Category: Homes in Panama

Buying A Home In Panama

We will talk here about buying a home in Panama; however our advice easily computes to almost anything or any place when moving overseas. As a caveat, this blog is a summary of our experience and, as we have learned, not every experience here in Panama is the same.  It is not intended to give legal advice, but to inform people of the process we followed.

First and foremost, use every fiber of your due diligence. We have continually advised that people spend at least a year on the ground in the country prior to buying real estate. Being on the ground and meeting your future neighbors, exploring your future neighborhood, and getting involved in a community are the only ways to be sure you are making a solid decision. This is also a way to make sure that buying real estate is right for you.  It is easy to buy real estate in Panama, but hard to sell.  It is a depressed real estate market at this time, but appears to be showing signs of turning around.  We have met several ex-pats that rent and will continue to rent with no intention of buying, and that was a decision which was right for them. Also, living abroad is not right for everyone. We do not want people to jump right in and buy real estate without knowing that this move is right for them. Because it is so hard to sell property here, making a quick decision to buy can be bad. We knew that this was at least a 10 year adventure for us, and we knew that Panama was the place we wanted to be. As a result, making that decision to buy was good for us. We did not buy our home to use as an investment.

Second, learn the customs and laws of the country of which you are considering.  This is done by reading blogs, doing internet searches, and asking questions.  There is a lot of information out there, and you need to decipher through that information.

Third, and certainly not least, obtain wise counsel in a reputable real estate agent and an attorney.  You may also want to speak with your financial advisor and your CPA or tax person.

In any developing country everyone must understand that they are no longer in the United States or Canada. Laws to protect consumers are practically non-existent outside of those places. Things like mortgage loans are rarely available to expats and if you find one, it will be a high interest rate and unusual terms. Be prepared to pay cash. That being said, you will need to know how you will get the money to the seller. Bringing more than $10,000 cash into Panama is scrutinized by the U.S. government due to concerns about money laundering. There will be requirements and documentation at the IRS.   Make sure you understand the consequences, so it is a good idea to talk to your financial advisor and CPA about this topic.  We cannot speak for the Canadian government requirements.  There are also costs to do international wire transfers, whether it be from the U.S. or from Canada.

An arms length transaction will usually require a 10% earnest deposit which is non-refundable! We discovered that this is negotiable, but the 10% is “standard”. That money is spent to pay the agent(s), seller’s attorney, and ready the paperwork for closing. Make sure that your decision to buy is solid. Ask questions and make sure that you have a licensed real estate agent and your own capable, tried and tested attorney. It is important to know that both these occupations are protected by the Panamanian government and reserved for Panamanians. If you choose to deal with an American or Canadian agent for ease of communication, it is unlikely that they are licensed. Most of these people work for an unknown person who holds a license and pays little attention to how they operate their business. This goes for rental agents as well. There is a form of the Multiple Listing Service here in Panama, but it is not used or accepted as readily as it is in the U.S. Real estate agents here in Panama appear to strive to sell their own listings and, as a result, are not as apt to share information with other agents.  We know several people who used several different agents to sell their property, as well as to purchase property.  Also, attorneys may engage in many different businesses and many are not full time in law. Please, ask friends for referrals to find an attorney and a real estate agent who will get your business done in a timely and fair manner. Be careful and use your own due diligence, instinct, and intuition when hiring these professionals. Just because one person had a good experience does not mean that you will. We are choosing not to provide referrals on this blog. This blog does very little advertising and we have not collected any referral fees for endorsements. Our intent is to entertain and educate. If you would like more information on who we used, we will be happy to provide that in a private message.

There are numerous horror stories that float around about properties being sold to multiple buyers, sellers who do not have the right to sell, and buyers who do not get the documentation necessary to have clear title to their home. Make sure your new home has a deed. Make sure that your attorney and real estate agent do their job and both are honest and upright in their dealings. We have met, know, or are friends with each of the above mentioned. We know an individual who came home and found her house seized by the government (including all the contents). The seller didn’t have the right to sell this home or any of the others in the neighborhood. This realtor should be in jail but is not. Advance purchases at substantial savings are often a bad idea. Another friend here bought a new home at the beginning of construction in 2012 and is still not moved in. Their home is within hours of completion but no certificate of occupancy has been granted. The developer has several projects and none are being completed.  Buyer beware!

Currently the real estate market in Panama is very depressed. Most sellers are trying to get more than the market will bear. The diligent buyer must also be concerned with over paying. This means knowing what is on the market. We viewed at least 20 different properties in different locations to get a feel for what is out there and what would be a good price to pay. The current President has been in office for five years and will be replaced in the election just a few days from now. Most people here are waiting to see who will replace him before making buying or selling decisions. It appears that the current president has done little to promote business and tourism. The result is a suffering economy. That being said, it can be a buyer’s market for the savvy buyer. Keep in mind that buying in an area with a lot of expats has advantages and disadvantages. Expats tend to drive prices on consumer goods higher in that area. We elected to buy in an area of other expats. We pay prices compared to the States on some things while other things are much less. For the most part, our dollar goes further here than it would back home. We have a very nice home and enjoy dinners out often without blowing our budget. If an expat wanted to live on a very small monthly pension or social security it is possible by selecting a place to live away from the expat communities. That involves immersing into the local culture and definitely being fluent in the Spanish language.

