#700 – The Expat Files: Container Homes, Shipping Tips, and Citizenship by Investment

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wander Hello there all you expat wannabes I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America the show that tells you just what it's like to live Work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started Alright, this is show number 700 and still plugging away by the way for those of you who get this show from potbean I've been notified that I've got over a million downloads now Good to know a million plus from that site and a lot more from other sites, too

[00:47] I know I know a million ain't what it used to be right not to mention when a potty trained parrot can get six million views On YouTube. Hmm. Well, here's something funny, if not slightly amazing, you know I did that show last week on container homes and how they can be adapted down here in Latin America So easily and cheaply and then after I did that show a day later. I find out that Amazon Yep, amazon.com is now selling a completely assembled container home for 36 grand Yep, for those of you watching this on YouTube, you'll see that Amazon container home right now. I know I know I get email Some people all the time saying Johnny you're way behind on the YouTube shows All I can say is hey, you know, I'm working on it and I hope to have it completely up-to-date by the first of the year

[01:35] Now about this complete container home you can buy on Amazon for 36k Well, it turns out it's all set up for northern climates insulated ready to be occupied air conditioning and a heating plant Whatever that is included In fact, it says here in the promotional literature in an effort to recycle thousands of surplus containers that sit on docks around the world A fleet of new companies are now using the 20 and 40 foot containers to create Pre-fab tiny homes all available to order on Amazon and delivered to your location Now the delivery charge for one of these 9,000 pound 40 foot container homes is 4,500 bucks anywhere in the continental US So 36,000 plus 4,500 about 40 grand Then all you have to do once it's delivered is to hook up your plumbing

[02:22] electrical and have yourself Connected to city sewer and if you're out in the boonies a holding or septic tank system So for the utility hookups, maybe another 5 grand plus the land Here's what this company says about their prefab container homes Wisconsin-based MOD international is selling a 320 square foot house complete and ready for utility hookups with a brand new container as the structure shell not a Recycled one and includes a rather plain bedroom shower toilet sink small kitchenette appliances and living area with large double doors to the outside And strategically placed insulated windows. All right might take yeah looking at this thing It is bare bones and minimum and it's made out of only one big container That gives you they say about 320 square foot of living space and man, that's tight

[03:11] So how does that relate to having a container home here in Latin America? Well, because the labor costs are so cheap here in Latin America And you don't need insulation and you don't need air conditioning or heating either That is if you're in the Alti Plano However, if you're in low altitudes around the beach, you will up for insulation and air conditioning Even so for that 40 grand Amazon wants for this thing you should be able to put together a really nice container home set up with more like three containers or a thousand square feet instead of 320 which is really minimum plus for that price 40 grand You can make it modern and stylish not like a Lego on steroids Anyway, just thought I passed that on to you for the sake of completeness So then is it worth it to order one of these things from Amazon and have it shipped down?

[03:57] Well, I'd say no because you'd have to pay another 2000 or more to have it shipped then depending on the country you'll get hit with a 10 to 20 percent import tax There's another maybe five grand bottom line If you did the whole thing down here by yourself and with a contractor you could have two three even four times the house Hey, now is a good time to talk about ordering things from eBay Amazon Alibaba, etc Well, here's the story on that and I can tell you firsthand because I order stuff from Amazon and eBay all the time Here's how it works. If you're in Mexico or Central America That includes all your Latin countries down through Panama You just hook up online with one of the many local shipping and air freight companies that have an office in Miami or some place In Florida, so if you're in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico or Panama

[04:46] Not so much in Belize, by the way Things are expensive there simply because they have a very small population and not much competition at all But in Mexico and the other Central American countries There are dozens of freight forwarding companies with an office near the international airport in their particular Latin country And they have an office somewhere in Florida And when you order anything from Amazon eBay wherever in the states even Alibaba and I've done that too That means the stuff's coming directly from China. I know I know everything comes from China these days But Alibaba is actually the Chinese equivalent of Amazon So in a nutshell when you're down here in Latin America Here's how you go about ordering stuff on the internet You know when you place an order there is always a shipping address and a billing address, right? So ahead of time before you ever place your very first order your Latin American

