Panama Real Estate Investing: The Untapped Senior Housing Opportunity

Scott Bursey (00:00)
Digging into the future, where do you see the most immediate opportunity for passive income in the current Panamanian real estate landscape?

Anne-Michelle Wand (00:09)
The most immediate opportunity I see is creating senior housing because essentially in Panama there isn’t any. There’s a few in Panama City, but the rest of the country is wide open, especially Bocas del Toro where I live.

Scott Bursey (00:25)
Is that specific sector beginner friendly or does it require deep connections?

Anne-Michelle Wand (00:30)
I think that anyone who has had some experience in building multifamily could navigate with a good attorney and a good financial advisor, you know, and a strong banking relationship.

Scott Bursey (02:17)
Welcome back to the *Real Estate Pros Podcast*, powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And today we’re thrilled to be joined by Anne-Michelle Wand. Anne-Michelle is an international pro in real estate, having successfully transitioned to debt-free lifestyle on the stunning islands of Panama. As the founder of Island Fixers, she spearheads private real estate development projects that focus on international living, multifamily assets.

and generating passive income. Listeners, you can expect to learn how to break the mold, leverage international markets, and build a debt-free portfolio that stands the test of time. Anne-Michelle, welcome to the show.

Anne-Michelle Wand (02:59)
Well, hello.

Scott Bursey (03:00)
It is just awesome having you here and to help our listeners get up to speed, please give us the ninety second highlight reel of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Anne-Michelle Wand (03:11)
Ninety seconds, I started in the in Boulder, Colorado when I got divorced and was a single mom. And I got into real estate by buying a house that was also an investment. It was located on an acre of ground outside the city limits. And I annexed it into the city, split it into four lots, connected to city services, sold three lots, lived in the one with the house on it for five years.

Sold it, bought two more projects. That was my start in real estate.

Scott Bursey (03:40)
That’s a powerful story, Anne-Michelle. Really appreciate you laying out that path. And what really caught my attention about you, Anne-Michelle, was the way you’ve been able to seamlessly integrate personal freedom with massive scale, building an entire investment ecosystem from the ground up in a foreign market without compromising on your financial independence. Building on that, what is the biggest strength?

in your current Panama investment model that allows for such sustainable growth.

Anne-Michelle Wand (04:13)
I think my experience of being in real estate for forty years and being able to form this company, knowing the ins and outs of business in Panama, you know, since I’ve lived here full time fifteen years and been investing here for twenty-five years.

Scott Bursey (04:29)
As it pertains to the islands of Panama, how can an average investor start building a similar foundation in your view?

Anne-Michelle Wand (04:36)
Well, they would need to start doing their research. And you know, the internet is everything these days. So research about the area you want to invest in and then start connecting with people because relationships are everything. After being here twenty five years, I’ve built some very strong relationships in all parts of the country. And I can refer if I don’t know something or I don’t have an opportunity for you, I can refer you to one of my colleagues that do.

Scott Bursey (05:50)
Thank you for highlighting that. It really gives us a clear view of where to focus on. And thinking about the hurdles, Anne-Michelle, what do you identify as the most common misconception or perhaps weakness investors face when looking at international development projects?

Anne-Michelle Wand (06:08)
Well, particularly in the country of Panama, people are afraid to invest internationally. I believe there’s a lot of fear around it. When they think about Panama, they think in the past when like Noriega was here in the eighties, right? And but it’s been a democracy for a very long time and the investing is similar to United States, not exactly like it. There are differences. So the hurdles are changing people’s perception about

What an opportunity this is and the risks about it or the non risks about it as well.

Scott Bursey (06:40)
Digging into the future, where do you see the most immediate opportunity for passive income in the current Panamanian real estate landscape?

Anne-Michelle Wand (06:50)
The most immediate opportunity I see is creating senior housing because essentially in Panama there isn’t any. There’s a few in Panama City, but the rest of the country is wide open, especially Bocas del Toro where I live.

Scott Bursey (07:05)
Is that specific sector beginner friendly or does it require deep connections?

Anne-Michelle Wand (07:11)
I think that anyone who has had some experience in building multifamily could navigate with a good attorney and a good financial advisor, you know, and a strong banking relationship.