We made an exhaustive list of “must haves” when we searched for our home here. Our agent was aware of our requirements and usually only showed us homes meeting most of those requirements. We wore her out searching for the perfect home without sacrificing any of our “must haves”. In the end she found us a place that required very little compromise and left us some money for a bit of remodeling. She helped us find local contractors to do the work and helped us with the language barrier.  She is a full service agent, and went above and beyond every step of the way.

The original purchaser of our home in 2009 placed the home and its contents in a Panamanian corporation.  Our seller, who was the second owner of our home, maintained the corporation.  We had the choice of purchasing the corporation or having the corporation transfer the deed to us individually. We decided to purchase the corporation. In our research, the corporation has some benefits, even though there is an annual cost to maintaining it. It is a very common way to hold property here and that made the purchase very clean and simple. We actually bought all the shares in the corporation from a Canadian seller. We bought all the benefits, including a country club membership, and, as a result, were able to maintain the balance of 12 years of tax exoneration. Our corporation is the owner of our home and its contents and we know that the corporation will pass to our heirs to do with as they please upon our passing. We opted to use the same attorney as the seller, who was also the attorney and resident agent for the corporation. The attorney prepared the stock purchase agreement as well as all the corporation transfer documents and she will handle the annual corporation renewal on our behalf in the future. Our other assets held in Panama can be protected by a Panamanian will, if we choose to do that. We choose to keep our other assets in Panama at a bare minimum.

Our stock purchase agreement was completed in both English and Spanish, side by side. The law here does not require this contract, or a buy/sell agreement, to be in Spanish to be legally enforceable, but if there is a legal dispute, the court will require it to be translated into Spanish. We liked the way our attorney prepared it.  In the agreement, you want to make sure that all the shares of the corporation are transferred and that there are no encumbrances or liens on the shares or on the corporation.  Also, you want to make sure that there are no unpaid home owner’s association fees, taxes, or utilities (including cable/internet).  It is also good to ask if there are any special assessments being requested.  One condo we looked at was making improvements to their pool area and assessed $10,000.00 per owner to be paid at $5,000.00 per year for 2018 and 2019.  Had we not asked, we may have never known about that until after closing if we had purchased that unit.

Make sure there is a title search and, if the property is in a corporation, a due diligence investigation is done on the corporation. It is our understanding that real estate deeds are not very old in Panama. There is something here called owning property by “right of possession,” but we did not encounter this in our home search. If you are buying property from an owner with this, please do additional research and ask more questions of the professionals to make sure the owner has the right to sell the property. Our real estate agent took care of our title search and the attorney took care of the corporation investigation.

Title insurance is very common in the U.S.; however, it is not common at all here and is very expensive. We felt pretty safe on the title since our building was built in 2009 and we were only the third owner of the unit. Also, the attorney was the attorney for the corporation, so she had an interest in making sure the title was transferred properly. In addition, escrow accounts or escrow agents are not as common and are relatively new. We used the attorney’s escrow account to handle some of the money transfers. She told us she maintained a separate account to handle these types of situations. As a result, we transferred our 10% deposit to the attorney’s account when we signed the Stock Purchase Agreement.

The seller had to pay some taxes (a 2% title transfer tax and a 3% capital gains tax) and our attorney took care of this payment for the seller. As a result, our contract required us to wire money to cover the taxes to the attorney’s account and the balance was a wire transfer to our seller in Canada. As a side note, one of the main reasons real estate was put in corporations was to avoid these taxes as the taxes are triggered when the transfer of title was filed at the Public Registry. However, a recent change in the law (which is common in Panama with each president) now assesses a 5% share transfer tax when a corporation owns real estate and sells its shares. As another side note, the international wire transfer to Panama required a lot more information (like the purpose of the transfer) and took longer than the wire transfer to Canada.  Our seller received her money within a day while it was a week before the attorney received it.

The buyer and seller each have closing costs, including notary fees and attorney fees. Expect those costs and fees to be between $1500-$2000. It took approximately 3 weeks from when we made our original offer (which was verbal) for us to “close” (when we received the keys, paid the balance we owed to the seller, and received copies of some of the corporation documents).  However, there was additional paperwork, we, as buyers, needed to receive, such as final documents filed with the Registro Publico de Panama and the original corporation documents. We received those documents approximately 7 weeks later. Closings can take a lot longer, depending upon the title search and the attorney’s schedule. We were lucky in that our closing was relatively smooth and quick.

We moved into our new condo full time at the end of January after doing some remodeling. We are very happy with our decision and with our choice of professionals used. Each person has a different experience, so, as previously stated, do your due diligence. Do not be afraid to ask questions to make sure you understand the process.