[05:36] Freight-forwarding company will give you their address in Miami or Fort Lauderdale, whatever So you'll use your name It doesn't have to be the name that's on the credit card or you'll use your company name or your lawyer's name Depending on how anonymous you want to be but typically you'll put down your own name plus the address of the freight forwarding company in Florida as if it was your own address and here's the trick The forwarding company will give you a little code you put after your first name Like if it's Johnny Mueller, there might be a four five or six digit code like AX 327 And that's how the freight forwarding company will sort it out and make sure it gets to you when it's finally shipped to your Latin Destination so then you might ask what happens if Amazon or Alibaba does not put that number down for some reason because it's kind of odd

[06:23] You know people don't normally have letters or numbers after their names, right? Unless of course their royalty or have a funky kind of name like John Galt the third Well, I'll tell you that's happened to me I've ordered stuff and the company forgot or omitted the number code after my name that happened more than once with Alibaba Let's face it. Anyone you have to deal with there is working at a Chinese call setter and their English is never perfect It's good enough, but once in a while they will screw up with things like that. But here's the thing There's certainly only one Johnny Mueller using that particular freight forwarding service coming out of Miami to Central America So no problem there and I can always locate my packages Plus these days everything's got a tracking number so you can always find out where it's located The problem is and why some people do need those codes after their names

[07:10] Seems to be with people of Spanish heritage Latin names because you know If you look in a Latin phone book, you have they still have the antique paper versions down here Though they are kind of phasing them out You'll see for example three or four pages of guys named Jose Martinez And that's not all phone books are just filled with hundreds and hundreds of repeated common names Which means your particular Latin freight forwarding service could have any number of clients named for example Carlos Castillo Now you've heard me say that most Latins have four names first name middle name last name and mother's maiden name Well, you know Latins have found out that there's almost never enough space when ordering online to get all those names And so they'll just use their first two names. So long story short, that's why there's a code after your name

[07:58] So the system is in place It works easy enough and you almost never lose anything and even if you do Amazon eBay and the others will be good for it However, do note I'm talking about Central America and Mexico now South America is a completely different story. The fact is if you live in South America, that would be everything south of Panama Unfortunately, I'm getting all kinds of reports from gringos and expats saying that they too can order things from Amazon eBay and Alibaba Except you must be prepared for the fact that it can take weeks months and sometimes orders will never arrive at all In fact, it's kind of been the same boat that Central America was in five or six years ago In fact a couple of Latino guys, I know in both Argentina and Brazil who are into software business

[08:44] they say overseas ordering from the likes of Amazon and e-commerce in general is a terrible problem and though all the online ordering services are in place and well-established the shipping times and Reliability are all dependent on those lard asses in government Meanwhile the firms that do the actual shipping are very efficient So in Mexico and Central America They've got the system down with the customs and the adwana not nearly so heavy-handed The stuff will arrive at your Miami or Florida freight forwarders address in a day or two Just as if you were ordering it and having it shipped to your home in Minnesota Then as far as your freight forwarding service shipping it to your Latin country in Central America That almost never takes more than an additional week So you can pretty much count on the fact that the moment your orders something from let's say Amazon

[09:34] Ninety percent of the time you'll get it within ten days to two weeks But the real outstanding improvement these days is that there are tracking numbers on everything and you almost never lose anything Not like before and even lately in the last few weeks with those big hurricanes hitting, Florida That slowed things down and added maybe another week, but no one seems to have lost anything not that I've heard about anyway So you can figure maybe only one in ten packages will take more than two weeks to get to you Oh, and like I said all these freight forwarding services coming out of Florida Have an office in Florida and at the major international airport in your Latin country Another cool thing is that they'll always shoot you an email when a package has arrived and in the email they'll tell you what the weight is and your shipping charges and they'll also ask you if you'd like to come and pick it up or

[10:22] Have it delivered and since these outfits always have a fleet of guys with motorcycles They'll drop it off within a day of that notification Oh and get this if they can fit it on the motorcycle no matter how big and bulky it is They'll only charge you between three and five bucks to have it delivered anywhere within your Latin country Which is very helpful Especially since a lot of gringles and expats don't live close to their country's international airport And I'll tell you in the old days three to five years ago when these services were first starting up the only way you could pick up your package was to go to their office and sign for it yourself a Big pain in the butt if you didn't live close to their office near the airport So just to repeat if you're a big on ordering things online It's a pretty inexpensive and streamlined process if you're living in Mexico or Central America

