Unlocking Global Real Estate: 7 Investment Opportunities You Cant Miss

John Harcar (00:01.292)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. Once again, I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Chris De Pew. And what we’re going to talk about, you know, besides his journey in life and business, we’re going to talk about globally networking and international real estate, which is very cool. I’m very interested in talking about that. Remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers. I’m really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their business.

We provide tools and resources to grow the business you want, which will help you in turn live the life you’ve dreamed of. So Chris, welcome to our show,

Chris De Pew (00:38.892)
Hey, thank you very much. Appreciate being on.

John Harcar (00:41.918)
Yeah, I’m excited to talk about international state. I’ve talked with my wife several times about wanting to buy some properties in other countries. But before we get into all that and as our topic, right, tell us about yourself, right? You know, how you got here, your experience in business and real estate, etc.

Chris De Pew (00:59.352)
Great.

Well, you know appreciate that appreciate the time John. Thanks for bringing me on Chris Depew I’m originally from Tucson, Arizona desert rat grew up in the desert I saw a lot of snowbirds migrate into the warmer climate in Arizona and so I grew up around a lot of older people and the college scene with the universities and you know, there’s not a whole lot of growth happening in some small towns like that and once I was exposed to things beyond my backyard, know, it just really really reset my mind and it opened me up for

what I’m now living as a part of my day to day.

But you know, kind of going back, I think of the first business that I got into was tech related. I used to be a chef. I was working countless hours in the kitchen. And when all my friends were having fun, wanting to invite me to come hang out, you know, I was the one there in the kitchen grinding it out. And at that time I was a young guy straight out of high school and I thought I had landed the career path. I mean, I was working for a very well known chef. He was making international headlines and I thought this is definitely a path I can see myself

John Harcar (01:43.222)
Hmm.

Chris De Pew (02:03.056)
sticking with for the future. All of a sudden the 2000 era and the dot com really kind of took me by surprise and back then you know we’re talking about the dial-up internet days and so I had the opportunity

John Harcar (02:14.89)
Right.

Chris De Pew (02:16.428)
I had the opportunity to switch gears from the kitchen into technology in my first business. And we started a dial-up internet service provider. We were going after the AOL and the Netscape and Net Zero and back in those days, if you can remember. so, you know, during my onboarding of clients, we were growing our customer base. I got a call from one of my business partners who I had always identified him as a Latino, but I really had no idea his background.

John Harcar (02:33.522)
Mm-hmm.

Chris De Pew (02:46.368)
And he called me one day and he says, Hey man, you know, what, what if we take this business and we go international? Why don’t we go to my home country, Nicaragua? And I thought, man, Nicaragua, I didn’t even know where that was. So I’m like Africa sounds like really far away, man. And when I found out how was Nicaragua is not in Africa, it’s in central America, much closer home. It was light bulb moment for me. I realized like, wow, I really don’t know anything about the world. I don’t know anything about international business, but here I have an invite.

John Harcar (03:04.555)
Right?

Chris De Pew (03:14.636)
to go abroad, let me see where this takes me. And I’m so happy I took that invite because it changed my life. I went on a one week trip, I I brought a suitcase, a carry on for that one week. And I ended up staying in Nicaragua for an entire year. And it was completely by surprise. It was in base of our clients that we got on board on the dial up internet. know, someone needed to stay behind to provide them service. So that was kind of the, introduction to the international business world. Fast forward.

John Harcar (03:29.247)
Jeez.

John Harcar (03:41.803)
Got it. Now…

Chris De Pew (03:44.418)
Go ahead.

John Harcar (03:45.516)
no, no. OK, yeah. No, I was just going to ask. mean, going from chef to internet dial-up service provider, how did you know how to do all that stuff? I mean, did you study that? Or I mean, where did you get the knowledge to be able to build that business?

Chris De Pew (04:01.998)
I didn’t know what I was doing. just dove in as a young guy in my young twenties back then and the idea of entrepreneurship was just a dream. I didn’t even really know what the word was, but I had mentorship. had people who were coaching us along the way who had a lot of the tech.

John Harcar (04:17.831)
Okay, there we go.

Chris De Pew (04:19.404)
backbone. So all I really needed to focus on was the front end customer support, customer acquisition. And it allowed me to move quickly into international markets with that type of big brother, you know, behind me, supporting all the backend. So it was a crazy transition that I don’t think anybody in my family saw coming. I certainly didn’t see coming, but it ended up being a huge evolution to, where we’re at now with our international investments.