We have given a lot of information here, and realize that many of you who follow may not need this detail. There are others who will find this helpful. We would like to encourage questions, comments and feedback especially from those of you who have experience buying and selling real estate abroad. Thanks for reading and sharing. Good luck with your move overseas.

Until next time,

Greg and Jen

A New Home In Panama

Often, too much time passes between my blog posts. For this I often feel guilty. I have been attending writing workshops with Lynda Allison. Her encouragement, and that of the other attendees, has been priceless in my decision to continue writing. In the future I hope you all will notice subtle changes in the way information is being presented here. I want our readers to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell Panama in the same way Jen and I do. I am, also, committed to pushing out shorter, but more frequent posts.

In our last post I eluded to our impending move to a new residence. We stand by our advice to rent and explore for a year prior to purchasing here in Panama. We fast tracked our purchase of a home by a couple of months, when we got the opportunity to buy a nice place that met 100% of our criteria. Our research was complete and we moved forward. We absolutely love our life in this Coronado community. There is a huge core of American and Canadian expats living here; with many others spending portions of the year here. There is also a trend of people from South Africa relocating here to escape a deteriorating political climate. We are becoming involved in a local English speaking church and a multitude of outreach activities. We are becoming fully engaged in learning Spanish, even though you can easily live here without knowing a word of Spanish. We have developed friendships that we will cherish for life. All that being said, I think you all may see from where the future of this blog will come.

We bought our new home in late December and engaged in an aggressive, minor renovation. We hired a local Panamanian Electrician for some additional outlets and to move a couple of switches. We then employed a local Cabinet Maker who built some new cabinets to match the existing and add some crown molding. We are sharing some before and after pictures. It feels good to have most of the fine detail done, and be completely moved from our rental. One of our biggest motivations to buy this condo was that it needed very little. We are in the El Alcazar Building in the Coronado Golf Complex. It is within walking distance of beautiful Pacific Beaches, golf, tennis, an all-inclusive hotel, beach club, restaurants, and country club style facilities. Every window of our condo has panoramic views of the ocean, mountains, and surrounding community. For readers interested in the details involved with purchasing real estate in Panama, we will explore them in detail in an upcoming post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last several weeks we have done far more than work on and move into our new home. We had a two day adventure to Colon where we enjoyed an all-inclusive hotel deep in the jungle on Lake Gatun. Lake Gatun makes up a large part of the Panama Canal. We were located only a few minute drive from the Agua Clara Locks, which are part of the recently expanded Panama Canal. These new locks accommodate the largest of ships. We watched as a container ship carrying over 10,000 containers (1 container is the size of a semi trailer) passed into and out of the first chamber. It was interesting to watch. The canal passage for this particular ship was in excess of $800,000. We also got a look at the new bridge over the canal. It is nearing completion. You may remember pictures of it in our post from October of 2017.  

In keeping with my goal to make shorter, more frequent posts I will wrap up for now. Please feel free to go back through our archives. We love feedback and questions. If you have not subscribed to get our posts automatically delivered to your e-mail, please do it now. Like and share our blog to keep them coming. we remain excited to share our experiences and adventures.

Hasta Luego,

Greg and Jen

 

They Are Called Effigy’s

About two weeks ago effigy’s started showing up all along the Pan-American Highway. The effigy’s are also referred to as Munecos, Dummies, Old Year Dolls, and Judas Dolls. They are life sized “stuffed people” and they make up one of Panama’s many New Year traditions. Folklore has it that the effigy should be stuffed with fire crackers, beaten, and set on fire. The sins and evil spirits of the old year are destroyed to make way for good fortune in the new year. It is believed that ghosts are afraid of light and noise. The fire crackers, therefore, help drive the evil forces away. We went for a short drive and returned with a bunch of pictures to share. They usually try to make the effigy look like well known politicians, movie stars, or other popular people from the past year. We saw candidates for the upcoming Presidential election here in Panama and of course there were a few attempts at President Trump.

As you can see the imagination is off the charts. We find the whole thing a bit sacrilegious, so it was difficult to create a blog post using this tradition. As we thought about it, we decided that it would be unfair not to share fun and interesting cultural traditions regardless of our beliefs.

Other popular traditions for Ano Nuevo in Panama include eating 12 grapes at midnight making a wish with each. After eating the grapes you spit out the seeds and count them. The number of seeds is your lucky number for the new year. Use this number when playing the lottery (lottery is popular in Panama). Make sure you have a little money in your hands while eating your grapes. Having money in your hand at midnight ensures that you will have money throughout the new year. You should wear yellow underwear to have good luck throughout the new year. Wearing red will attract love in the new year. To get rid of bad energy from the old year you should burn incense. Hanging a bunch of oranges, rice, and wheat behind the front door will give you prosperity, work and health. Putting rice in a pot will attract wealth in the new year. Last but not least,  it is believed that a swim in the ocean on New Year’s day will clean out the bad from the previous year and bring good things in the New Year. In all fairness, we found most of this information on livinginpanama.com. That is where we turned when the effigy’s started showing up along the road.

