Buy Property, Get Citizenship? International Real Estate Investing With Ladislas Maurice

The Wandering Investor (00:00)
Turkey, for example, is fantastic. You just need to invest $400,000 in any real estate in Turkey and the yields are decent and then the market’s picking up and you will get citizenship for you, your spouse, and all your underage children within a year.

And you just need to keep the real estate for three years. You can sell it afterwards, but the citizenship will remain with you for the rest of your life.

Dylan Silver (01:54)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Ladislas Maurice, is the founder of The Wandering Investor, a fast growing consultancy focused on international real estate, global diversification, second residencies, citizenship by investment, offshore banking, and international investing. Before becoming a full-time investor and entrepreneur, he served on the executive board of Nestle Ghana, managing $90 million in business across West Africa.

Ladislas , welcome to the show.

The Wandering Investor (02:25)
Hey, how are you doing? Thank you.

Dylan Silver (02:26)
doing well, man. It’s great to have you on here. Now, going from a major corporate career to international investor, what did you see that made you make that jump?

The Wandering Investor (02:38)
It just kind of happened. It wasn’t planned at all. ⁓ I spent most of my thirties, most of my twenties in Africa, working for, Nestle first in South Africa and then in Ghana. seven years in total. And I left at the age of 30 because I wanted, you know, I figured I did my twenties with one company on a continent. Now I’m going to, I want a new challenge for my thirties. So I quit and my objective was to move to Dubai actually, and look for, you know, something new there.

to spend a bit of time in the Middle East. But my parents were retiring at the same time, so we thought, hey, let’s go on a trip together. So we took a car. We took the car from Oman to Paris by car. So we went to the UAE, put the car on the boat. We crossed all of Iran, went into Armenia, Georgia, all of Turkey, down into Greece, up to Ukraine, and then Paris.

And it was the first time that I had two things going on at the same time. One, a bunch of cash and two time.

You know, in life, it’s rare to have both at the same time and youthful energy as well. Right. So I just, on this trip, I just saw opportunities. ⁓ I saw undervalued real estate. So I started doing my first deals, ⁓ you know, just buying and then doing some renovations and then selling stuff like that. ⁓ and then I never, I essentially never got back to, looking for a job.

Dylan Silver (03:38)
Hmm.

Yeah.

The Wandering Investor (04:03)
So now it’s been almost a decade. I travel around the world and I do deals left right and center

Dylan Silver (04:08)
Now, this is a bit of a fish out of water in this space, but when you’re evaluating deals internationally, ⁓ what goes into underwriting these deals, especially if it’s maybe in a market that you haven’t previously done a deal in?

The Wandering Investor (04:24)
Yeah, so need to spend a fair amount of time on the ground talking to lawyers, expats, people who have done deals before, et cetera, and then getting the learnings from them, but also taking learnings from other markets because often that’s where the arbitrage is. You go into a market and everyone kind of thinks the same.

Right? So take that. Don’t dismiss what people think. Definitely take that. That’s how the market thinks. But then compare it to other markets you’ve seen before and you’ll notice some gaps. And those are typically the gaps that you want to exploit.

Dylan Silver (04:55)
Can we get a little granular here and walk through maybe a recent deal or an example of this where you’re able to see, this is actually undervalued and worth a lot more than what they’re saying it is.

The Wandering Investor (05:55)
Yes, I’ll give you an example. ⁓ Three years ago, I bought a penthouse in Medellin in Columbia and everyone was busy making these like really nice, luxurious apartments for more, you know, kind of party crowd, all of that. And what I did is I saw a gap for people that actually wanted to party hard and play hard, both ⁓ work hard, play hard. So what we did is we did a five bedroom penthouse.

but with a huge work area with like a big, desk with like all these chairs and a projector and, you know, really nice murals for murals for background for zoom calls, all of that. the target market was we want, you know, North American startups that want to base themselves out of Medellin and that all want to just cobble together and have this war room. when they’re not working, they’re, they’re out there, you know, partying and having fun. ⁓

quite realized people thought, oh, well, people just go to the coworking. It turns out, no, a lot of people don’t want to go coworking. A lot of people just want to stay at home and work as a group and have that, you thing where they’re all like living and working together and, know, they have that single mission. So that was something that worked really well. We’ve had pretty much 100 % occupancy. Another one recently was in Cambodia on a small island in Cambodia. I was just looking at land.