John Harcar (04:33.161)
Right. Yeah

John Harcar (04:40.224)
Mm.

John Harcar (04:46.987)
Got it. So throughout this whole time, you mean you’ve had mentorship, you’ve had, mean, was there like a specific person that mentored you? Did you join a mastermind? Did you, you know, I mean, what kind of network did you surround yourself with to set yourself up for success?

Chris De Pew (05:04.942)
Yeah, that’s a great question. And, um, I can’t emphasize enough to the listeners how important mentorship is because without it, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish all the amazing things that I’ve done at that time. My first mentorship came from within the company. was the higher ups, the V E’s of the organization, the founder of the company who were true technology visionaries. They were talking about things that are happening today in 2025, back in 2000, they would always share with us someday. You’ll be able to buy things on

Someday you’ll be able to have your refrigerator make an order for you without you having to do anything. Someday you’ll be able to wear goggles or glasses and see things.

and connect to the world. Back then in 2000, this was very far-fetched. We were sort of wild child stepping out on this branch thinking that we were going to change the world. It took 25 years to get to where we are now, but the technology has just continued to get faster and faster. I jumped out of technology once I got into Latin America. In the US, we have great infrastructure, so technology tends to thrive. When you get into these Latin countries, sometimes the infrastructure is a little bit behind.

John Harcar (05:59.34)
Mm-hmm.

Chris De Pew (06:15.566)
technology can have its hiccups. That was a big eye-opener for me and it’s ultimately what ended up shifting our attention into investments and into real estate. My business partner at the time had shared with me, you know, we have a lot of opportunity in this country. People are coming here from all over the world, but they don’t know where to go. They don’t know if it’s safe. They don’t really know how to get around. And it was proposed to us at that time. What if we get into the tourism world? And I thought tourism, this is, this is definitely not something that’s on my radar.

But the intention was to create a professional organization that could court and cater investors to international markets. And we needed a legal and safe way to do that. So in the industry was, was tourism, um, but it, it acts as an umbrella for multiple industries of investments. And so that’s kind of where my journey has taken me. Um, I’ve gotten into international real estate, uh, mining with precious metals and forestry for, uh, you know, international projects.

John Harcar (06:45.706)
Right.

Chris De Pew (07:15.44)
Real estate is the funnest one because you know people tend to travel sometimes with families sometimes with kids and they go to these countries to have a great time and then the question always comes out What’s it cost to live here? How much what’s the earning income like? What is the salary range in this country? And as people start to hear the answer and they start to see like wow, that’s that’s not what I was expecting So there’s a lot of curiosity that is provoked when people travel and for us we recognize that that was our opportunity to

John Harcar (07:31.904)
Right.

Chris De Pew (07:45.362)
educate them beyond just their trip. We could actually talk briefly during the vacation about opportunities. And if they showed any interest why we were there in the country, why not go down that rabbit hole a little bit and explore some property or explore the minerals or explore the forestry that has high value in this tropical wood. And that kind of all came together in a really beautiful harmony under a

John Harcar (07:48.394)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (07:57.93)
right?

Chris De Pew (08:11.084)
tour related industry, right? So our has created programs to different countries that we help expats expatriate from the U S we help them relocate to new countries. We connect them with legal. We connect them with banking. We connect them with obviously housing and we’ve been able to help hundreds of expats, you know, find their path.

John Harcar (08:13.524)
Right.

Chris De Pew (08:32.873)
in an international investment scenario or in an international lifestyle. And the crazy thing about the international lifestyle is that you can live so well abroad and people have this fear that it’s going to be third world out there. And that’s the big misconception. As soon as you go and you peel back the layers of the onion, man, there’s quality life all around the world. We just don’t really hear about it in the United States because we’ve always had such a great

John Harcar (08:43.872)
Right.

Chris De Pew (08:58.954)
ecosystem ourselves, well, start to change and things start to evolve. know, people start to open their eyes and pay attention to what’s going on, you know, on the other side of the fence, right?

John Harcar (09:00.628)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (09:09.033)
Right. As you continue to grow, change, pivot, and do all this stuff, mean, what were, what are some of the, and especially maybe with the new international business, you know, what was some of the struggles, you know, I can imagine that, you know, obviously international laws and, you know, different things in, in real estate law, maybe down there or whatnot. So tell me about some of the things that you had to overcome.

