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James Archer is the Sales Director for Live and Invest Overseas. He’s also an agricultural property specialist. He joins the show from Panama to discuss the projects he’s working on in Panama. Archer talks further about property opportunities in South America.

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the JetSetter Show, where we explore lifestyle-friendly destinations worldwide. Enjoy and learn from a variety of experts on topics ranging from upscale travel at wholesale prices, to retiring overseas, to global real estate and business opportunities, to tax havens and expatriate opportunities. You’ll get great ideas on unique cultures, causes, and cruise vacations. Whether you’re wealthy or just want to live a wealthy lifestyle, the JetSetter Show is for you. Here’s your host, Jason Hartman.

JASON HARTMAN: Welcome to the JetSetter Show! This is Jason Hartman, your host, where we explore lifestyle-friendly destinations worldwide. I think you’ll enjoy the interview we have for you today, and we will be back with that, in less than 60 seconds, here on the JetSetter Show.

JASON HARTMAN: It’s my pleasure to welcome James Archer to the show! He is the director of investments for Live and Invest Overseas, and he’s coming to us today from Panama City. James, welcome. How are you?

JAMES ARCHER: Hi, Jason. Thank you for having me. I’m very well; how are you?

JASON HARTMAN: Doing well, thanks. What are you up to nowadays? You’ve got several projects that you’re marketing in the greater Panama area, I guess?

JAMES ARCHER: Yeah, so, we’ve got opportunities across the globe, really. We have some in Panama, and in other parts of Latin America. Colombia, Brazil, even some in Europe, in places like France as well. So, a varied selection. So what we’re trying to do, really, is offer our clients a diverse vacation of potential projects that they can invest in, or obviously residencies for themselves. In various country, and you know, these are secular opportunities; they’re not from our portfolio as such, but what we do do is we carry out due diligence on behalf of our readers for those projects, and then give an unbiased view on those projects to our readers. So, it allows us to do some of the leg work, if you like, for our clients.

JASON HARTMAN: Okay, and so, now why do you say it’s unbiased?

JAMES ARCHER: Well, the main reason I would say that is obviously from our perspective, you know, it doesn’t make a difference to us whether it’s x project or y project that people are interested in necessarily investing. What we really focus on, and I’d like to call us really rather than a sales team, is a consultative team. So, our focus is finding out what any given person—and I’ll use investments as the example, but—any given person, what their goals are for their portfolio, and what they’re looking for, and then offering solutions to that, and allowing them to make the decision.

JASON HARTMAN: So, tell us about some of the projects that you’re recommending now.

JAMES ARCHER: Sure. Well, we’ve got some very interesting projects at the moment, and some interesting ones coming up as well. One of the ones I really like at the moment, as an income play, is in the agricultural sector in Panama. So, it’s actually a mango plantation opportunity in Panama. I really like it because it goes for 60-80 years, so there’s a constant income. You hold the hard asset, because you own the title to the land, and then it offers an income, and the developer makes their profits through the harvest of sharing those profits with you. So they take 30%, and you take 70% as the investor. I really like that one; Panama’s not only a booming market, but with the canal, it’s ideal for things like agriculture. We also have an interesting project in Brazil, which is a quick in and out, if you like. It’s a 12-month investment, and offers returns of about 15% after 12 months. Now, it’s not underwritten as such, but it is guaranteed within the contracts. But we are also bringing on another project as well similar to that, in Panama, which is underwritten by an insurance company, which offers the safety. But that’s an up to three year in and out sort of investment. And then we have Los Islotes which is actually our own project, which is in the Azuero Peninsula of Panama. Beautiful part of the country. And that’s more for people looking at end residencies. There are some capital appreciation possibilities in there as well. So, there’s a varied mix. I could go on for hours, to be honest, Jason, but there’s certainly a good selection that we have across the globe.

JASON HARTMAN: Okay, so maybe, given time, we’ll come back to the agricultural stuff. I just want to talk a little bit more about just the basic residential stuff. You know, for income property especially. What type of stuff do you have there?

JAMES ARCHER: Well, we’ve got a mixed type of projects. We have some in Panama; there’s a hotel condo opportunity, for example, in Panama City, where again, if you’re looking for something that’s turnkey, you know, you don’t want to have much hassle or thought process to it, then it’s an ideal opportunity to invest in something where it’s fully managed by a hotel operator that has a history across the world in investing in hotels, specifically from Colombia, actually I should say, and in convention centers. And we have Los Islotes, which is more directed towards, I wouldn’t say it’s a rental opportunity as such, although I’m sure it will be in the future, but really, that’s where you’re buying the land, and building your sort of ideal home in paradise, if you like. A place that people can use as a holiday home, or if they’re looking to reside in Panama. And then Colombia, you know, we have opportunities in Colombia with some developers we work with there. There’s some rental opportunities—

JASON HARTMAN: Are these all condos?

JAMES ARCHER: Not all of them. So, the Los Islotes, our own one, is for housing. So, it’s houses you can build. We will be doing condos ourselves on the projects. It will house, eventually, around 5,000 people. So, it’s a fairly substantial project. So, what we’re doing is the infrastructure—

JASON HARTMAN: Right, but that one—I think Lief talked about that on the show. That’s not really for investment though, right?

JAMES ARCHER: No, no. That’s more for the end user. From the investment side, we do have some housing projects in Mexico. But generally it tends to be condos, and that’s not by accident. It’s more based on the fact that there’s less need for maintenance, and it’s more turnkey when you’re dealing with condos, than you are when you’re dealing with housing as such, or houses, I should say, because of the fact that obviously it’s got its own maintenance happening in the building, there’s a security company overseeing the building, in many instances. So, it offers a bit more security to investors, and it offers potential for short term and long term rents, and gives you a bit of a wider audience.

JASON HARTMAN: You know why I just can’t make this whole investing overseas concept work? And God knows I’ve looked, James. I mean, I’ve been to 71 countries, I’ve looked at real estate in so many of them. And I keep looking. I keep liking this idea. But I can’t make it work! And I’ll tell you why. The reason I can’t make it work is because I just don’t know who the rental pool is! Like, where really are the renters? We’re not gonna rent these properties to locals. They just don’t have the money! And there’s some expats, you know, a lot of expats are, I guess they’re renting, buying, they’re doing different stuff. But it’s a relatively small market, isn’t it?

JAMES ARCHER: Yeah, it’s a great question, Jason. And many people, many of our readers, feel the same way. It can be confusing. And I think before even looking, and you’ve approached that in completely the right way—before even looking at a particular condo, or a particular development, you’ve gotta understand the country, its demographics, its economy, and also, then even in a micro scale, you’ve gotta understand the city that you’re thinking of investing in. So, I’ll use Panama as an example, and Cartagena, I guess as a vice versa, for example. In Panama, if you look at it right now, there’s a lot of building going on, and you’re right, you know, condos have gone fairly expensive. A two bedroom apartment for rental right now will probably at least cost you a thousand dollars upwards a month, and you know, the higher end stuff, you’re looking at two thousand upwards. So, there’s a lot of apartments coming upwards. There’s locals that can afford it, but obviously there’s a high population that can’t afford such housing.

So, all they’re really building here now is for the people that are moving into this country, and the population is growing, and I don’t just mean there’s a lot of expats obviously from the US coming into Panama, but, the expats from the US tend to be more—a lot more of the retirees that head into the other part of the country. But Panama City is an influx of people coming from the surrounding Latin countries. Colombia, there’s a lot of people from Colombia moving here. Venezuela, obviously, with the issues it’s having right now, has brought a big influx of people moving here. And these people are the wealthier side, if you li