The people in Panama like to have a good time. We actually spent our evening with friends at the restaurant right here on the property. It was much safer than driving. Our evening was capped by great fireworks and we didn’t see anyone burn an effigy..

Dinner at Terrazas
Dinner at Terrazas

Life is indeed good here. Over the past few weeks the snowbirds have started to filter in. January to March is high season here and we expect to catch up with some old friends from last year and make new friends this new year. We bought our own condo at the end of December. We put in a lot of time researching and looking for the place that was just right for us. We are doing a small bit of remodeling prior to our move. Stay dialed in to this blog, to see our new place and we will share the details for transacting real estate business in Panama. It really was like our own episode of “Beach Front Bargain Hunt”.

We consider it a privilege to share our life in Panama with you all. Please, like and share so we reach everyone. If you have not subscribed to receive our posts by email now is a great time to subscribe. We will never spam you and our security is outstanding. It is also a great complement to have your input and comments.

Feliz Ano Nuevo,

Greg and Jen

 

Gamboa Canopy Tour and Ron Abuelo Rum Distillery…

were but two of the highlights during our recent visit from my Dad, Doug, and his friend Renee.IMG_1055

We knew that we wanted to have some special adventures while they were here and the entire week was loaded with fun and adventure for all. Many of you will recall our past adventures to El Valle de Anton . A click on the link here will take you to our post from the first adventure there. El Valle is only about 45 minutes away and we never fail to take our guests there. We journeyed up the mountain last Monday with Dad and Renee in tow. It was a beautiful sunny day and we started out at the Orchid Conservatory. The blooms are different each time we visit. We all thoroughly enjoyed this tour and the only way for you all to share the experience is by our sharing of some pictures.

After checking out the orchids we went over to the El Nispero Zoo and garden. We have heard that the zoo is more of an aquarium than a zoo, but we found the contrary. There were also many species of local animals, including rescues, in addition to the aquarium. We found the aquarium to be the most interesting with endangered species of toads and frogs from the rain forest. The golden toad is thought to only exist in this habitat. Some say that there may be more in unexplored areas of the jungle nearby. We found the small zoo easy to explore and very enjoyable.

After we left the zoo, we went over to the market for some fresh produce and a little shopping. By mid afternoon we were headed back down the mountain home.

Jen and I continue to search for our new forever home here in Panama. We are nearing a big announcement on our decision to purchase here. We will continue to advise new expats to rent for a year. That gives people a sufficient time to figure out if they like the climate and environment. It is also important to become educated on the housing market. There are many other factors which we will explore in detail later. On Tuesday we were able to show our special guests the property where we hope to one day permanently settle. We also had a nice lunch at their beach club.

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Wednesday was one of our pinnacle adventures. We left home early and drove to the Gamboa Rain Forest Resort. We enjoyed a wonderful canopy tour of the rain forest which ended at the top of an observation tower. From the tower we could see the Panama Canal, Chagres River, and many other interesting things. We could even see the thatched roofs of an Embera Indian Village up the river. We also, had the opportunity to see a sloth eating and basking in the sun on a tree branch near the tower. Following our tour we had lunch on the veranda of the hotel.

The second of our pinnacle adventures was a trip to the Ron Abuelo Distillery. Since arriving in Panama we have used , and swear by Wayz for navigation. There are no street names and a great deal of trust must be had in the navigation system. When we reached the turn for the distillery, everyone said this cannot be right. With faith we went on down a two track that lead us through a few kilometers of sugar cane before emerging on the back side of the distillery.

Sugar Cane
We passed through several kilometers of Sugar Cane

We made our way through the plant grounds to the welcome center. We found this tour to be one of the most amazing yet. We started in the plant where our tour guide explained the process from processing the sugar cane to bottling. they do not bottle the product at this location. It is shipped to Panama City to a bottling plant. You may notice that there are no pictures inside the manufacturing facility. We were not allowed to take pictures inside. Following the plant tour we were returned to the welcome center for a cocktail. The distillery was founded by the family of the current President of Panama. Preparations were being made for The Presidents visit over the weekend (Saturday, December 8, was Mothers Day here).

Following our cocktail we toured the warehouses where all the rum is aged. The Ron Abuelo is aged in retired Jack Daniels barrels. That is what gives the rum its caramel color. The longer the aging process the darker the color and the smoother the rum becomes. The family reserve is in its own warehouse and the barrels are racked on their side. This is where we found the 30 year old rum aging. The 30 year old Ron Abuelo sells for over $120 US dollars. We didn’t buy any.

Once we finished the tour of the warehouses we returned to the welcome center where we were given a tasting of each of the different levels of Ron Abuelo Rum. The tasting included education and certification for determining the reason for the increase in the aging process and the value of aging in the manufacturing.

The tour ended with a traditional Panamanian lunch. Three courses of fantastic.