Chris De Pew (09:32.332)
Well, for starters, when I first started, you know, getting into investments and property internationally, was in Nicaragua where the law is very, very different. So it was sort of a rough awakening, you know, all the things that are installed in the United States to protect us. didn’t feel I had that. I was in like the wild, wild west. Things were very, very traditional. And I mean, the first, the first lot that I got involved with was completed as a transaction with the trade of a truck

for a lot. mean, was just something that was a little bit odd for me. Didn’t see stuff like that coming, but it was a family that was in need. They needed a vehicle.

they had land and the exchange was made. And I thought, this is incredible. I didn’t know you could, you could get into real estate through this path. And so obviously, you know, fast forward, we’ve, we’ve repositioned the company into countries that have a little bit more infrastructure, a little bit more law so that we’re better protected as investors. But that was really my first exposure to things abroad. And like I said, it was, was very different. The language barrier was a little bit tricky. I found people along the way who could help me get over, you know, language. I found,

John Harcar (10:18.537)
Right?

Chris De Pew (10:41.2)
lawyers who knew the law and could educate me on what to do, what not to do.

I realized where there was holes in the system or the law and I thought maybe this is not the market I want to go bullish in. Maybe there’s other places that might have more securities. But really it just opened up my eyes to the possibilities of something international. Meanwhile, everyone in the US is calling me crazy. I was going from a desert rat in Arizona. I moved my way out to California. I was living at the beach in Newport Beach. mean, everyone’s like, you’ve got the American dream, man. Why are you throwing that away to go live in a-

John Harcar (11:11.797)
Yeah.

Chris De Pew (11:16.024)
country. So I was certainly not a popular one in the beginning days. But I’ll tell you what, John, it’s caught on. Now everyone’s jealous and they want to come live the international life.

John Harcar (11:26.559)
Yeah, no, I want to come. Can I go? So how do you find, know, how do people like reach out to you? Like how do you know? Well, let me rephrase this. How do you get your clients? Right? Are you marketing online? Are you are you just a network referral network? Like how are you getting your clients?

Chris De Pew (11:46.254)
Well, it’s sort of a multi-tier. So when we first started, everything was word of mouth. You know, we were inviting personal friends of ours who we thought might be interested in some of our investment opportunities. And we’d invite them down to these countries on a vacation. We’d encourage them to bring the wife. We’d encourage them to bring the kids. And we would customize a complete itinerary for them. We would help them with all their reservations, all their movement, get them set up with a driver, show them the local culture. So our first sale was really about

convincing them that the country was safe, exposing them to the food and culture so that they actually liked the destination. And then the conversation around investing would just naturally kind of take place. So in the first few years, everything was all word of mouth, warm market introductions. Nowadays our investments have grown a bit. We’ve expanded and diversified our portfolio into different industries. And so now we are starting to attend different trade shows, wealth conferences, things like that.

John Harcar (12:32.939)
Got it.

Chris De Pew (12:46.128)
so we can show people not only how to make the money, now we have ways for the wealth to be preserved generationally. So this is a big initiative that we have right now because the world has changed. The need to give back to the planet, to give back to the people is just so much more front and center. Everyone’s talking about it. Everyone wants to do good.

They wanted to go for themselves first and foremost, right? So when we started being introduced to the world of timber, you know, I didn’t know anything about this asset class. tree is a tree. didn’t, I didn’t realize that there was so much value in trees and not just the benefits for the planet, but also the value of the wood. There’s species of trees that are just incredibly valuable because they’re exotic. They’re endangered. they’re in hot demand. And the crazy thing about these assets is they just grow. There’s no shrinkage.

There’s no drops. There’s no dips. It’s just a constant growth asset. So that was a big eye opener and real estate and timber, you know, they go really hand in hand. There’s this mass timber movement happening right now where people are starting to realize concrete and cement, you know, it’s not sustainable. It’s expensive and you know, it’s not really the weight of the future. So now we’re looking at the future of real estate where they’re starting to build skyscrapers out of wood, but they’re doing it in a

John Harcar (13:43.785)
Right?

Chris De Pew (14:07.6)
impressed way where this wood is coming together, where it’s resistant to pass, it’s resistant to the earthquakes, it’s resistant to the fires. And that’s incredible to see that change in favor of the planet. so, you know, real estate and trees for us have gone hand in hand.