[11:09] But as for South America, it is being done though a lot more expensive and expect long delays So you'll have to be patient. It's gonna take them a couple of years to get up to speed Oh and one more thing regarding shipping things down in the old days some five years or so ago Oftentimes people would use the US mail to ship small items to people in Latin America Of course letters and tiny parcels would get through it no problem But anything boxed up that was larger than a cell phone would inevitably get stuck in that slime E bureaucracy at customs the adwana and believe me back then going down to the custom office was a real nightmare Not to mention unless for example, you were in Panama Costa Rica. No one in the custom office speaks anything but Spanish Remember we're talking about low-end lazy-ass government grants here

[11:56] So just a few short years ago, it was a nightmare to have stuff sent down here. Thank God. Those days are gone So it took those companies like Amazon and eBay to open up the floodgates That's why it's recommended to use one of those freight forwarding services with an office in Miami That way you'll never have to deal with customs the adwana or the government at all They do all that for you So it's infinitely easier to have things shipped in than it ever was Except again, if you're gonna be a gringo or expat in South America, but things are changing there, too So hopefully in a year or so most of those countries will be up to speed And just a little tip here if you're gonna send snail mail to someone up in the States from here in Latin America Yeah, right. Like anyone does that anymore, huh?

[12:44] Anyway, if nostalgia does creep in and you have that old-school urge, you know damn the torpedoes and scribble away without the benefit of a spell check if you send it through your mail forwarding service It'll cost you probably two bucks And what they'll do is they'll drop it in the US mail when it gets to Miami So it will get to your party up in the States or Canada by US mail Now for packages and letters coming the other way from people in the States to you here in Latin America It's wise to tell your friends family bank creditors Whatever to send it to your mail forwarding service in Florida via the US mail However, and this is important Tell them it's not a good idea to use the US mail to send things directly to your residence or wherever you are in Latin America though letters and envelopes might get through that way

[13:31] Eventually most packages of any size will get stuck in the Adwana. That's the government custom services Then you're dealing with the lard asses in the bureaucracy again So by all means use one of those freight forwarding services however If you're a clueless gringo and don't speak Spanish and thus aren't able to evaluate the different companies out there And you might be paying twice what you really have to for example There are some forwarding services that might charge three dollars a pound shipped from Miami to your Central American country And other services that'll charge six to eight bucks a pound to provide the exact same service Oh, and I've been asked this question about shipping What happens if you've discovered a really nice niche business and you have to have some heavy or bulky items shipped in from the States? If you're stuck paying three to eight bucks a pound to bring it in that could kill the whole concept

[14:20] However, be aware if you're bringing in heavy or bulky stuff from the States There are companies that will pack a container with yours and other people's items wait till it's full and Send it down to Latin America. It's a much cheaper alternative You'll have to add a week or two on to the transit time, but it'll get there But normally who cares especially if you're shipping down bulky items like solar panels batteries tires motors generators hardware Whatever these companies charge by the cubic foot not by the pound And in many cases the adwana and custom charges are included in that cubic foot rate How about this for quite odd but relevant example suppose you were setting up an off-the-grid Solar system here in Latin America and you were gonna buy one of those Tesla Powerwall units now those things weigh around three or

[15:07] 400 pounds by the way a Tesla Powerwall is a lithium battery pack and inverter and all the necessary Electronics to go off the grid so they're three or four hundred pounds But they only take up four or five cubic feet of space Now get this if you're gonna have one of those things shipped down through a regular freight forwarding service that charge Let's say only three bucks a pound because let's say you're used to using that service And you didn't know there were other ways to ship that kind of stuff even at 400 pounds you'd be paying 1200 bucks to get it from Miami to let's say Salvador Guatemala Honduras, whatever Now this is the part you only learn by having boots on the ground down here a while if you were to ship one of those Tesla Powerwalls by the shipping container method where they throw it on a boat and it takes

[15:53] Up five cubic feet of space Well looking at one particular service they charge $14 a cubic foot to get it from Miami to pretty much anywhere in Central America for a grand total of get this 70 bucks Whereas if you use the freight forwarding service that you generally use for Amazon eBay, etc That'd be 1200 bucks almost 20 times more than having it shipped by boat So I guess you can see by now if you're a clueless gringo and don't speak Spanish in can't check those things out You could make a very costly mistake a lot of gringos Do you know which is why I spend some time going over that very stuff at my expat insider seminar The next one, of course is in January 2018 You can see the sign-up details and check out the early bird discounts by going to www dot the new expat calm