Dylan Silver (06:56)
Yeah.

The Wandering Investor (07:16)
And it was absurdly cheap compared to land to similar islands ⁓ in Vietnam and in Thailand, or even to other regions of Cambodia. ⁓ Because the market had not been doing well in the country as a whole in Cambodia for a while since 2018. And people dismissed that island as people with money in the country dismissed that island as just

villagers and blah blah and like, you know, rich rich Cambodians don’t see the appeal of going to an island with no infrastructure. That’s not the sort of thing they’re into. So I bought land. It’s like I could see that the gap people were locally seeing that island as a local market. But contextually, I could see that actually the this island, the market is not Cambodia. The market is, you know, the comparatives are.

Phuoc in Vietnam and know, Khoi Samui, Khoi Pen Yang and all that in Thailand. And the differential was just too big. So, you know, I bought a bunch of land and it did like two, three X in just one year. ⁓ So that sort of stuff. Like when you go international and you really want to make money, money, you have to take learnings from other countries and from your own country, but still understand the local perspective.

Right? Because the worst thing you can do is just go in there with your own mindset, not understanding the local perspective and investing like you do back home. That’s terrible. If you’re going to try to outdo the locals at what they do, that’s also going to be really hard. So you have to, you have to go a bit in between. have to hybrid it.

Dylan Silver (08:52)
Selfishly as I’m as I’m listening to you talk about this. I was thinking about the ⁓ place in Medellin, Colombia ⁓ Have you done several of those or have you thought of doing additional? Properties like that whether in Medellin or elsewhere

The Wandering Investor (09:06)
That one I just did in Metagene. It was the right market, right time to do that.

Dylan Silver (09:11)
That specifically is something that I would be interested in. I think there’s a lot of people who hear that and go, that’s exactly what we need. Because when you’re going to some of these places, sometimes you’re dealing with having to find a consistent, reliable grid even, or wifi, right? And then you need a place to work, but you also need a place to stay. Hey, can I bring my business partners or also my friends? Hey, they’re gonna need a spot. And I think especially,

And I mentioned this to you in the green room, you know, I’m in the States and I’m in Texas, but if I wanted to bring, you know, my friends with me, now it’s like this whole coordinated effort. How do we, you know, do this business abroad internationally? And that’s kind of solving a lot of different sequenced, you know, issues for people who want to do that.

The Wandering Investor (09:59)
My penthouse will be available in three months from now my friend.

Dylan Silver (10:40)
When you’re looking at these deals, and you mentioned two of them, Cambodia and Medellin, how do you decide where the next one is going to be? it based on a personal interest or based on connections that you make? How do you decide where the next one’s going to be?

The Wandering Investor (10:57)
I look at macro, I look at the macros of a country and then I go there, I spend a few weeks and I see the reality on the ground, do my research and then ask myself, how do I play it? Because sometimes the plays aren’t necessarily real estate, sometimes it’s local stocks. I remember like seven years ago I went to Uzbekistan thinking I’d buy an apartment and I came back with shares of…

you know, the local commodities exchange of like a cement company and glass manufacturing company, like local banks. So it’s, it’s just about, you know, macro and then going there and asking yourself, what is investable? How do I play it? Because it’s not like the U S where they’re just, you know, like a hundred thousand investments out there. You go to some of these frontier markets, they’re actually sometimes very few ways to play it. Sometimes there is no way to play.