On the drive home we continued to explore with stops at a Panamanian Cemetery and a cigar factory.

Before our special guests left we had to take them to Playa de Panama and our special lunch shack experience. Usually the proprietor has lobster for $10 and Corvina for $8. He also sells beer for $1 and if you’re lucky you can add coco arroz for a $1. We found that lobster was in short supply Saturday. Instead he was offering giant langostinos (prawns). We brought our own beers and our total lunch bill for 4 people was $36. Following our lunch we all went for a refreshing swim in the Pacific. By the time we left the place was packed. The people in Panama love to celebrate Mothers Day on the beach.

As we prepare to close this post it has occurred to us that you, our readers, deserve to know that we have no paid endorsements. That being said, we are enjoying many tours without breaking the bank. We have found a great resource for taking tours on a budget https://ofertasimple.com . It is a great pleasure to share our adventures with you. Please feel free to share and keep the momentum of our blog going. As we anticipate the blessings of the Christmas season, please know that we will be celebrating the birth of our Savior here in the tropics.

Feliz Navidad,

Greg and Jen

Casco Viejo, Contadora, and The Amador Causeway

Yes, you are about to hear of our awesome adventure over this past weekend. Things at our house have been extremely busy over the past several weeks, so we have to apologize, with explanation, for the lack of recent posts. Shortly after our last post we had a wonderful visit from friends who live in Michigan. We shared some adventures with them that would be a repeat to our blog, but were great never the less. One adventure of note that we have yet to talk about is the Playa de Panama which is just a few short minutes from our condo. The beach is generally quiet and secluded. The best part is that there is a shack at the entrance where you can get a great meal of Lobster or Corvina with Patacones.

Playa de Panama Lobster and Corvina
Playa de Panama Lobster and Corvina

The price for Lobster is $10 and the Corvina is $8. The purveyor usually has ice cold beer for $1, but it is not a problem to bring your own drinks. Once our friends departed, we found ourselves busy dealing with the sale of our house in Michigan. As of now it is scheduled to close by the end of the week. With the sale of our house looming near we have resumed actively looking at homes here in Panama. Last week was the Thanksgiving Holiday in the States. It is just another day here in Panama, however we opted to create our own grand celebration. We shared our meal with new friends from five countries, including Canada, Germany, South Africa, Panama, and The United States. There were traditional and non-traditional Thanksgiving food with Turkey and everyone bringing a dish to pass. We also made sure that the staff here at our condo was fed. A great time was had by all.

This is where we catch up to the present. We left early on Friday morning with our good friends and neighbors to share a weekend adventure. Our adventure started with a stop on the Amador Causeway to explore the Biodiversity Museum.

Bio Diversity Museum, Panama City
Bio Diversity Museum, Panama City

The experience was, without question, one of the most interesting experiences. Readers may recall our previous post T- 21 Days To Departure . In that post we presented research where we found some great adventure destinations. We were able to cross a couple of these destinations off our list, and more, this past weekend. The Bio Diversity Museum was self guided. Each of us had a device that we could listen to, which guided us through the museum in our native language at our own pace. There were also real human guides all along the way who were all multi-lingual. They helped fill in the blank spots and answered any questions. The museum explained how Panama was formed by volcanoes, rising from the ocean which created a land bridge from South America to North America. The result was the convergence of two populations of plants and animals on one single land mass. The museum also helps teach how to live in harmony with the other plants and animals with which we share this space.

Following our visit to the museum we explored the Amador Causeway. The Causeway runs out to the Pacific along the Panama Canal. It is lined with marinas, bars, restaurants, and shops. We located a great fonda where we had lunch.

The Flamenco Marina is just down the way. This is our destination Saturday morning. Our ferry to Las Perlas  (The Pearl Islands) will depart from there. We have round trip tickets for the ferry ride to the island of Contadora where we will spend the day. Following our lunch we found our way to the Raddisson on the Panama canal. We got checked in and took Uber to Casco Viejo. We enjoyed Casco well into the late evening. This was our second trip to Casco. There is so much to do and see that we will entertain friends there for years without ever tiring of it. The Cathedral on the square is being renovated and it is nearly completed. When we were there the freshly refurbished bells were waiting on the sidewalk to be returned to the bell towers. We also toured another Cathedral where there was a scale model of Jerusalem. It was just incredible. Our night ended with dinner then a half block walk to the Presidential Palace. It is Independence month here in Panama and we enjoyed fireworks over the bay near the palace. Panamanian people love fireworks.

Saturday we were up early for our 7 a.m. ferry departure. The Pearl Islands are a string of islands about 1 1/2 hours away by boat. Survivor fans will remember a season of that show was filmed there. We visited Contadora. It was a beautiful beach destination, but not the same island where the popular television program had been filmed. We rented a golf cart on the beach and took off to explore. The island has several restaurants, beaches, a few bed and breakfasts and an airstrip. We enjoyed two different beaches, one of which we did not share with any other people. We all agreed that this was someplace where we could spend a few days. The surrounding islands made for spectacular views.