We’ve been helping people identify plots of land where they can utilize the land for their own real estate desires. But we’ve had recent conversations where real estate developers have plans for hundreds of project, hundreds of homes in a residential project. And then they start to understand that, wow, if we took this project and we just populated it and farmed some exotic tree species, we could actually have a much bigger return than playing the whole housing game. And so, you know, the, the compliment,

of timber with real estate has been twofold for us. So now we’re very passionate about educating people. Even if they’re looking for properties, you know, we always expose them to, you know, the building materials that they’re going to need. If that’s what they’re looking to do. A lot of people have this vision of buying a lot international at the beach and then someday building their dream home. Right. I’m sure you’ve heard, you know, someone talk about that, John. And as soon you start to go down that path, you know, source of materials and stuff, it’s like, wouldn’t it be great if you could just have all of your own materials right there on

John Harcar (15:16.161)
of course.

Chris De Pew (15:23.632)
on your property, you know, get a lot, you get some trees going and next thing you know, you’re ready to build and you got everything right there. So that’s kind of a neat concept that has helped us educate and also show really strong returns for investors that travel with us.

John Harcar (15:30.155)
True.

John Harcar (15:38.409)
That is awesome. That’s a great idea. And it sounds like you guys, mean, kind of in a sense have a white glove service, right? You do pretty much any and everything for somebody. I mean, is as far down as booking their cab ride, probably.

Chris De Pew (15:50.754)
Yeah, we focus on the logistics so that they can enjoy themselves. They don’t have to stress. We use our network because as soon as I started to live international, my network started to grow. I told you growing up in Tucson, I knew people in Tucson and I knew some people from Mexico that were making their way north and I had a lot of Latin friends back then, but I thought they were all Mexican. I didn’t realize that there was all these different countries, you know, south of the U.S.

John Harcar (15:56.361)
love it.

John Harcar (16:13.632)
Right?

Chris De Pew (16:15.136)
And as soon as I started living international, obviously I realized there’s a lot of countries, there’s a lot of culture, there’s a lot of different lingo and slang and foods and wow, was mind blowing that there was just so much diversity and how did I not know about all this growing up? How come no one taught me all of this? And…

John Harcar (16:31.669)
Yeah, that’s true.

Chris De Pew (16:33.794)
You know, it was, it was a great thing and it, it allowed me to be in a position to meet people from around the world. You know, other travelers that were coming to these countries seeking the same thing, looking for opportunity, looking for investments, looking for better life, looking for quality, looking for organic foods, know, beaches that aren’t overpopulated beach properties that aren’t millions and millions of dollars. And so I started making friends from Australia and India and Europe and South America and the Caribbean islands and all.

of sudden my network exploded globally and because of that we’ve been able to provide investors regardless of where they want to invest in the world we have resources we have teams we have tools to help them learn the market identify the opportunities and pursue those opportunities the way they want but with security with support and with that backbone right

John Harcar (17:07.264)
Yeah.

John Harcar (17:27.251)
love it. So you started in Nicaragua. Now where are you? What markets are you in or countries are you in?

Chris De Pew (17:36.302)
Well from Nicaragua, I journeyed a little farther south down to Panama. I ended up moving to Panama about eight years ago. I became a full-time resident so I live in Panama. Not Panama City, Florida. Panama Central America.

John Harcar (17:48.587)
A little more south than that.

Chris De Pew (17:49.678)
And one of the things that really blew me away, know, when I was flying down to Nicaragua, I would usually have a layover or a change of flight in Panama. So I saw the country from the airport. I saw it from the plane window and I would just see skyscrapers and I’m thinking, what are all these skyscrapers? I just didn’t know what was there, but it’s always very intriguing. Well, when I had the opportunity to explore the country, I was blown away. I felt like I was in downtown Manhattan or a downtown Miami, like Brickell or something like that. All these skyscrapers, all these restaurants,

John Harcar (18:15.424)
Yeah.

Chris De Pew (18:19.632)
And I thought man I could see myself living here and as I started to go down the path I found out that this is a major expat retirement haven you know I wasn’t seeking the retirement lifestyle I’m a little bit younger than some of the people who were there as retirees But I started to see and they’re living a great life They’re living it on their Social Security which maybe back in the states would give them a poor You know retirement lifestyle, but they could take that so dirty money move it into an international market and now

John Harcar (18:45.397)
Sure.

Chris De Pew (18:49.612)
have this fantastic lifestyle where they have a private driver, they have a chef, they have a nanny, they have a maid that’s doing all their busy work so that they can focus on just living a good quality life. And it taught me that US, you we get so busy doing these tedious tasks and we think that’s living life and we just got it backwards. There’s ways to live a more quality life and that’s what Panama really showed me.