There is no reasonable way to play the macro story. I’ve come across countries like this as well where it’s too complicated or not possible or already things are too expensive, where asset prices ran ahead of themselves. So yeah, just stay flexible.

Dylan Silver (12:01)
Now, when you’re working with your boots on the ground over there, and you’re factoring that into the equation, how much of that will influence your ability to operate in that market? For instance, is having a good attorney kind of the be all and end all for real estate transactions in a new market.

The Wandering Investor (12:24)
Absolutely. Don’t be cheap when it comes to the lawyer. ⁓ I just consistently go for the top lawyers. ⁓ know, sometimes people criticize me. like, well, I have a lawyer that can do it cheaper. It’s like, sure. don’t doubt that you have a lawyer that can do it cheaper. There’s always a lawyer that can do it cheaper. But as someone operating in a foreign country, the risk is getting involved in transactions where everyone’s assuming you understand something, but you don’t.

Dylan Silver (12:51)
Yeah, that’s huge.

The Wandering Investor (12:51)
And then

the transaction ends up being a catastrophe, not necessarily because people are trying to scam you, though this does happen, ⁓ but simply because of the unwritten rules, because of the unwritten understandings in some markets. So it’s important to get a lawyer that is not only competent, but that is familiar with dealing with foreigners. Because the lawyer is supposed to tell you, actually, Dylan, ⁓

Be aware of this. Those are the expectations on the other side. It’s not in the contract, but those are the expectations. He needs to translate the culture to you as well.

Dylan Silver (13:27)
Now, when you’re working with folks who are investing or interested in investing abroad, how often are these types of conversations coming up where they’re saying, well, I’ve got someone in place and, can I trust this person? And what do those conversations look like?

The Wandering Investor (13:44)
Yeah, it depends. know, some clients are well-versed and they’re just looking for the better markets for their own situation. Other people are just starting off and they say, I want to go international. I don’t want to be all in US or Canada or whatever. I want to diversify internationally. And then we ask ourselves like, what’s really the objective? ⁓ You know, some people it’s really important to get another citizenship or get another residency.

And in many cases, just buying real estate overseas will get you a passport or we’ll get you a residency permit. Um, so, you know, sometimes it’s not about the, the, the returns returns on the property. It’s also about all the other benefits you can get. mean,

Turkey, for example, is fantastic. You just need to invest $400,000 in any real estate in Turkey and the yields are decent and then the market’s picking up and you will get citizenship for you, your spouse, and all your underage children within a year.

And you just need to keep the real estate for three years. You can sell it afterwards, but the citizenship will remain with you for the rest of your

And then when you have other children or when your kids have children later on, as long as the newborn gets registered at the Turkish embassy, they’ll be Turkish too. So just by shifting 400 K into a relatively safe asset, you know, real estate in Turkey, a country of 80 million people,

at the heart of everything. Just for three years, you’re making a generational move.

So those are the sorts of conversations we have with our clients. It’s not just how, can I get, you know, 7.2 instead of like 6.5 and do better than my multifamily in Montana. that’s not really the topic. It’s about creating really an internationalization strategy.

Dylan Silver (16:05)
Yeah, and I think there’s downstream effects of that that are profound. One of the things that really spoke to me when I was living abroad was we, especially in the States, like to think that we’re kind of the center of a lot of things. But then you realize that, for instance, higher education in the US, there’s people from all over the world.

who may be very, very well educated going to the US for school and then coming back to their country or working for US corporations. And so you can in effect almost take advantage and utilize the dollar while living abroad and on a way that is conducive to your lifestyle and also makes the dollar stretch even further. getting, you mentioned Turkey citizenship for the price of a home or less than the price of a home in some markets.

The Wandering Investor (16:57)
Yeah, there are just so many geo arbitrage opportunities out there. If you’re willing to give it a try. It literally is a world of opportunities. Am I going to sit there and tell you Dylan to your audience, go overseas, you’re to make a lot more money, blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, in most cases, if you search hard enough, you can find better deals in the US and you have access to leverage, which you lose once you go overseas. They’re mostly cash markets.