There is so much more to share, and we are feeling a bit guilty that we have allowed so much time to pass between posts. We hope that you all have enjoyed our pictures from this weekends adventure. We are preparing for special guests this next week from the States, and there are a couple of great new adventures planned for their visit. We are committed to sharing those in a little over a week. We are hopeful that we may, also be able to share more about our pending home search here in Panama. We wake every morning feeling thankful and blessed to be retired in such a beautiful place. Please like and share our blog to keep us out there. The new rules at FaceBook are continuing to drive us crazy. We will post a link, but they seem to block our ability to share as we used to.

Blessings,

Greg and Jen

La Laguna

When a friend suggested that we take an excursion to La Laguna we were chomping at the bit to take a ride. From our condo it was a 45 minute ride to a very secluded mountain lake. The place was described as Jurassic Park in Panama. We agreed that the place was really cool but not a place to entertain our visitors. It was a great place for a hike and quiet solitude. There were very few others there, possibly because of the need for four wheel drive to reach our destination. At the end of the day we agreed that the best part of it was the ride up there. On our return to civilization we stopped at a housing project nested on the mountainside which was too cool not to explore.  Sante’ Fe was in the possibility of places we could want to live so we took a look. We could build a new home for slightly more than buying a condo on the beach. This turns out to be a no brainer for us. We have decided that we are beach, rather than mountain people. Enjoy the pictures of this adventure. We had magnificent views of the ocean from the mountain housing project where we looked at lots. It seems that everything about Panama leaves us awestruck and amazed. Every day is a new adventure even if we never leave the condo. The weather here is always interesting and never a disappointment, even when it rains. It is rainy season here now but we rarely have more than a few minutes of rain. Most days we have plenty of quality beach or pool time.

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Our view from Sante’ Fe. This is the road leading to the lots.

We have discovered many great places to enjoy a meal. Unfortunately we rarely take pictures of our experience. We are dedicated to doing better at this. One of the best meals is right here at our condo. The chef at La Terrazas Del Mar is truly amazing. We have been there several times without a bad experience. We do, however, find the fondas the most fun and always cheap. On Sunday we enjoyed the fonda outside our gate. We will return often as we can eat there cheaper than cooking at home.

 

Traditionnes De La Terra. The fonda outside our gate

Chulita, arroz, frioles, ensalada, and plaintain $5

chickens wander in the dining room

We also have found a great place where the half pound burgers are less than $5. They have birds and a great patio dining area.

This guy chatted us up while we ate

His friend nearby was very pretty

The parrot hung out in a tree nearby

Our best find was one afternoon we took off for a beach lunch. The lobster was pricey, but well worth the trip. It rained while we enjoyed a special lunch under a bohio.

Jen had a lobster split and steamed in garlic butter.

When we are not eating we enjoy our church and have volunteered to teach English to the local community. We have 4 students each and have just completed the 4th week of this awesome outreach. We both feel like we are not quite qualified for this, however it provides us a degree of satisfaction as we see the progression of these wonderful students. They are so anxious to learn and they are all learning to communicate with the many North Americans who live in this community. We are becoming active in the church and look forward to church on Sunday morning as well as Bible study. Our pastor is a great communicator and our knowledge of the Bible is growing. We both feel that Gods purpose for moving us here is buried in the details.

We are looking forward to a visit from friends in less than 2 weeks. We love to share our adventures, and hope that we can show them a great time.

For now we will say adios and leave you with a great picture of a recent sunrise (the feature picture). We cannot express enough how awesome the weather is here. As we wrap up this post we are sitting on our balcony watching a storm come across the horizon.

A storm moving in

2 Retire In Panama? celebrates its 1 year anniversary

It was an easy decision for us to decide to retire in Panama. We continue to learn; and will continue to share. We just renewed our domain for 5 years and will continue to operate under the same address even though it is no longer a question for us. We realize that many of our readers are doing their own due diligence and are reading for information. We have shared our experience and it is mostly positive. For those following along who want to learn from our mistakes, we are trying to share those as well. We have done extensive research so, fortunately our mistakes have been few. We are currently on the ground in Panama. We have completed the visa process and are officially expats in Panama. Our visa is issued based on a pension we receive in the States. The Panamanian government gives us a ton of perks to get us here spending the pension. Please, feel free to check out our archive post from November 2017 Pensionado Visa Process to get a feel for the visa process and the benefits. We are finding that the whole thing is very much as we expected. Keep in mind that we used a very reputable attorney for this process. The government does frequently change things here so when things change we just have to accept it. We also have to learn how to take full advantage of our discounts. One example is Copa Airlines. They offer a 25% discount for expats with a pensionado visa. You have to purchase tickets in person at a Copa ticket counter or a sales office. This was one of our hard lessons. We purchased tickets on-line to return to Michigan in a few weeks and went to a sales office within 24 hours after purchase to receive the discount.  Because we had already paid for our tickets, Copa would not give us the discount. Lesson learned…cost $320. We have responded to every legitimate question from our readers. If you are interested in a recommendation about anything we write about, send a message and we will do our best to accommodate.

