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Wed, October 08, 2008 02:10:00 PMFrom:
International Living
Subject:
Live on $600 per Month in the Mayberry of the Andes
Live on $600 per Month in the International Living Postcards—your daily escape Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2008 Dear International Living Reader, I know two people who are living well in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen on half their Social Security checks. Find out how they do it, below. Dan Prescher Living the Good Life on Half 6.05 p.m. It’s a beautiful sunny southern California morning outside, but the 250 people crowded into the Hilton ballroom don’t seem to notice. They’re hanging onto the words of Suzan Haskins as she tells them about her friends Lee and Peggy Carper, who live comfortably in one of the most beautiful spots in the world on $600 per month. Where in the world can you live comfortably on half your Social Security check? In Ecuador. The Harpers rent a three-bedroom apartment in the mountain town of Cotacachi for $150 per month. They pay $250 for food...$50 for medicine...$40 for maid service...and $24 to have their all laundry done. Their combined bill for water and gas? $19 a month. With $2 hair cuts, $2 manicures, $2.50 four-course dinners, $10 doctor’s visits...it’s hard to go broke in Ecuador, even if you try. Welcome to the “Mayberry of the Andes” Cotacachi (population 2,000) is a peaceful town frozen in time. Strolling through its central square one evening, Suzan found six teenage boys playing the guitar and singing. That’s the sort of thing teenagers do for fun in Cotacachi. No wonder she calls it the “Mayberry of the Andes”. Nearby you can soak in natural hot springs nestled with breathtaking views of the mountains and valleys. Or go to the largest open-air market in South America. Suzan swears it is the most fun she’s ever had shopping. It’s a land of eternal spring, sunny in the day and pleasantly cool at night. There’s something special in the crisp Andean air...and in the ground, too. The produce grows freakishly large all year long. You’ll find cabbage the size of pumpkins. Carrots the size of your arm. But there’s so much more to Ecuador that it’s hard to decide what sounds best. Is it the vast unspoiled Pacific coast where you can ride horses on the beach for miles without crossing a soul? The colonial city Cuenca with its charming wrought-iron balconies? The magical valley of Vilcabamba with its tales of incredible longevity? Modern sophisticated Quito (which Coldwell Banker declared to be the cheapest major city in world)? Or a mountain village like Cotacachi where you can live a small-town 1950s lifestyle that has all but disappeared from North America? As Suzan tells us about the wide variety of properties in Ecuador, I feel like a kid in a candy story--and the candy’s on sale! Just $46,000 for a 1,100-square-foot penthouse in Cotacachi... Four-bedroom, ocean-view homes for $180,000... Ocean-view lots for $6,000. It looks like many of our attendees are going there to see these gems for themselves. You can fly anywhere in the country for about $65, so it’s an easy place to get to know. If you want to stay on for a while, it’s also easy to get residency. And the government tosses in discounts on travel and health care for anyone over 65. Not that you’ll need it. Suzan’s husband, IL Publisher Dan Prescher, paid $2,200 for shoulder surgery in Quito that would have cost him $15,000 in the States. Think Europe Is Expensive? I bet you haven’t been to southern Italy lately. International Living’s resident raconteuse, Steenie Harvey, is taking us on an astonishingly affordable tour of the “forgotten” provinces of Campania and Basilicata. Their rolling hills and dramatic coasts are as pretty as any, but tourists--even Italian ones--ignore everything south of Naples. This is the Italy of the old black and white postcards. No tourists. No crowds. Not much of anything except Italy as it used to be: * You’ll find ancient beech forests still roamed by wolves and bears...century-old pathways still used by shepherds and their flocks...and crumbling castles now guarding nothing but desolate stretches of wilderness. * Even the prices are a throwback. You can get a fixer-upper for under $20,000. Or a charming 750-square-foot home for $78,000 that you can easily rent out for $550 week. Rent it out just half the year and you’ll be making 18% a year on your investment. * Venture off the beaten path and you’ll come to Villa Mare with its emerald green lakes...the quaint fishing harbor of Scario, where a delicious seafood dinner will cost you $9...and the sleepy hill town of Calitri, 90 minutes east of Naples. (Only 500 people remain in its medieval core, but if you buy a place here, the mayor actually assigns a local host family to make you feel at home.) * Turns out that Tuscany doesn’t have a monopoly on rolling hills of vineyards and olive groves. Steenie shows the crowd a charming farmhouse for $50,000 that would cost $300,000 in Tuscany. And the southern coastline is just as pretty as the famous Amalfi coast, at one third the price. Ski in the Morning, Beach It in the Afternoon Steenie’s partner at the podium, Nikki Di Girolamo, chips in with a plug for Abruzzo, where she has lived the past 14 years. It’s a land of mountain lakes, olive groves and vineyards--not to mention 22 ski resorts and white-sand beaches on the Adriatic. On a typical Sunday morning, her husband takes her daughter skiing and they all meet at the beach for lunch. Nikki shows us a vast array of houses, villas, apartments, and farmhouses for sale--250 of which will cost you less than $50,000. (After owning any of these properties for five years, by the way, you pay zero capital gains tax when you sell.) With plenty of cheap flights into the regional capital of Pescara, a flood of Northern Europeans are coming in to buy. And Abruzzo makes a great base for seeing the rest Europe. You can fly to Barcelona, Frankfurt, London, and Madrid for $30 to $40. “You’re a Medieval Lord Now” “We were on the plains of Patagonia. I told my client, ‘Look around you. See that mountain over there to the east? See that river? See that mountain to the west? It’s all yours. That’s your farm.’” I’m talking to Paul Reynolds, an urbane Anglo-Argentine from Buenos Aires. He was recounting taking a buyer to inspect a vast estancia. “The man look stunned. He sat speechless for a minute, then cracked a broad grin and said, ‘I’ll take it.’” When you’re buying estancias in Argentina, the old rules go out the window. You don’t think in acres, you think in microclimates and time zones. “One odd thing,” Paul continued. “The farm had 1,200 people living and working on it. My buyer asked me ‘What do I do with all these people?’ I told him to just leave them alone. ‘They’re taking care of the land and paying you a cut of their crops. You’re a medieval lord now. Congratulations.’ If I told you how little he paid, you’d be shocked.” This is the kind of stuff you hear only at International Living events. But you don’t have to miss out just because you couldn’t make it to Long Beach. Let us send you the Conference Review Kit instead. It gives you everything you need to make a smooth transition abroad in one convenient package. Just ask Catarina Frederick of Rancho Santa Fe, California. She and her husband Mark are eager to buy a home abroad--and are considering Ecuador, Uruguay, Brazil, Nicaragua--even Italy. Why are they here in Long Beach? “Because we can get a ton of details about all the countries we’re considering right here in one place. The real estate brokers, the lawyers, the title people--all the people we need to talk to are all here. It’s great.” Thanks Catarina. I couldn’t have said it better myself. That is what this event is about in a nutshell. It gives the attendees here the essence of years of study and scouting done by on-the-ground experts--who come to share their knowledge at this conference. You can get all this same insider knowledge sent to you right at home. Just reserve your copy of the Conference Review Kit we’re compiling at this moment. It gives you every single tip on creating the perfect lifestyle abroad that our 54 experts here shared with us at the conference. You’ll hear from attorneys about the legal wrinkles of buying abroad. What you need to do before you move. How to get title insurance. How to ship your belongings. How to take care of your money matters. Everything. You also get contact information for all the realtors and developers who are here, so you can go straight to the source of the property bargains. We're also making electronic copies of their hand outs, PowerPoint and visual presentations. Plus you get the extensive package of resources we give to each attendee when they come through the door. This 203-page online bible of overseas-living tips gives you every contact, address, phone number, website, and other referral our speakers think you should know about...PLUS two comprehensive special reports: 1) How to Prepare for a Move Overseas and... 2) Pockets of Prosperity: Six Top Destinations Around the World Where You Can Invest for Profit and Live Well for Less. You’ll also get 11 detailed country reports with need-to-know information for anyone considering a move to Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, or Uruguay. In some ways, getting this kit is better than being there in person. You can listen to all the presentations, even those held simultaneously. And you can listen to them at your leisure...skip around to what interests you most, take notes at your own pace. Most importantly, you can listen to them as many times as you like, so you don't miss a thing. An $895 Conference for $299 The conference attendees I’m sitting next to right now paid up to $895 each to get this information first-hand. And I haven’t met a single one who is unhappy with the treasure trove of information they’re getting in return. Acting on just one of the tips I’ve heard today can easily pay for the price of this conference. You can reserve this event kit for just $299 until midnight, October 9. We need to know ASAP how many people want access this information. So order your Live and Invest Overseas Conference Review Kit in the next 24 hours, and we’ll knock $200 off the list price. Instead of paying the regular $499, it'll only cost you $299. Our 24-hour timeline means this offer is only open until midnight on Thursday, October 9. You can still get one after that, but you’ll have to pay the regular price of $499. So reserve your kit now. The price won’t go any lower, just up. One more thing: Because you weren't here with us here in Long Beach, we're throwing in a $100 voucher towards our next conference. You can use it to attend our next big event...or any future conference or seminar you may be interested in. (If you use this $100 discount, you’re in effect paying just $199 for the entire $895 conference!) The 54 experts here covered every aspect of living overseas that I had ever thought of--and a few more that I’d never even considered. After you've heard them for yourself, nothing will stop you from making your international dreams come true. Take this first step today--reserve your Live and Invest Overseas Review Kit now. Dan Moser P.S. Remember, this offer expires at midnight on Thursday. You get $200 off the regular price of the Conference Review Kit, and a $100 voucher toward any of our future events. But you can only get this deal until midnight October 9. After that, everyone pays the full $499. No exceptions. P.P.S. No other event comes close to the depth and breadth of our Live and Invest Overseas Conference. You can’t even find most of this information anywhere else. But if our review kit doesn’t address your own unique questions about living abroad...or if it disappoints you in any way at all...we’ll refund your $299 in a flash. This guarantee doesn’t expire. Let us know next month...next year...whenever you like--and your 100% refund will be on its way.
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