When I went to Nicaragua I was fully expecting to buy a house. After a few months I realized that was likely a bad idea. There are a ton of expats trying to sell property there that can't. Rent a house there. Long term.
Hey Scott, great info on housing there. For me personally I don't think I would ever buy a home there ,however when I arrive in 10 months I will be looking for a 1 to 2 bedroom apartment to rent.... The only country in Central America that I would consider buying would be El Salvador. 🙂
I love El Salvador and apparently there is some interesting new news about them offering thousands of citizenships. But why would you want to buy in Salvador and not Nicaragua? Our prices are lower and stability higher.
Months from now and to let you know I really appreciate the barrio walks that you film, One in particular was a two-bedroom apartment for $180 that's exactly what I'm looking for being The frugal man I am 😁, keep up the great work I really enjoy your videos...
I feel like Canada; especially BC has been a outlier. Housing prices have skyrocketed over the last 5 years. I didn't get into the housing market here as soon as I would have liked to, but we still managed to build a lot of equity in 2 years of owning our home. Currently, interest rates are ridiculous, but we lucked out at 2%. There have been talks of the interest rates coming back down in the next couple years. If they do, it should be the perfect time for us to sell and the value should go up along with that. We don't have a lot of savings, but our home equity should give us enough to fill both of our TFSA's and invest that money into S&P500 or similar. Then we should be able to rent in Nicaragua stress-free. Another though I had was, maybe we could buy a large plot of land in a desirable area for expats such as Granada or SJDS, then build multiple homes on the land with a shared swimming pool and other luxuries. Would you consider that to be a decent investment?
So that COULD be a decent investment. People are returning to Nicaragua and expat focused housing is potentially going to be in demand. Just be aware that SO many people have been saying that for decades and there are loads of developments like that sitting empty all over the country. Remember that the country over developed and lost all of its expats. So there is little shortage of homes and communities with pool and amenities rotting away. And far more spaces already in place for them advertising lots, with zero sold in over a decade. If you are going to do that... you'd want to have great financial backing, a really, really great understanding of the nuances of the market to help you get ahead of the thousands of people already doing that, and excellent marketing resources to get attention. Nicaragua hopes to be a growth market in real estate. But remember we are at an all time low. So building new, when there is excess inventory on the market that is selling below building cost, carries a lot of risk. If you had a decade of experience in the country and really, really knew the market, people, international trends, individual markets, had building contacts, resources, etc. then .... it would still be risky, but you could evaluate it properly. But coming in blind from outside thinking you can do something that hasn't been done... essentially guaranteed to be a struggle because if the people with money, experience, resources and are sitting here looking at the opportunities aren't investing in it already - there's little chance you'd make a go of it.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog I absolutely understand it would be risky and I wouldn't think of doing it before settling in Nicaragua. Perhaps looking for one of these developments that are sitting empty and try to snag it for a deal would be a better investment, especially if it's not quite finished and they're desperate to get their money back out of it. Still very risky though lol.
I’m figuring on doing 30 days hotel in Managua as a true tourist, while sourcing a year’s lease. Looking for Highlands land for permaculture. Hoping to start 2025 right.
I was considering buying in SJDS but found prices to be very inflated. I have been shopping for a year now and l haven't seen much of a decrease. Last time we were there we rented a very nice house but it was very expensive. I would love to hear anyone else's opinion on SJDS.
The thing that we often find is that the prices seem high, until you actually push to buy and then you uncover that the high prices are a facade. Sure, everyone is going to start be asking something super high. But someone that is actually selling will take something much lower. There's an entire market in created falsely inflated prices there. So it's easy to look, even somewhat hard, and perceive high prices. But are those high prices real? There only way to prove it is if that's the regular trading price.
We're pretty much at the bottom. It's really hard for it to keep going down. Lots of people ARE leaving, but the rate of people coming in is very noticeably increasing to compensate. And those leaving mostly don't own, but those coming mostly buy (or rent) on their own. So it makes up for the losses quickly.
In Canada there is no capital gains on primary residence. The Canadian government here needs people to buy and sell real estate. Immigration based Real estate has been one of major drivers of GDP. Healthy economics has about 8- 10% for real estate. Canada is 23% GDP. Not good indicator .