We are hesitant to say we are fully moved from the States, as we still have our home there so officially we have two homes. The sale of our house in Michigan was solid and after almost six weeks our buyers financing failed. We lost the most valuable window of time to sell lake property in Michigan. With the home back on the market we are committed to making frequent trips back to keep things moving along. In Panama, we are renting. This takes the financial sting out of the fact that our Michigan house is still not sold. To put things in perspective for cost: we save enough on insurances in Panama to more than pay our rent. Really, nothing here costs more than in the States, except maybe electricity. Yesterday I bought 2 pairs of flip-flops and 3 t-shirts (practically all I wear here) for $9.58. Groceries cost about the same. We get a lot of fresh seafood and there is very few preservatives in anything. We find vegetables at the market straight from the farm. We get fruit (pineapples, melons, avocado, bananas, etc) at stands along the roadside. Our lifestyle/diet is better with very little effort.

Delicioso

fresh catch of the day

fresh vegetables

We have started settling into the community here. Coronado Bible Church has provided us with relationships that extend far beyond the community of faith. We have been able to find English-speaking people to refer us to nearly everything one needs on a regular basis. Yesterday we had our car serviced at a shop owned by an American family. They did a great job. We have also attended a couple of meetings of English speaking business owners here on the Panamanian Riviera. These meetings are intended to help people like us find local vendors who make it easy for us to live here without speaking much Spanish. Even though it isn’t really a business, the folks in this group are showing a great interest in our blog. We are connecting with our Panama insurance agent later this afternoon. It appears by the quotes we saw, that we will be insuring our car (full coverage) and getting a renters policy for a total of under $600 per year.

We have been able to go into Panamanian businesses and successfully communicate. We bought a 2nd key for our car at the Nissan Dealership yesterday. Some things are not without challenge. The key had to go to a locksmith to be cut. We will have to return to the dealer to have the key-fob programmed.  The dealership is over an hour from our house and we had to schedule an appointment for the programming. Our cable speed was 5mb and we were having a bit of trouble streaming U.S. TV programs. A visit to the cable company proved to be a challenge, but we were able to up our speed to 100mb for about $10 per month; problem solved.

CableOnda

In our last post we alluded to having to renew our drivers licenses. We bravely went to SERTRACEN (Panama’s DMV) to renew our drivers licenses. Without an interpreter, we had success. There was no English-speaking people in there, and we were able to make ourselves understood. Jen is much better at this than I, but we are both working on our Spanish daily.

Our visit to Sertracen

Panapass installed

Installation Center at Panapass

One other experience that merits mentioning is our trip to Panapass. Panapass is the toll tag for toll roads here. There are no attended lanes so it is important to have this for using the toll roads. We had to go to the place in order to have a new tag installed on the car.  The story was the same there and we found nobody who spoke English. We got it done and set out for our commute home. The traffic had cranked up pretty bad and it was difficult to navigate out of the place. Using our navigation app Waze, we went right through a transportation hub. There were hundreds of buses, taxi cabs and people walking everywhere. Waze kept taking us around and around until we were nearly crazy. We finally figured out that with five lanes of traffic gridlock all going in the same direction we just needed to be in a different lane to get where we were going.

We find ourselves considering every day an adventure. Most days we set out to do far more than we actually accomplish. It is beautiful here so we love to spend time at the pool or beach. This time of year there are very few tourists here so we have the place to ourselves. Last night we enjoyed fresh lobster at the beach club Terazza Restaurante. There were only 3 other couples in the place. As we complete this post it lacks photos. We will gather some appropriate photos today and publish later this afternoon. We appreciate that all of you are checking back, commenting, and asking questions. We know it sounds like a broken record, but please share and like if you’re reading on Facebook. If you haven’t joined the blog, please do so to get e-mail notification when a new post is available. This also helps us recognize our audience. We will never spam you, and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Chau,

Greg and Jen

 

Our Move To Panama

Forgive us for our lack of frequent posts over the past few months. Our back story is well known by our Facebook friends, however we recognize that our blog followers may not know what has happened since returning to the States in April. Let us fill in some of the blanks…

Immediately upon our return to Michigan we began to interview Realtors for the marketing of our home there. We selected an agent and put our home on the market. In less than a week we had it under contract so we began the tedious process of selling nearly everything we owned to prepare for our move. It is amazing how much stuff one collects over the years. Mitzi Casey, our Panama agent, found us a rental that met all our needs and we signed a lease. With all these things in motion we learned after 6 weeks that our buyers financing failed. We were at the point of no return, so we moved forward with plans for our move. Our big fear was maintaining our home in Michigan from Panama. We contracted for lawn care, housekeeping, and security and moved to Panama at the end of June.

Everything that we brought to Panama is in these 5 check and 2 carry on bags
Everything that we brought to Panama is in these 5 checked and 2 carry on bags.

