How the 2008 Real Estate Crash Led Her to Build Passive Income in Panama

Anne-Michelle Wand (00:00)
I bought a property on the island of Isla Solarte and it was supposed to be a gated community. This developer was going to build like 10 houses on the coast and some jungle houses and have

A dock for every ten houses and there was gonna be a hotel and marinas and just this whole big plan with infrastructure where you could ride golf carts throughout the property and everything. And about four years into it, he ended up going bankrupt and not finishing the project.

Freddie Steen (02:06)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast by Real Estate Pros. I’m your host, Freddie. And today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with for quite some time. Anne-Michelle Wand, who’s making serious moves in the real estate industry internationally, particularly in the paradise of Panama.

And I’m glad to have you here. I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching real estate internationally and also set on an exit strategy, being able to get your experience here and then leverage that experience to really make some very innovative real estate decisions and investments in Panama. So let’s dive in. So first off, for people who may not be familiar with your world, give us the short version.

What’s your main focus these days? And what markets are you operating in?

Anne-Michelle Wand (03:08)
My main focus these days is not working too hard and enjoying life, to be honest with you. But I love real estate and I always like to keep my fingers in it. And I’m focusing these days on elder housing. I call it Active Agers because I want people to live longer and be happier.

Freddie Steen (03:29)
So before the pod, we had a chance to connect. And I really find that interesting. And I’m sure our Real Estate Pros who are listening will as well. There’s a real push toward the elderly living longer and geriatric care. A lot of our Real Estate Pros are getting into that as far as an asset class on the investment side, you know, healthcare, hospitals, regional, regional clinics. Let me ask you, your

Niche was different though. You saw that differently. You didn’t you weren’t concerned about building out multiple facilities. You are more interested in creating community. Can you talk about that holistic view?

Anne-Michelle Wand (04:11)
Correct. In, you know, in today’s world, isolationism is a problem, not just for elders, but for everyone, you know, everyone on their phone, you don’t know your neighbors and things like that. But we have learned scientifically that people prosper and do more well if they are in community. So my dream is to create that community, a wellness community.

Where multi-generational people can live and do healthy things and live a happier, more prosperous life because of it. No. I don’t know how much in detail you want me to go with this.

Freddie Steen (04:54)
Well we wanna hear it all here at Investor Fuel. what’s your thought? What’s your big vision?

Anne-Michelle Wand (05:00)
I’m seeing tiny houses for the elders. I’m seeing perhaps oceanfront condominiums for their kids in a community where everyone can live if they want to, or they can just visit you know, the elders can live there, the kids can just visit, or the kids can live there with their elders and bring the grandkids in, and there’ll be pets allowed because that makes people happier, and there’ll be wellness clinics and activities that they could that are provided to.

To provide just a great life to the end of your life and help you live longer and happier.

I have an entire business plan related to this. It goes into detail about what I want to do.

Freddie Steen (06:31)
That’s amazing. I have to say that one of the quiet knocks against our industry has always been that we kind of come into a community, you know, we BRRRR method it, we get up out of there, we get our money, and we’re not really invested in the community. But what you’re doing is the now and the future of what Real Estate Pros are doing. I mean, you are not just interested in your profit, but you are really

Interested in making the community better, making the country better, make the people better. So I laud you for that. I love it. And what caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to manage being an expat, leverage your first property, which I believe you bought with a partner in Panama, and now start growing into building community, building wellness communities, and also into multifamily homes.

That’s not easy, especially in this climate. What’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly in another country?

Anne-Michelle Wand (07:34)
I think it’s just my energy and my desire to achieve a goal. And so I continue to connect with the right people to be able to manifest that dream. And each person that I connect with, each company that I connect with will be like a piece. I’m looking for partners, not just investors. And you’re absolutely right. It’s so much more than just ROI.

ROI is important and it will be very profitable to do a project like this. However, wealth is not just money. It’s lifestyle. It’s health. If you don’t have your health, you can’t do anything else.

