Michael Cobb’s Guide to Overseas Property Investing

Michael K. Cobb (00:00)
Yeah, the opportunity today has shifted. Back when COVID hit and the government shut down businesses, stay at home orders, what really happened, I mean, this is revolutionary because for the first time in human history, work and the location of work were decoupled. You go all the way back to caveman, you had to go kill the animal, pick the berries,

but COVID changed that. COVID said, at home. And now all of a sudden the management structures,

that had been invented for the industrial age were broken. And we’re still in a flux, right? We’re still really seeing this flux. But the opportunity is to serve people who can work from home. Because if home can be in Minnesota or West Virginia or Dallas, Texas, home can be in Portugal, Thailand, Costa Rica, Panama, like your home can be anywhere. And so this digital nomad opportunity

is absolutely huge and new in big and profound ways.

Scott Bursey (02:30)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And on today’s show, we are focusing on investment strategies and scalable development practices in emerging real estate markets. We’re joined by Mike Cobb of ECI Development, who brings deep expertise from years of successfully guided and growing top producing teams across various market segments. Mike, thanks for being here.

Michael K. Cobb (02:53)
Scott, thanks for having me. Excited to be here and talk about what’s going on.

Scott Bursey (02:56)
Absolutely, yes, it’s our pleasure. For our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us, how did your career begin and what’s your focus now?

Michael K. Cobb (03:06)
Sure. Got started about 34 years ago in Belize. I set up a small mortgage company to provide mortgages to North Americans who wanted to buy property there. We had that business for about 10 years and we turned it into a bank in 2003. And I still serve on the board of directors, part of the, know, head of the credit committee, things like that. But we’ve hired bankers to run that business. kind of along the way, by 96, we started to notice there were also holes in the marketplace where

we could fill and we could serve clients very, very well on the development side of homes, condos and properties. So we started our development company, ECI Development in 1996. And that has really been the core business that I’ve focused on over the last, yeah, goodness, 30 years, right? Yeah, 30 years. Yeah.

Scott Bursey (03:50)
That’s awesome. And Mike, I

understand you have a book on Amazon. Could you please walk us through what that book entails?

Michael K. Cobb (03:57)
Yeah, I do. And it’s, you asked me, Mike or Michael, my publicist tells me I need to talk about Michael K Cobb for that reason. There’s lots of Mike Cobbs out there, but Michael K Cobb, the book is called How to Buy Your Home Overseas and Get It Right the First Time. And I would even loosen up to say how to make an investment overseas, whether you’re owning a home for use, you want to use it, or you’re making a direct investment. You know, we want to get it right the first time and

you know, 30 plus years of making mistakes and watching other people make mistakes. We took those mistakes, we consolidated them. I called them tuition when I paid the payment. And we put those things into the book. We’ve got 30 questions in the book that we need to ask when we buy property overseas. But they boil down to three easy to remember principles. Buy what you see, own community, and know the developer.

And if we hold those three thoughts in our head when we transact overseas or outside our home countries, we’ll do a far, far better job. But the book really expands on that. And Scott, for anybody who emails book at ECI development dot com, we will give them a coupon that they can go to Amazon and use to download a copy of my book for free. We want anybody and everybody thinking about property overseas or even possibly imagining they might want to.

own a property overseas or make an investment overseas to have the resource. So we hope lots of folks will reach out and get a copy of the book.

Scott Bursey (05:24)
Awesome, Michael. And Michael, if someone is listening to this and they’re thinking, hey, this is someone I’d want to partner with, what do you want them to know first about your business?

Michael K. Cobb (06:20)
You know, we’ve been in business for 30 years. You know, we talked about, you know, the SWAT before we got on. And, you know, one of the things that really hurt hard over the last few years is, you know, we took a bunch of orders. We sold about 100 addresses between condos and homes right after COVID, largely in a response to people saying, hey, I need a place overseas that I can go to if things get worse, right? It called a plan B. We took about 100 orders and to fulfill those orders,

Remember, shutdowns, lockdowns, supply chain issues, prices of stuff went through the roof. We ended up losing about $4, $4.5

to deliver those 100 addresses at the contract price that we agreed to. And I think that’s a very, important piece of the puzzle. When you’re going overseas, you’re going to the land of buyer beware, right? And so know the developer.

look at those kinds of things. Do they have money in the bank? Do they have a track record? When times got tough, did they step up and do the right thing? And those are the kinds of things that I would look at first and foremost. there’s a whole chapter in the book called Know the Developer that talks about how we really do that, right? And in detail, yeah.

