I went to Nicaragua in January and April this year.I have been coming there several times over the last 20 years, but we only thought about moving there recently. We rented Airbnb in different areas that we were interested in, and spent time exploring while we were there. We asked a lot of locals about properties for sale, and never really got any good leads. Our best leads came from family members, and friends and relatives of family members. We found a few nice properties to buy, not rent. We are pretty serious about a property in the Esteli area, and will be down in a few weeks to hopefully make a deal. I am in the process of getting rid of everything, selling my home, and yesterday I retired.
Thank you, and yes, it really caught me off guard, too. They had been watching and commenting on the channel for a long time, spoke to me privately, talked about having traveled to much more difficult places and made it seem like they had things well in hand. Then once they were on the ground, it seemed like the excitement of being here left them so amazed at being tourists that they totally zoned out and forget that they were here under the gun to relocate quickly to find a place to live for all their kids. And then that the father had only budgeted something like five days and then just... left. I was like... wait, what happened? What is going on?
Are they screenwriters? This sounds like a comedy movie waiting to happen. Starring Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaughy. Pedro Pascal is the quirky hotel manager who moonlights as a Segway tour guide.
You are so passionate and caring Scott! Thank you for all you do. It’s too bad it didn’t work for the family but seems like it wasn’t meant to be for them.
I booked my first 4 weeks in-country next year at Hotel Mozonte. With a little buffer to view long-term rentals in person, centralized in Managua to start the pensionado program. Figure all do a 90-180 day rental; before hopefully finding the longer/longest term rental in the Highlands.
@@jamesmcgowan5933 , sending my SSA and VA benefit letters to Fed Dept of State, birth cert to stale of IL, and a FL State Pension to Tallahassee all for apostille tomorrow: waiting to do official translations once in Managua. Been advised to hold off on the Health cert & background check until in country as well (the only two that are time-sensitive, so why do it twice). I have (4) potential places to rent between March-June that I want to visit in person. Border run in June to reset the clock a little early (after June 19th the flight prices go up).
You almost have to do health and background inside the country. Background comes from Interpol. I guess you can do INterpol anywhere, but it's always Interpol so only in country makes sense. Health in theory can be certified by another agency, but you still have to get cleared locallly so I suspect it's double the work.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog , the background check & health inspection seem to be the only ones truly time-sensitive (within 90 days of submission), so yeah why drop $75 on an FBI background with LiveScan prints, if it expires so quickly and ultimately that fund could have been spent in country. FL Health department statement can’t be notarized by State of FL (???), so it can’t be apostilled by FL.
WOW!! I feel better about my use the force approach lol, I the first 2 weeks of looking I turned down 2 places and eventually found my 2 bedroom apartment..is it long term? Not so sure but got a place for a 1/4 of what the hostal was costing allowing me to save a bit..the only thing I found shocking is that the prices of flights went from 212 round trip to over $600...Once I can buy a motorcycle I will look for a house to rent but in the mean time..everything has been working out, yes stressful at times but getting my sea legs mostly due to your videos and willingness to just try for several hours a day at times....so THANK YOU for your videos!!
The lowest cost carrier left for the slow season. So everyone who has remained got a LOT more traffic and now have command of the prices. Might be flying from Costa Rica again for a few months until Spirit returns. Argh.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog Bummer..I've thought about costa rica but it seems the cheapest is like $400 and then the cost and headache of boing over there..is there a cheap airline and way to get to the airport from Leon to CR airport? Any info would be great!
Hey Scott we have been coming since 2015. We are here in Granada now looking at dream retirement houses overlooking the pacific. We found our perfect house of course at the extreme top of our budget, but they didn’t take our offer so now we are back to the drawing board. Let me know if you know of any “dream houses” that come to mind that may not have fancy RU-vid videos, or in a place like rancho Santana. Our budget is literally as little as $300k to 1.5 mil just depending on how it feels. My wife loves gardens, and old world feel, and I of course like the ultra modern Malibu style pacific marlin homes. Really was wanting southern I tend to get overheated pretty easy in the Leon area.
Often if they don't take your offer, it's because it was never for sale in the first place. Did you speak to the actual owner or a real estate agent that claimed to represent them? It's common for agents to show and offer houses without the seller actually wanting to sell the house.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog I must say, Scott, that you certainly picked the right shirt to wear while standing next to that tree - very well color-coordinated...(the content was excellent too, as always!) 🙂
@@nwalker2619 if you're you're in the USA, you're allowed to abandon any children under the age of two at a local fire station. Just a suggestion 🤷♀️😂.