Freddie Steen (08:12)
That’s true. That’s true. What’s been your biggest asset moving to Panama with your real estate knowledge from the States? What attracted other real estate professionals in Panama to you as far as your knowledge base on the way we do things here?

Anne-Michelle Wand (08:31)
I think they when they met me, they just saw that I was competent, knowledgeable and real, authentic, and so I was able to connect and work with a lot of people.

Freddie Steen (08:46)
How did you get accepted into the community?

Anne-Michelle Wand (08:50)
Well, Panama’s a very friendly place to begin with, which is one of the reasons that I wanted to be there. Now, the culture itself is very warm and welcoming to outsiders, and you can integrate into a community easily. I think if you ask any expat, they will tell you that they’re very welcomed into any community, whether it’s a local Panamanian community. For example, my son just moved down to

Panama in January. And he found a little Panamanian apartment to start his new life in. And he says, I just love the fact—this was a family that had rented apartments on top and they had a laundromat and a little restaurant on the bottom. And he said they just invited me right into their family and they said they would, you know, if I brought them food, they would cook it for me and things like that. So he was very impressed and really fell in love with the community and the people already.

Freddie Steen (09:49)
And what’s something you believe about real estate that most investors completely disagree with?

Anne-Michelle Wand (09:56)
I don’t know if they would disagree with it. But well it I guess that real estate is more than making money. Although that’s why I got started in the first place. It was my retirement account to achieve my goals. But as far as just my beliefs, I think it’s more than, like I was saying before, ROI. It’s much, much more. It’s building relationships.

Freddie Steen (10:57)
Let’s dig deeper. If you’re speaking to maybe a newer real estate pro, why is that important?

Anne-Michelle Wand (11:05)
To be successful in real estate, you need to build relationships. There’s no other way. And so you need to be knowledgeable or willing to be mentored. You need to ask a lot of questions and connect with people, you know, in a positive way. So connecting with people in a positive way, you have to work on yourself in order to feel positive so you can project that to the other person and they will want to connect with you.

Freddie Steen (11:35)
Every operator that I know has a moment where things got real. I mean, maybe a deal that went sideways or a time they had to pivot fast. I hear you laughing. You mind sharing one of those moments for you?

Anne-Michelle Wand (11:49)
Okay. an experience in Panama or the United States?

Freddie Steen (11:53)
Let’s do both.

Anne-Michelle Wand (11:55)
Okay. Well, one of the reasons that I moved to Panama was because of the 2008 crash. All my experience from 2001, I guess, is when I got my real estate license, but I had been investing in real estate prior to that. I started in the eighties. and I had never lost money until 2008.

But that crash hit everyone. None of us were totally prepared. And fortunately for me, I didn’t lose everything. kind of re-oriented myself and said, you know, what do I want to do? I was, I think I was 55 at the time, and I wanted I was just about to retire then. And because of the crash, couldn’t.

So my partner and I said, you know, if we go outside the country, you know, you already have this land in Panama. If we move there, we can retire now. And we did move there by choice. And I ended up not retiring because I saw this immense opportunity to open the real estate franchise. And it turned our lives around. We were able to have the freedom we were looking for in a stunning, beautiful place for me. It was

No winter. Definitely staying away from this any place that had snow. And I haven’t seen snow in 15 years. So I only come to Colorado in the summer or the fall or the spring. so that was in the United States, a really a turning point in in my life. And then in in Panama, one of the properties that I bought at the beginning, I bought

Three initial properties, but I’m gonna talk about these two because it’s they they’re connected.

Freddie Steen (13:51)
One of these the mixed use commercial and residential that you put up or no? No.

Anne-Michelle Wand (13:56)
There was no mistakes with that. That was an amazing story about walking down the street and just meeting some guy that had a property for sale that we lucked into. It was wonderful.