Scott Bursey (07:34)
Awesome and Michael no business is perfect. What’s one thing that you’re still figuring out and that you’re working around lately?

Michael K. Cobb (07:41)
You know, I think there are a lot of things obviously we’re always trying to tweak and make better. But one of the big things is what we’re doing here today, Scott, we’re on a podcast. And I think we didn’t really understand the power of podcast or the acceleration of podcast in the broadcast medium. And we were late to the game. We’re scrambling to make up. I’m on three, four, five podcasts a week now. And we’re really pushing out. We’re considering our own podcast.

But I think that was a place where we just didn’t read the tea leaves very well as we started to see this come online. But lots of challenges when you run a business, right? There’s always stuff, but you know.

Scott Bursey (08:18)
Absolutely, yes, but it’s how you handle that stuff and prosper. Michael, what do you feel is your biggest opportunity right now in the market?

Michael K. Cobb (08:24)
Yes. Correct.

Yeah, the opportunity today has shifted. Back when COVID hit and the government shut down businesses, stay at home orders, what really happened, I mean, this is revolutionary because for the first time in human history, work and the location of work were decoupled. You go all the way back to caveman, you had to go kill the animal, pick the berries, then the agricultural revolution was huge. You put fences around the animals, you put the plants in rows.

but everybody still had to show up. Then in the 1700s, the industrial, I love the word revolution, right? So you had this people coming out of the farms to the factories, but they still had to show up to work the machines. And then in the 60s and 70s, they made this new word, post-industrial revolution. But people still went to offices, sat in traffic to talk on their phone and work a computer all day, but COVID changed that. COVID said, at home. And now all of a sudden the management structures,

that had been invented for the industrial age were broken. And we’re still in a flux, right? We’re still really seeing this flux. But the opportunity is to serve people who can work from home. Because if home can be in Minnesota or West Virginia or Dallas, Texas, home can be in Portugal, Thailand, Costa Rica, Panama, like your home can be anywhere. And so this digital nomad opportunity

is absolutely huge and new in big and profound ways.

And the data is proving it out. I the number of people wanting to live overseas has more than doubled in the last 10 years. Different demographics, it’s even accelerated way beyond that. This is a statistic that just blows me away. The Gallup poll in December of last year, 2025, they identified a demographic of women between the ages of 18 and 44.

40 % of those women would move overseas today given the right opportunity. mean, like that’s staggering, right? And so we’re seeing retirees, that number went from about 10, 12 % up to about 34 % today. So we’re seeing massive numbers of people starting to look at moving overseas, which for you and your listeners, right? This is an incredible opportunity to be their landlord. Because a lot of these people aren’t gonna buy, they’re gonna rent, right? Be their landlord.

Scott Bursey (10:39)
Yes.

Michael K. Cobb (10:43)
or get in early, own some properties, rent them out short term, whatever you want to do, and then resell them in the future. So there are some tremendous opportunities for retail and real estate investors in this marketplace. It’s huge and growing and growing rapidly.

Scott Bursey (11:35)
And growing rapidly. Well said, Michael. Any challenges you’re watching closely? This could be like market risks, competition perhaps, or access to deals or capital, you know, that sort of thing.

Michael K. Cobb (11:38)
Yes.

Yeah, well, you know, it’s interesting you mentioned capital. I would say some of the some of the the largest challenges in the region are really capital based. You don’t have lenders. You don’t have banks. And our bank doesn’t lend to developers. Our bank only lends to a consumer 50 percent. So the customer puts up half the bank puts up half. So it’s not really a lending institution for what we would conventionally look as leverage in the states. I mean, you buy properties, you leverage them, you buy more properties and it kind of snowballs and rolls.

access to inexpensive capital in Latin America in the developing world generally is limited or none. And so it has to be different models. And one of the things we’ve seen are what I would call unique syndications, right? Where, so you’re not leveraging, it’s all cash in, but people coming together and putting 100 % of the money upfront.

but breaking up a $500,000 project into 20 pieces or something, right? To make it accessible to a lot more folks who want to play in this arena. The one thing I would say is that it’s important. think everybody should have a few eggs outside their home basket, right? A little bit of assets and maybe it’s 5%, 10%, pick a number, 20%. I don’t know, but I think it’s that kind of a number to have some international diversification.