@@patriciaflaherty Haha. They're between the ages of 21 and 19. I can legally abandon them now, but I'm trying to be a good mom and help them get their footing under them without me.
I don't think that there is any tax advantage to living in Nicaragua. It is just cheaper to live there. You pay taxes where you earn the money. Most pensions plans, Social Security, 401k distributions, and IRA distributions get taxed regardless of where you live. There are some cases where you can avoid US State taxes but if you receive a state related pension or own any property you will pay state taxes. The only thing is that you won't be double taxed for income earned in a foreign country.
If you have no earned income then there is no earned income tax to have an advantage on. But if you are not retired and have an income (and since you can't work in Nicaragua) then you are tax free. Nearly everyone we know from the US this is life changing. The number of people moving abroad with nothing considered income remaining is pretty low. And even for those with private equity investments, it means you can take a massive portion tax free. Only people that are fully retired, and all their foreign investments are not in things that they control would be impacted. Which is plenty of people, but people in that position generally have trivial tax burdens already as it is solely capital gains. But even lots of retirees, once they learn that they earn so much more by being tax free, consider taking some work because there is so much money to be had.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog Tax Free? Any income that you are making in the USA (Wages or investments) will result in you paying a tax at the same rate that you pay as if you are living in the USA. Nicaragua isn't going to tax you for it, but the US will. If it generates a W2, 1099, K1, or anything like that, you will be taxed.
Yes, normal Americans are tax free when they move to Nicaragua (earned income tax free, capital gains are different) - this is a MAJOR reason that people move here and nearly every American we know qualifies. US does not tax you until you are outrageously wealthy. You can say "will be taxed" because there is a few dollars to pay, but it's like .1% instead of regular tax rate - it's ancillary taxes, not income taxes. It's not even remotely the "same rate" as in the US. In the US my tax rate hit 52%. SInce being in Nicaragua it is 0%. Now if you earn more than $120K per person, yes, you start to get taxed, but only on the money over that rate. So as a married couple, we can make $240K/year combined tax free. If my kids start working, they can get to $120K each, too, tax free. I don't know any Americans that live here who have to pay income tax. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sfuqTbg0fV8.html I have a whole video breaking this down. It's amazing how many Americans and American CPAs don't know about this as it is such an insanely significant part of the tax code - and so straight forward.
Likely true. The government's policies (they aren't really any one person's, the country has a law making body and policies come from a vote of law makers) are definitely key reasons to want to be in any country. How laws are made, expats don't care. But the resulting protections, rights, freedoms, etc. are definitely driving factors.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog The only thing bothering me is how he wholeheartedly supports the traditional Soviet line about capitalism versus socialism, and the fact that he bought into some of the COVID exaggerations, though not as much as a country like Costa Rica. But his foreign policy is logical.
Most Nicaraguans, us included, just use bottled water. Normally from the beer company. It's cheap and available everywhere. No need to worry about it for cooking and stuff. THe water is safe. But it's not awesome water, just safe, lol. So we drink bottled. BUt we make coffee and cook with tap.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog Thanks for the info. We’re coming on a scouting trip next year for our retirement. I’m a surfer so I want to be around popoyo area. I loved your video on SJDS. That helps us with understanding the difference between there and real Nicaragua. I don’t know anything about infrastructure in the popoyo area but I’ve heard it’s a very tiny town with not much around. I guess SJDS would be the closest large town? We want to try to integrate into the culture as much as possible.
This is a sad story, but like you continuously keep saying, "Do your research." On top of this, you were very willing to help them out but they rarely reached out.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog can you do an interview with your veterinarian going into great detail about this? I need to know all the diseases. All of them. One of my dogs doesn't like when I leave to go to the grocery store. I could never go for a walk on the beach without him 😭😭. We also need to talk about people stealing pets. Jack Pittman mentioned that being a problem in a comment on one of your recent videos.
@@GoochGooch-cc7sj Scott said if you take your dogs on the beach, they will get diseases from the street dogs that frequent the beaches. He specifically mentioned distemper and heartworm disease, but heartworm disease is spread by mosquitoes. Distemper and parvo can definitely stay contagious in an area where infected dogs have been.