So that’s really to take into account. In the US, it’s easier to operate. You can find competent property managers. You understand the culture. You know how things go, blah, blah, blah, blah. So people focus purely on returns and maximizing everything. Probably better opportunities in most cases in the US, if you look hard enough. Once you go international, it’s really about that diversification element. You can get good returns. I’m making really good returns in Medellin.

Dylan Silver (17:24)
Sure.

The Wandering Investor (17:48)
I’m more in that Cambodia deal. But it’s like, it’s very much out there, you know, buying land on some like remote Island in Cambodia. That’s that’s too out there, right? That’s too niche. And, you know, people want to go international. People want to diversify. Once you start being worth a few million in the U S you know, is it reasonable to be all in the U S? Probably not. You know, things are a little iffy at times in the U S with politics and all that.

Is it crazy to say, I’m going to put 10%, 20 % of my assets overseas in different jurisdictions, get some passports, get some residencies, do all these things for my family, overseeing bank accounts, still making money back home, but just gradually diversifying away? Is it unreasonable? Probably not. It’s actually probably very reasonable to do that. Would I tell people, sell everything in the US, the dollar’s going to crash, it’s the end of the empire, blah, blah, like put all your money in Mexico?

No, like no, you you’re fine. Just step by step, just a little bit, just diversify, be reasonable. Ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. Just be reasonable.

Dylan Silver (18:48)
Bonus question here for you. When you’re underwriting these deals, I’ve seen this in a lot of places, if you ask local realtors, hey, what are the comps? They’ll say, well, we don’t exactly have comps the same way that you do in the US. How are you evaluating these deals? it a similar process like you mentioned with comparing to other even nations or and what?

this might go for if it was in a separate market entirely or are you going and trying to find comps in a local basis?

The Wandering Investor (19:22)
Yeah, for comps, rental yields, rental income, all that, you want to get that info locally. You can’t compare it to other markets. Like anything with rentals, you get that info locally. Yes, most realtors don’t know. Yes, a lot of realtors will lie. And yes, it is hard to find information in a lot of markets. The market is not as efficient and transparent as in the US with an MLS. Most markets in the world do not have.

an MLS, you have to go and find the information yourself. So how do you go about it? You go ask a few realtors, you go on the local websites for rentals. You actually reach out to them and ask and see, they real rentals or just, they just bait fake rentals. Cause there’s a lot of that as well. You go on telegram groups, you go on Facebook groups, you pose as a renter and go around and see how much you can negotiate.

Ask you know, ask how long has it been on the market? A lot of markets are data poor Very much so so but that’s also an opportunity in the sense that there is a cement it’s there’s you know, there’s arbitrage between the truth and the perception of the market often because the they’re not they’re too far apart because it’s just hard to get the truth in the US you get the truth pretty quickly, it’s just

Dylan Silver (20:37)
It’s hard to find the data.

The Wandering Investor (20:39)
It’s all there. have like websites, everything like you get all the information you want. can check. It’s so data rich. can chat GPT, everything. ⁓ not, not in those other markets. You can chat GPT, but you’ll get random wrong information all the time. So spending time on the ground and just asking and testing and going online and doing all that.

Dylan Silver (21:00)
We are coming up on time here, Ladislas. Any new projects that you’re working on and what’s the best way for folks to reach out to you?

The Wandering Investor (21:08)
Yeah, mean, look, right now we’re doing a lot of citizenship by investment programs in Africa. So if people want to buy an African passport entirely remotely as a plan B, I know it’s a little niche, but you know, that’s something we were doing. got the, the licenses from, two governments. ⁓ but you know, I encourage people to sign up to our free newsletter Notes from the Road on TheWanderingInvestor.com.

Every week you’ll get one or two emails, talk about opportunities that I see as I travel around the world full time. And also just feel free to follow me on X or YouTube and Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all of that.