[16:42] Just click on the seminar link. It's on the main page Now if you can't make it to my next seminar or swing getting boots on the ground yourself The very next best thing is to take my 9-hour expat essentials course You want to know how to get all your ducks line up for that plan B. Check out the expat essentials course Just go to expat plan B.com and don't forget if you're putting the pieces together for your own plan B Download my expat phone consultation questionnaire guaranteed It'll give you a lot of good ideas When speaking of phone consultations, if you're coming to my expat insider seminar You're automatically hooked up with a one-on-one phone consult with me By the way, have you ever been south of the border off the gringo tourist trail? Well, you'll get your chance if you come to my expat insider seminar, you won't regret it

[17:29] All right switching gears, but not too much You know here on the expat files We always talk about having what you might call plan B insurance It'll keep you safe once that big reset button is pushed up in the states And that starts out with picking a Latin American country getting your temporary or permanent residency And then in five years or so proceed to get your citizenship nationality and passport So eventually getting dual citizenship is quite important to that plan B Meaning you're a citizen of a first world country like the US or Canada And you've got a second citizenship to fall back on when the reset button gets pushed or worse That means no matter how hard big brother clamps down on us or Canadian Citizens even to the extent of making it very difficult to travel outside the borders because they really don't want the sheep to leave the barn

[18:17] That's becoming more and more apparent especially since now you have to pay an escalating Exit tax if you decide on renouncing your US citizenship now, I'm not suggesting you renounce That's always a last resort and you shouldn't even be thinking about it unless you've got a nationality and passport from another country That way if big brother restrictions get too harsh or severe and they will you could just flip Uncle Sam the hook and be on your merry Way to your other second nationality country now Of course the traditional way to get a second nationality or citizenship is to first pick your country preferably a Latin American country Go for temporary then permanent residency. Sometimes you can skip that temporary residency part go straight to permanent residency There are a lot of ways to do that and our Latin legal Eagle

[19:05] Discusses all that at my expat insider seminar Then as mentioned you have to wait on average around five years before you can apply for your passport nationality and then you're in You're a permanent Unrevocable citizen of another country and you know, a lot of people have expressed concerns that the US will not let you have Second nationality, that's absolutely not true. Americans are allowed to have dual even multiple Citizenships it's completely legal and if you doubt it, you don't want to believe me Just ask any Latino, you know in your local neighborhood that happens to be a US citizen You'll find that in almost all cases. He's also a legal citizen of a Latin American country, too He's a dual citizen. Well, how'd that happen? Why that's because the US allows it. It's completely legal

[19:54] In fact, if you're a US citizen, you can have as many other nationalities as you want or that you qualify for But again, you cannot renounce your US citizenship for whatever reason unless you're a citizen of another country They just won't let you do it. Otherwise, you'd be you see a stateless person You'd be like that guy Tom Hanks portrays that movie where he has to live in the airport because no country will accept him He's stateless no passport So anyway, these days the cheapest way to get a second nationality and passport is to start with the residency process and wait it out Five years or so till you get that final passport However, that's not the easiest way to do it The easiest way is to just buy yourself citizenship with cash money from a country that actually sells them or they call it

[20:41] Buy the more politically correct term the economic investment path to citizenship sounds better Right because you know when you say I'm gonna buy a new nationality and citizenship that sounds illegal, doesn't it? Well in many countries it isn't high rollers do it all the time So if you have enough dough You can bypass the residency crap and get your passport in a couple months again certain countries have made provisions for that because it brings In a lot of extra dough into the Treasury Oh and by the way If you're a foreigner coming into the United States with more than a half a million dollars to invest you can also buy Your US passport that way too. Yes. It's an un-publicized way that many foreign investors these days A lot of them come from China can pretty much get instant citizenship and bypass the 10-year green card policy

[21:30] By the way, I think I read somewhere. That's how that malignant pussbag George Soros got his US passport I know I know somehow it doesn't seem right, huh? Yeah Well these days every modern-day corrupt country has two sets of rules one for the wealthy and politically connected and the rest for the working Stiffs like you and I now I mentioned in a past show There are some small island countries that offer those so-called economic investment Citizenship programs and traditionally a person would have to come up with a hundred thousand bucks and often a lot more However, just this week something very interesting and cool has put these economic citizenship programs in the news again Let me read you some excerpts from an article that explains the whole thing It starts out