A move overseas has many moving parts. We elected to bring only what we could carry ourselves by air. Many people who we’ve met here, have moved using shipping containers, which is very expensive. We found it liberating to get rid of everything and start fresh. That being said, we did lease a place that was furnished. We also sold both cars and bought a car in Panama. We have possession of the vehicle, however the final transfer of title is not yet complete. We will post later about the vehicle purchase process. It is difficult, but doesn’t have to be. We bought a nice, used vehicle from an individual.

Our Car In Panama

Once we arrived in Panama, we had to complete our Visa process. This required about a half day with our attorney at Immigration. We had to surrender our temporary Visa cards, and have new cards issued. This is our permanent residency card which is issued for an indefinite time. The process is now complete. We have applied for our Cedula which is the ID carried by all people in Panama. The Cedula is recognized for doing business. It is easier to conduct bank business, make large purchases, and other things. Our drivers licenses will have to be renewed before the end of next month, because upon their original issue they were only good as long as our temporary Visas. We can do that right near where we live.

A lot of our research indicates that we can live on a very low budget in Panama. What we are finding is that with our Pensionado Visa we get great discounts and our costs for healthcare, insurances, and taxes are significantly less than in the States. We will be living on the Pacific Ocean in a great condo for around the same price as our home in Michigan.The difference is our home insurance is more than 1/3 the price, and we will not pay taxes for the next 10 years. After that the taxes are very low. In future posts we hope to start laying out direct comparisons for cost of living in Panama compared to the States.

We have spent the last several days getting settled into our condo in San Carlos. Our view of the ocean and marina over the golf course is incredible and our new place checked off all of our needs. It is a rental so we will have to settle for some things that we would do differently. We still stand by our decision to rent for a year until we are sure that we have chosen the right neighborhood. Inquiring minds want to see our place, so we are sharing some pictures.

Las Olas

condo living room

condo kitchen

condo master suite

The pool

Our view

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That will bring most of you up to speed. We are still waiting on a buyer for our home in Michigan. We are amazed by the interest, and know that God has a plan for everything. We will be making frequent trips back until it sells. We know so many people who maintain two residences, and we have a new respect for all they do.

As we get settled here in Panama, keep following while we continue to develop new relationships, and learn Spanish.  We know that some of you follow to see what we are up to and some follow to learn about the Immigration process. We want to continue to mix everything into this and illustrate our experience and best practices. We love to have you all viewing. As always we hope that you will like, share, and comment. If you are a subscriber, please start adding content. We know that there are multiple perspectives to what we are experiencing.

For now Buenos,

Greg and Jen

Our Return To Michigan

As you all may be well aware, we made the journey home the first week in April. Neither of us was ready for the adventure to end and we both were in agreement that our new forever home would be in Panama. We are in love with the Pacific coast west of Coronado.

Upon our return to Michigan, we met with three real estate agents and interviewed each to find our best option to market our Gravel Lake property. We selected an agent and put the house on the market. Within 7 days we had it under contract and began preparing for our move. Our decision was to move to Panama with a foot locker, toolbox, and 2 suitcases each. We met a lot of people last winter and most told us that it was “liberating” to sell everything and replace what was necessary once settled into their new home. Most homes in Panama are sold furnished.

We put our agent in Panama to work in search of a reasonably priced rental. We decided to rent for a year while we look for our perfect home. Well, in case we haven’t mentioned it before our agent, Mitzi Casey, is awesome. She found us a beautiful condo that checks off all the boxes on our must have list. The unit rent is below our budget and it is for sale within our budget. We are optimistic that this may be our forever home. Once we get settled, there will be plenty of time to make an educated decision. She negotiated first right of refusal for us, in case they find a buyer during our lease. We are slipping in a few pictures here. We signed the lease sight unseen, but we had a great video tour on Saturday. The video tour showed things that you cannot possibly appreciate by just looking at pictures. Everything in the pictures is included except a couple of art pieces.

condo living room

condo kitchen

condo master suite

condo masterbath

condo balcony view

condo golf view

Las Olas is a condo in the Vista Mar community. The complex has multiple pools, golf course, beach club, marina, meditation garden, and three restaurants. We spent a lot of time in the community, but have not seen our condo in person. Needless to say we are a bit excited. Our official move date is June 26th.

We are now working through all the moving parts of an overseas move. We have everything we own for sale.

Garage Sale 1

The first garage sale is behind us and the second and final sale is Memorial Day weekend. The following weekend is reserved for a rain date and we have the Hospice Thrift shop scheduled to pick up everything that is left on June 11th. Our closing date is June 15th for our Gravel Lake house. We have agreed to immediate possession for our buyers. We have temporary accommodations through the 26th when we will fly out for Panama.

It has been a while since we posted. We hope you understand that our time is at a premium. We continue to be committed to documenting this adventure, and promise you will not be disappointed. Keep checking back and subscribe to e-mail delivery if you haven’t already.

Adios:

Greg and Jen