John Harcar (19:01.108)
Yeah.

John Harcar (19:14.399)
Got it. What do you think and all this growth, this change, this pivoting and all this stuff, what do you think your keys to success have been?

Chris De Pew (19:25.432)
Well, understanding, you know, what we’re trying to accomplish, you know, coming from my background in hospitality, you know, cooking food. didn’t, I skipped that part, but I went to the front of the house shortly after I was in the, in the kitchen. So I always learned how to cater to people, how to please people and just make people happy. So that was a big part of what we wanted to do. We wanted to educate, we wanted to showcase, and then we wanted people to fall in love with the culture, the people, just like my personal experience. So every

customer who would plan a trip, whether it was investment related or just something with the family, we would always go out of our way above and beyond to give them those cultural connections. And time and time again, every single person that would travel with us would have the same feedback. This is, this is life changing. And I started thinking one day, said, how many lives are we changing doing this? This is really cool. What if we took this to another level and we really started to focus on the investment side of the business. And you know, with that focus was

the explosion and it helped us grow into now over 30 countries where we operate.

John Harcar (20:30.559)
That’s awesome. If folks want to reach out to you and want to learn more, what’s the best way to learn more about what you offer, where you’re operating, all that cool stuff?

Chris De Pew (20:42.702)
Sure, our corporate website, itaglobal.com is a great place to start. There you’ll see more focused on the different destinations that we have, local teams, operations, ready to receive people on their trips, whether it’s investment related or whether it’s just a vacation. So that would be a great place to start. But people that have a little bit bigger appetite for properties and international, maybe they’re thinking they want that rental property, that income property that they don’t have to deal with, but it just brings them a

It’ll check every month. You know, this is a this is right up our alley You know, you don’t have to be alone if you buy international and you’re not gonna be in it all the time Don’t worry about what’s gonna happen when I’m not using it because if you find people like us We know exactly how to use it. We have clients all the time that don’t want to stay in a hotel They want to have more of a lifestyle experience because they’re evaluating living in

John Harcar (21:14.411)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (21:34.557)
Airbnb type of place. Yeah.

Chris De Pew (21:36.948)
Absolutely. So before the air duties of the world, we were driving traffic to home owners, utilizing their homes because we didn’t have access to a bunch of hotels way back in the day. There was some of these countries don’t have the big hotel chains yet. So this really gave us a window of opportunity to show people what it’s really like to live in this country, but in a, in a couple of days, right.

John Harcar (21:43.371)
That’s awesome.

John Harcar (21:59.914)
Yeah. Any final words you want to leave our audience with? Any words of advice for someone maybe wanting to get into international real estate?

Chris De Pew (22:08.44)
Doing this journey on your own can be frustrating. You know, if you don’t know where you’re trying to get to, you could feel like you’re spinning around. And that is a little bit of a disservice because there are companies that specialize in exactly this so that you don’t have to feel like you don’t know where you’re going. We’ve created real estate discovery tours, relocation tours to some of the most popular retirement and investment destinations so that people can book a package with our company.

have to worry about booking the hotel. They don’t have to worry about where they’re going to eat. They just show up and our team is there with VIP white glove service to court them. If they want to look at properties, we go property hunting. But you know what? While we’re property hunting, we’re probably having some phenomenal dinners with our private chefs that are doing something very unique for our clients. We’re probably interacting with the local tribe to show them how cool this local culture is. And so, you know, we always add in these extras. So when people want

John Harcar (23:04.363)
That’s so awesome.

Chris De Pew (23:08.324)
to their investments, they can pursue all that, but they also are always walking away higher, with more education, learning about these new destinations. And I think that really helps people with confidence as they’re approaching the international scene, whether they’re going to take a life abroad or just an investment abroad. They want to know I’m there, I checked it out, I did it in a safe way. And most importantly, I got people, I got boots on the ground. That’s why I feel safe and secure with my investment. So that’s probably the most important take away.

is that by aligning with us you got boots on the ground around the world so whatever you’d like to pursue as far as a property or an international investment we are at your service.

John Harcar (23:48.736)
Got it. That’s so awesome. Chris, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing all this. Guys, if you’re looking to go international, I think this is the man you need to talk to. Hope you all took some notes. Chris, thank you again for your time. And we’ll see you guys all in the next show. Cheers.

Chris De Pew (24:03.854)
Appreciate it, Todd. Keep up the good work,