You know, you need a few relationships to get started, but once you have those, you can move forward.

Scott Bursey (07:31)
Looking at the bigger picture, what is the primary external threat that you’re most concerned about when managing international developments?

Anne-Michelle Wand (07:41)
Well, I think you have to look at the global economy today because what happens somewhere else happens here too and it may be in a different way. It might be a trickle down effect, but it affects us. So you have to pay attention to what’s going on in the rest of the world and navigate your decisions with some weight to those factors.

Scott Bursey (08:00)
How do you protect your portfolio against those variables?

Anne-Michelle Wand (08:04)
At this stage of my life, no debt. I don’t really leverage very much anymore. Now, for someone else it might make sense who is a lot younger than me, but at my age, I think that being debt free is important for me and for the company.

Scott Bursey (08:19)
Well, thanks for sharing that insight. And getting tactical, what is one specific strategy you use to manage your multifamily projects remotely while keeping them debt-free?

Anne-Michelle Wand (08:30)
Good managers, good people working with me.

Scott Bursey (08:34)
Can that same leverage be applied to smaller local projects in the in the States as well?

Anne-Michelle Wand (09:21)
Absolutely. I managed my condo and my houses from the from here, from Panama, for years before I ended up selling all of them.

Scott Bursey (09:29)
Okay, that’s awesome. And before we dive deeper, what does your professional network look like right now? And also if you could give us a rundown of what some of the rooms have looked like that you’ve been in over your career and

when it comes to relationships and networking, I guess what’s been made the biggest difference for you, had the largest impact?

Anne-Michelle Wand (09:50)
Yeah. Since I’ve been in Panama, I think it’s just the relationships that I have built over the years in my professional career. I owned and operated a real estate franchise here for ten years. And I still have those relationships right here in Bocas, plus multiple colleagues that have other franchises and real estate companies all over Panama. So and then when I was in Colorado, I attended groups

in Denver that were specifically real estate networking groups and I follow BiggerPockets extensively now.

Scott Bursey (10:25)
That really underlines the power of connection in this industry. Anne-Michelle, if somebody’s listening and they’re thinking to themselves, hey, this is somebody that I really like, what would you like them to know first about Island Fixers?

Anne-Michelle Wand (10:39)
Well, that I do relocation and consulting for anyone that wants to get started down here.

Scott Bursey (10:44)
Anne-Michelle, if you had to start your entire portfolio over today with zero debt, but limited in initial capital, what is the first move you would make to build that international passive income stream?

Anne-Michelle Wand (10:57)
Yeah. Well, exactly what I did before, right? You’ve done it once, you can do it again. I had no money when I started. I just had a good job. And so I could qualify for a loan, but I didn’t have the down payment. I found somebody that would loan me the down payment and made that first deal that we talked about earlier. From there, you just continue to build relationships until you’ve got yourself where your dream is, where you want to be.

Scott Bursey (11:22)
What do they call that? Rinse and repeat?

Anne-Michelle Wand (11:24)
Rinse and repeat.

Scott Bursey (11:25)
Awesome, awesome. And let me ask you this. You have given us a lot of good words of wisdom thus far, but as far as international investing goes and things of that nature, what other words of wisdom can you leave with our listeners here today?

Anne-Michelle Wand (11:41)
Well, it’s an emerging market here in Panama and other countries, like for example, Portugal. So do your homework and I wouldn’t wait. Get started. Do something.

Scott Bursey (11:53)
Take action, it sounds like. Absolutely. Anne-Michelle, thank you. This has been a pleasure. And for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane or perhaps even collaborate with you on future deals, what’s the best way for them to plug into your pipeline and reach you directly?

Anne-Michelle Wand (12:10)
Well, they can reach me on LinkedIn. I have a LinkedIn profile under my name and another company that I was working on, Passive Profit Partners.

Scott Bursey (12:20)
Anne-Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today on the *Real Estate Pros Podcast*. This has been an absolute pleasure.

Anne-Michelle Wand (12:26)
Thank you so much for having me.

Scott Bursey (12:28)
And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be fueling your tanks with a lineup of elite guests, just like Anne-Michelle Wand, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.