US, with a solid banking structure, and while it is a US ally and cooperating in FATCA banking regulation, on the other hand it is a member of BRICS so a hedge against the Western banking system. Its currency is currently pegged to the USD, but it could be unpegged should the dollar hyperinflate.
Dubai was somewhat straightforward. I was lucky to select a good UAE local consulting company to process my residency and set up my Dubai Free-zone company and handle all the processing and compliance. It went probably the most smoothly of all my residencies, but nevertheless took a lot of time and planning, trips and structuring for things like bank accounts which are not simple to set up unless you know how the process works. But Dubai, is one of my favorite cities to visit, particularly the marina area where I spend my time, due to the modern clean safe environment, warm weather, polite people and everyone seems pleased and fortunate to be there. Price levels are generally below the US, although rising, and the beach is close, the pace is slow and people seem happy. The government is controlled, but seems pro business and while rules are technically strict there seems a fair amount of leeway in actual application, particularly for tourists. As long as you are polite and courteous and not doing anything stupid, you shouldn't have any concerns. I love Dubai. It has a very unique, and I think positive feel to it.
Costa Rica: With Dubai as my banking and business HQ location, next I looked for a sustainable nature location to replace Puerto Rico as my home/remote work location. I began making several visits to Costa Rica where I could leverage knowledge of friends who were already getting established there and had experience purchasing farmland. Costa Rica is easy to visit but very loose in lots of ways and little pitfalls and inconveniences mainly, to get your head around initially, but I leveraged a friend's relationship to gain access to a great real estate attorney with fluent English, got to know a few realtors, and looked at a lot of property there. A lot! So much I became friends with my CR attorney and his wife. I set up a company to get a corporate bank account (as personal accounts for foreigners are generally limited to $2000 until you have residency). I was looking in the beach area Pacific side, primarily the Dominical to Ojochal (beach below hills of rainforest), plus a little north and south. 3 exited escrows later - all of which I worked hard on - one for 9 months to solve the legal issues - I started to get frustrated with the sellers and real estate process and with rising prices to meet US demand the value for money was getting weaker for me. The reason I didn't end up in Costa Rica, was not that I couldn't solve the legal issues with the real estate, those were partially due to my approach as a bargain buyer, but I had started exploring Paraguay which I was surprised how much I liked, plus in Costa at the time there was a new influx of Americans and Canadians into the areas I was looking at, which became pervasive to the extent it turned the towns into something different from what I was looking for. At the end it felt like a bunch of displaced, disgruntled people who hadn't really figured out how to live there comfortably, didn't really belong there and weren't trying to integrate. Many with nice homes up dirt roads in the hills, but day to day all huddled together in a semi uncomfortable lifestyle, like a very long vacation, while sitting in tiki bars watching world events waiting for something bad to happen, or for it all to be over. This in combination with rising prices both in real estate and generally, due to the number of foreigners willing to pay those prices, and more beaches starting to charge tourists for access. In my eyes it had somewhat lost both its rustic island charm, and also its value for money that had drawn me to it initially. Add to that the migrant chain started to run through the beach town, and a united nations stall set up next to the local grocery stall to provide support and encouragement for migrants on their route, which didn't stop the panhandling at the supermarket. Strategically, neighbor Panama becoming less stable with both China and US competing for control of the canal, and the other side Nicaragua (which I visited and has some livable areas), getting closer to China, and the Costa Rica side of the border on both sides experiencing an elevated crime rate. Also the "red tide" of Algae very visible in the ocean giving surfers ear ache and making the fish and particularly shellfish less safe to eat at certain times of year.
To clarify, there are many great things about Costa Rica that I do enjoy and I have many friends there, I love to visit, and some of the above items have now changed a little. It just didn't seem to be a good longer term fit for what I was looking for at the time.
Paraguay: Which brought me to Paraguay ... which I did not expect to enjoy, but which I really did, where I found some familiarity in both the modern part of the city, and country farms, and where I live happily today, with my Paraguayan girlfriend Elena, (who was my realtor on my apartment and also teaching at the university at the time). We live back and forth between my new-build high rise apartment in the center of the capital city Asuncion (2m pop.), and my 25 acre farm 3 hours out of the city. And the drive is pleasant between them. Asuncion is now being built up with high rise skyscrapers similar product to Dubai, and in my opinion, is very livable for westerners (in my opinion more so than Costa Rica) in spite of not much English being spoken. I was able to purchase both the farm and the 2+2 apartment city center, at a combined cost less than my first escrow in Costa Rica, and it provides a balance of city and sustainable rural living, warm weather, and one of the cheapest cost of living in South America. My first decision in Paraguay was to buy a new modern apartment, with 24 hour security and doorman as my new global "lockup" on leaving Puerto Rico - looking over the city lights and greenbelt, center of the newest part of town, brand new building, gym, laundry, rooftop pool, interior parking spot 20 mins from airport, doorman to collect my packages when Im travelling, quiet side street, but 3-blocks walkable to 2 new modern malls similar to US standard, 30-40 restaurants and several western quality supermarkets. Safe enough to walk at night. Asuncion is easy to fly in and out of, no slow security lines, turn up 1 hour before the flight. 2 year residency is easy and cheap, and converting it to permanent residency not difficult. I have settled in very nicely and in the process collected a team of lawyers, realtors, shipping and customs, and other contacts, and although I don't feel I need it here as the culture here is passive and soft spoken, security contacts. Cost of living is very cheap, real estate is very cheap, the pace of life is social and very comfortable, and people are just nice - they will generally try to help you if you cant speak the language well. There are also large settlements of Germans, Japanese and others that have been here for at least 2 generations, and because of the weather, Paraguay is a holiday destination for many wealthy Argentinians and many have second homes here. Western level hotels common in city areas (less common in the countryside). At my farm, the neighboring farms are owned, by one American, one French family, a retired Paraguayan professional footballer, a retired professional fashion model, and two other Paraguayan families, one of which is on the city council.
In Paraguay I have now particular expertise as that is where I spend most of my time, and my girlfriend is Paraguayan - one of the very few Paraguayan realtors that speaks English, Spanish and Guarani (spoken mainly in the farming areas), and has experience with both city apartments and also various types of farmland.
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The last 4-5 years I have learned a lot, not just about places and legal processes, but strategies and human nature as we go through this relocation process. And importantly, some of the things to avoid, to improve your experience.
Our services revolve around my approach, my experiences, learnings and extensive contacts I have gained in this process. Not just the places I landed, but the strategies and decision processes I engaged, and the many other countries I have researched and decided not to go to.
My goal is to share the experience and knowledge I have gained over 5 years but at a cost that is affordable for the every-day person. The world is constantly changing and my goal is to provide a realistic view of the offshore alternatives, and methods to achieve your goals and help give you the best chance of achieving them.