Freddie Steen (14:05)
You could if you could button just put a button and just talk about that, it was an amazing story, just real quick. Because Real Estate Pros are always looking for confirmation on their gut. So tell us how that happened.

Anne-Michelle Wand (14:17)
First of all, when we got off the plane, looked around and just felt, my God, we could live here. Immediately got that feeling, didn’t really know anything about it. And after four days, we had been walking around the town, walking down and going into—I went into a grocery store and I didn’t want to stay in there because it was air conditioned and I don’t like air conditioning. So I went outside to wait on the street for my friend that was buying something in there. And a man came down the street and said,

Do you know anywhere where I can sell a house in this town? And I went, Wow. Well, where is it? And he kind of points over towards the ocean because Bocas del Toro, Isla Colón, is an island. That’s where they have the airport and you can fly in and it has the only roads in Bocas. One road. It’s a little town. So I’m talking to this guy. I said, Well, if you wait till my friend comes out.

You can show it to us and we might know somebody that would be interested. Didn’t say it was us. Yeah. And so she came out and we I told her what was going on and we walked about three blocks and walked into this property and it had this crumbling down cement house that was flooded on the floor and it had a large buoy that we don’t know how the heck it got there and two palm trees.

And it was facing the ocean, the mouth of the bull, which is what Bocas del Toro means. It was right, the view was incredible. So we asked him how much it was. And when he told us our jaw just about dropped because it was so cheap. and we told him that if you can produce title for this property, we’ll have our lawyer investigate it. We’ll buy it. And we made a deal on the spot, a handshake, and we took the

Paperwork, sent the paperwork to the lawyers, and a month later we were the proud owners of a flooded house and two palm trees on a small city lot, which are typically 200 meters. We proceeded to enhance the lot. We added a seawall so it wouldn’t erode the land because we saw other properties getting smaller and smaller, and then built a boat house and a dock.

That’s how we started was doing that and enjoyed that for a while, just taking the boat out. That’s one of my favorite things to do is you know, air conditioning in the boat because the wind is blowing in your hair and you’re gliding over the waves and it’s immensely pleasurable to me. But I had a boyfriend at the time, I wasn’t married and

He wanted to start a little business there, which he did. But when we broke up, of course, that business and that whole thing went away. Took the boat and so we had to figure out something to do with the boathouse. And we connected with this guy who was from California and he wanted to do a surf school. He said, Well, I will build this out. I’ll change this boathouse into a little community kitchen.

And living room area and he put windows in the front and he closed it up and put a floor in and all this stuff and he built these three little casitas to rent out and he had a girls’ surf school and he would bring in groups of people maybe 10 to 15 young women that didn’t know how to surf and he would feed them and house them and teach them surfing for a certain fee and we leased the place to him for three years.

Again, then we could decide what else to do. But that covered more than our holding costs while we were figuring, you know, what we wanted to do. And worked out well that that’s another partnership that just happened for us. It was just we knew we were doing the right thing because everything was flowing. At the end of the three years, we decided to end his lease and take the place over. And that was our agreement that we could go on or not go on at the time. And we took over renting the casitas. In the meantime,

My partner Donna, she built a a spa because we were in the salon business in the United States. When I started in real estate, I owned two salons. I didn’t know anything about real estate, but I studied on the side with other pros and began investing. And that’s a whole another story how I got started in investing. anyway, she built her salon and I built my real estate office.

And we kept renting the casitas. I operated my franchise. She operated her salon. So it was more like owner use at the beginning. And then it just kept transforming. When I sold my franchise and I didn’t wanna do that anymore. I had two offices on the property and I rented those both out. They’re currently rented. And she’s still operating her salon, but we’re going to make another transition this next year.

