Panama

5. Investing, Real estate

The reality is that one pays very little tax here. For that reason it’s an interesting place for foreigners who come and hide their money here because the banks allow numbered (secret) accounts.

There is lots of development going on in Panama city as well as elsewhere. The MultiCentro, just across from my appartment building was opened last december 2003, and they’re building at least two other huge shopping malls in the city. Not sure though that there’s enough shoppers for all these shopping malls everywhere. I mean, how many clothing brands can one expect to put on display without repeating oneself ? The causeway is also an area of major development and I must say that they’ve gotten that one right. Any investment there is surely gonna pay off.

I’ve been looking for various places (land/house/appt) to buy and will continue to do so. The casco viejo in panama city is really cute, but rather expensive. I had the fortune to meet someone who was involved as a restauration worker in the fixing up of the casco viejo, so she helped me with getting a lot of information about this part of town. The prices are a bit steep though given the fact that there’s crime around the corner and a lot of work still needs to be done before it’ll realize it’s potential. Perhaps it will come down, because there’s not a lot of success in selling I hear. Anyways, there’s lots of opportunity. Sometimes I go off and make a real estate trip, usually because someone is trying to interest me for a piece of land (eg. a piece of land north of portobello, rather remote actually).

http://www.coronadoresort.com/engl/frame_bienes.asp
Could be interesting, I got in touch with this dutch girl who lives there with her swedish husband, and also some other guy who rents houses. I still plan to check it out sometime.

A friend of mine told me she’s looking into buying a lot in Portobello on the carribean side about an hour and a half from panama. Apparently for $20K you can be completely setup there with lot & house, all up & running. That’s nothing !! Too bad that the road to Portobello is a two-laner with lots of bad holes and traffic jams. Apparently the result of some major government rip-off or corruption.

http://www.panamasurftours.com/ (goto real-estate and banking links, but also check their airfare recommendations)

http://www.panama-offshore-services.com/

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