And the way to do it is to work with other people so that you don’t have all your eggs or a big chunk of your eggs going in that basket. At least not to start, right? Wade into the pool, find out if you like it, get some experience, know the market and build it up later. But I think nibbling at it or wading into that pool is important for all real estate investors or we’re gonna miss this new.

new direction, this new wave, and it is happening. It’s not gonna happen. It is happening.

Scott Bursey (13:39)
Well said. And Michael, let’s discuss operational structure. What specific business models or technology platforms are currently proving most effective for optimizing development efficiency when implementing a growth strategy in today’s variable economic environment, in your view?

Michael K. Cobb (13:56)
Yeah, you know, think two programs that we use, use a pride of three actually a project management software called Monday. That’s phenomenal. ⁓ Our team loves it. It’s easy to use. It’s robust. Builder trend is one of the programs we use on the construction side to really make sure that we’re communicating with our clients exceptionally well. And then internally we use HubSpot as our CRM. It really is like the Lamborghini of CRMs.

but it lets us really engage the marketplace. we’ve got internal project management stuff. We’ve got the communication with clients and construction on the builder trend. And then from a marketing and sales standpoint, the HubSpot platform, those three really, I would say are the three legs of our store. We use Microsoft Office and Teams and all that stuff too, but those three are powerful pieces of the puzzle.

Scott Bursey (14:48)
And what sort of strategy is ECI development going to be employing over the next, let’s say 12 to 18 months.

Michael K. Cobb (15:37)
Yeah, great question. You know, we’ve always served a retiree. That was always our market. U.S. Canadian retirees looking for warmer weather, lower cost of living, higher quality of life throughout, you know, Central America, please. Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama. These are the four countries that we work in. And and so we’ve built our communities to serve that demographic. So the real pivot for us right now is a pivot towards that, you know, say 30 to 40.

year old digital nomad again who’s free to work from home and they’re going to make home someplace fun but they don’t necessarily have the the assets to make an acquisition right they’re not as liquid they don’t have the down payment or whatever it is and so they are renting you see a lot of countries now opening up what we call digital nomad visas right costa rica’s got a great one portugal’s got one many countries have them and and belize has one

And so, you know, they’re coming for three months, six months, a year, and they’re renting. And so the real opportunity, we are taking advantage of it as an organization, but we’re also seeing a lot of real estate investors take advantage of it to become, a landlord, right? Come down and own a home, own a condo, own several, and then, you know, be the right place, the right…

I mean, the right words are, but it’s a little bit of a tweak of what we’ve been doing. Because again, retirees are different than 30, 40 year old folks. And so the tweak for us, the opportunity and the slight pivot for us is to engage that demographic with the product that they want and they feel comfortable and they enjoy. This is truly our opportunity, but it’s also you and your listeners opportunity as well.

Scott Bursey (17:15)
Well said, thank you for that. And Michael, if you could give one piece of advice or one takeaway, one gold nugget to our listeners, what would it be today?

Michael K. Cobb (17:26)
Engage everything new in the world with humility. You know, my whole book, you had summarized my whole book in one word, it would be humility. You know, we don’t know what we don’t know. And we also have to forget what we think we know when we go outside our home turf. And I think that humility is probably our single biggest asset when we’re when we’re

transacting anywhere outside our home turf, right? It could be even as even as little as a city or state where the rules and regulations are different, right? I think a lot of folks, you know, we know what it’s like in Minnesota, but but California is a different bird, right? And we know that because it’s a real different bird, right? ⁓ But when you go overseas, when you go overseas, like it’s not even a bird anymore. Like it’s a cat now, right? And so, you know, the assumptions we have need to, you know,

Scott Bursey (18:03)
Yeah

Michael K. Cobb (18:14)
be put aside, the humility is important. So I think the nugget of wisdom I would impart is humility.

Scott Bursey (18:20)
Absolutely. What a great message. Michael, we love fostering connections here at Real Estate Pros and for the listeners who want to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out?

Michael K. Cobb (18:31)
really easy, mike.cobb, C-O-B-B, @ecidevelopment.com And if you want to get a copy of the book, just say book on there somewhere. And if you want to get in touch, we’ll get in touch and we’ll have a conversation.

Scott Bursey (18:46)
Awesome. Everybody, Michael Cobb, thank you for joining us today.

Michael K. Cobb (18:50)
Thank you. Yes.

Scott Bursey (18:51)
And for our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We have more conversations coming up with exceptional operators, just like Mike. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.