Freddie Steen (20:08)
Being able to figure out how to layer the enterprise nature of the property, having that experience with the salons, knowing how to build out those tiny is brilliant strategy. But you owe us one thing. That’s what went really well. Still going well for you. What are the two situations

Anne-Michelle Wand (20:32)
The second situation that didn’t go well is another property that I bought I bought a property on the island of Isla Solarte and it was supposed to be a gated community. This developer was going to build like 10 houses on the coast and some jungle houses and have

A dock for every ten houses and there was gonna be a hotel and marinas and just this whole big plan with infrastructure where you could ride golf carts throughout the property and everything. And about four years into it, he ended up going bankrupt and not finishing the project.

Wow. So those of us who had bought land, he maybe sold, I don’t know, out of two hundred lots or so, he maybe sold half of them and never finished the project. And we were left with no infrastructure.

And trying to decide what to do, you know. Some people just gave up and blew off their investment. Other people just held on to it, hoping something else would happen. But I decided to make lemonade out of lemons, which is kind of what I do sometimes when things go bad. So I decided to develop the property. I said the only way I’m gonna make this into a profitable property is to develop it. So we ended up

Building a house on it, which was part of my dream to have a cottage over the sea. And I thought it was going to be in a gated community with amenities, but it ended up being just on our own. Right. So I’ve got this I’ve got this house that’s over the sea and it’s off the grid. It’s connected to solar. Rainwater is our water, and we have a ecological septic system on the land. We ended up building.

One, two, three more houses on the land. It’s about probably two acres. and you get in Panama what’s called a concession so that you can build over the water. So there’s not only land rights, there’s water rights. And you can’t you can’t own the water rights, but you can lease them from the government in perpetuity. So we own the land rights, the titled property, and then we have a concession from the government for it.

The ocean property. And now that property is it’s probably worth double what we have into it. And we live in the house and we rent out the other three houses.

Freddie Steen (23:02)
And being able to pivot, trusting your gut, holding on to that property and turning it profitable, that’s the kind of stuff people don’t talk about enough. And honestly, it’s what separates the folks who just dabble from the ones who stay in the game long term, like you. Let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? What’s the next real goal for you? And is it in geriatric care?

Anne-Michelle Wand (23:26)
It is in geriatric care. You know, I’m getting older myself and every person that I talk to in in town about that, they go, We’ll be your first customer. You know. So I’m getting good feedback from the community already. But it’s challenging to find someone willing—you know, I’m not looking for like a bank loan. We want to build this with cash. I want people who want to partner with me and take that risk with me.

Freddie Steen (23:55)
That’s big. I mean, especially when you’ve already got your foothold there in the Panamanian community, understanding the regulations, understanding the contractors. You also have a background in construction and renovation. So the next move can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. Now, I know a lot of people listening are either earlier in their journey or looking to level up. And I think they benefit from hearing this.

When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, and what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Anne-Michelle Wand (24:33)
Finding people that know more than I do and mentoring with them.

Freddie Steen (24:40)
Explain that for someone who’s new. What should they be looking for?

Anne-Michelle Wand (24:46)
Find the niche where you want to excel, whatever that is. Find someone who’s already doing that and find a way to get close to them, take classes from them, join a program with them, be their assistant for free, whatever you need to do to make it work for you to so you can learn from experts that know that are doing what you want to do.

Freddie Steen (25:15)
You cannot fake that, Anne. relationships are everything in this space. I wanna ask you one thing before we wrap. If someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, well, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Anne-Michelle Wand (25:32)
I think the best way for them to reach me is on LinkedIn. And I think you have my LinkedIn profile. they can message me there and I can connect with them.

Freddie Steen (25:44)
And what’s your name on LinkedIn?

Anne-Michelle Wand (25:47)
Anne-Michelle Wand with my company being Passive Profit Partners. Because I’m all about passive income.

Freddie Steen (25:57)
Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. I mean, we need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. Thanks again for being here, Anne.

Anne-Michelle Wand (26:09)
Well, thank you for having me. I’ve enjoyed this.

Freddie Steen (26:14)
And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Anne Wand who are out there building real businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode.