Buying Real Estate Overseas For Cash Flow (And A Better Life)

17Where a Productive Land Investment (of Less Than $50,000) Can Deliver Regular Pension Checks for the Rest of Your Life

No matter how big (or small) your real estate investment portfolio, it should include agriculture. A productive land investment can generate regular cash returns while creating a legacy for future family generations. This kind of buy can equate to a do-it-yourself pension plan, delivering regular checks for the rest of your life, as returns from an agri-buy can stretch out over decades.

The challenge historically has been finding a turnkey opportunity to earn money from agriculture that didn't require an investment of a million dollars or more. Today you have good options that require no dirty work and that you can act on with $50,000 or less. The internal rate of return (IRR) can be as high as 17% or 18% per year.

Top Market for Agriculture #1: Panama

We own two properties in Panama that came planted with teak. One is in a professional tree farm, where the plantation manager employs engineers and other technical staff to monitor the trees, manage the thinning process (important with teak), control water levels, and so forth, and has the infrastructure in place to harvest and sell the trees when they reach maturity.

The other property is a piece of land where the owner planted teak to take advantage of tax incentives offered by the Panamanian government. He put the trees in the ground and then forgot them, never watering, never thinning. When we were considering ...