[22:16] Did you know the government of the island of Bana too in the Pacific has just announced they will be accepting Bitcoin in exchange for Citizenship by the way, the population of van a twos around three hundred thousand It's kind of an ecological paradise, but doesn't have much of anything else In fact, it's forever getting nailed by hurricanes and natural disasters The United Nations reports that van a two has the highest natural disaster risk of all the countries It's ever measured. So it's a tiny country that gets hit regularly by hurricanes earthquakes and tsunamis So definitely it's not a place you'd actually want to live but to have a passport from there Well, that's a completely different story and to do that You could either move there and spend five years with permanent residency and get that passport

[23:03] Not very plausible or even comfortable or if you have enough dough Or you could outright buy your citizenship and van a two is now done something that no one's done before They're taking Bitcoin, which is a very very smart move. Not only does it put them on the map They're getting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free publicity out of it And here's what else that article says it repeats again that van a two is one of the several nations that offers Citizenship to foreigners in exchange for making a so-called investment in the country It talks about how Malta, Cyprus, Saint Kitts, Nevis, and Dominica offer similar programs, but not yet with Bitcoin Then it repeats what I just mentioned before. It says dozens of other countries including the U.S. offer Unpublicized residency by investment programs where foreigners receive legal residency and passports in exchange for a large investment

[23:58] In other words a number of first world and third world governments are what you might call passport scalpers You know you pay the big bucks and you get the front row seats and the backstage passes to the Kanye concert Oh, please While everyone else has to wait in line for 12 hours to get the bleacher seats For example, it says here Malta's individual investor program requires foreigners to donate. Yeah, right 650 000 euros to the government and that's only one of the qualifications in Cyprus It's more than two million euros, but you get that passport Now van a two who just started accepting bitcoin has had an economic citizenship program for a long time And always much cheaper than other instant nationality programs though

[24:45] You'll still end up paying over 200 000 bucks between all the additional fees and assessments And then there's dominica another small island in the caribbean It's got probably the best value for an instant passport with the so-called donation of 100 grand along with some other fees And get this the island of st Kits in the caribbean is offering a bit of a special right now through march 2018 providing passport and citizenship in exchange for 150 000 bucks donation To their very recent hurricane relief fund. That's a big discount over their normal 250 000 price or you can invest in their sugar industry diversification fund approved by their government But it's the little pacific island chain of van a two that's getting all this instant publicity

[25:34] Being that it's the first country in the world to accept bitcoin in exchange for passport and citizenship And you know It looks like someone in that island government is very smart because they know There are a ton of brand new bitcoin millionaires out there who bought a lot of bitcoins years ago They're sitting on some very big gains In other words way too many bitcoins and not much to spend them on That means that someone at the top in van a two's government is thinking about those bitcoin millionaires as early adopters with the mindset That traditional government and banking systems are on the way out. In other words a perfect Self-selecting sample for a second passport and it's true early bitcoin adopters were almost to a person anti-tax anti-government freedom-loving political anarchists

[26:22] And of course big finance big brother and big banking are deathly afraid of bitcoin and the cryptocurrencies Now, of course, we'll have to see how this is going to play out, but I have a feeling There's going to be a hell of a lot of attitude passports issued Now, you know One of the problems with bitcoin is that if you turn it into usv ad currency cash You have to do it through a u.s bank and as soon as it's converted you're looking at a big capital gains tax What is it now 28%? However, if you buy van a two's citizenship directly with bitcoin, you're not going through a u.s bank. Are you? Hmm though this article does warn that van a two is a prime candidate for bitcoin hackers because it's a tiny little country And even some of the bigger countries so-called monetary specialists don't understand the blockchain and the security aspects involved

[27:11] So will van a two's government bitcoin wallet get hacked? Maybe Now the good news is that this should spur other governments to start accepting bitcoin too They might not like it, but they'll have to that is once they've nailed down some solid cryptocurrency security measures Which begs the question which latin american government will be the first one to accept bitcoin? south of the border This is the expat files living in latin america If you want me to help you out with your own plan b just schedule a one-on-one consult Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to learn how to move forward with your own plan b from right up there in the states Go to www.expatplanb.com and check out my three videos. See ya nos vemos