Amigo John Hawley

The greatest numbered generation in U.S. history is at the precipice of retirement and what a booming party it has been. After multiple marriages, mortgages and changes in careers many so-called American Baby Boomers are financially ill prepared for retirement and their lifestyles are threatened lest they think as creatively about sustaining themselves as they did about changing the course of United States history. Taking advantage of global opportunities aside from the Chinese produced products displayed at the local WalMart is a key component to that winning boomer retirement strategy.

This group of freedom loving individuals was fully engaged in great movements of social change that manifest themselves in the Vietnam War conflict, Civil, Women’s, Human and Animal Rights movements. Parents that came out of the Great Depression and beat back the scourge of Germans and Japanese who aggressively pursued global domination nurtured their boomer children. The boomer’s parents wanted their children’s lives to be better than their own. Surely that was accomplished. However, these children born between 1946 and 1965 (over 78 million of them) are apt to relive some of the financial struggles their parents had as healthcare costs rise, retirement investment accounts and Social Security is restructured.

"By 2025, the number of people age 65 and over throughout the world will nearly double, while the number of children will increase just 3 percent. In the United States, the elderly population is expected to jump nearly 80 percent, and working-age adults and children, 15 percent," according to the U.S. Census (http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2002/cb02cn53.html).

Studies conducted since 2001 show more than 50 percent of boomers now worry they won’t have sufficient retirement according to E.F. Moody. "In addition, average retirement savings also declined from nearly $120,000 in 2001 to $93,000 in 2002. The difference between the money consumers will have and the money they'll need for retirement is called the retirement income gap. Financial experts say you'll need about 75% of your current income if you want to live your retirement years in a way that's similar to how you live now," according to E.F. Moody (http://www.efmoody.com/retirement/worth.html).

Yet, with boomers retiring and selling off properties to generate income their could be a glut of houses for sale creating a buyers market, which could contribute to depressing sale prices considering fewer numbers of young buyers willing or able to afford the purchase. As boomers reach 65 years of age (2011) credit for American youth may tighten as the principle lender for the U.S., the Chinese become the economic engine of the global economy via their size and economic strength and reinvest in themselves and other regional economies versus the aging and flat U.S. economy.

One of the greatest exports of the U.S. during that time could be boomers themselves as they pursue far more affordable quality lifestyles in countries elsewhere in the Americas and Asia. In a recent interview with and expat American living in Costa Rica (http://www.special-interest-radio.com/CostaRicaAmigo/CostaRicaAmigoShow.mp3) he explained how he lived affordably there and had comprehensive healthcare for $30/mnth. He noted how bypass surgery in Thailand cost about $15,000 at a quality facility as opposed to $150,000 in the U.S. Another former American nurse associate married to a Thai who is developing nearly 500 Thai oriented websites aimed at outsourcing services confirmed this.

For nearly a decade this writer has pursued development opportunities in S.E. Asia that has now been redirected closer to U.S. shores principally in Costa Rica with website promotions such as www.costaricaamigo.com. Let’s face it, many Norte Americanos are willing to entertain the prospect of living and vacationing three hours away by plane from the U.S. versus 24 hrs away.

From Dominical Beach, Costa Rica last Sept., surrounded by lush tropical surroundings and while being served breakfast by a beautiful Swedish born American educated waitress, I viewed in horror the CNN displays of Third World type devastation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Costa Rica was more familiar to me at that moment than New Orleans.  Boomer borne influences have had a global reach and there are but a few places on the globe that Americans cannot feel at home. And just as Canadian drug imports are less expensive than those purchased at the neighborhood drug store many of my fellow boomers will find their lives worth more for less dollars spending them south and to the far east of our native homeland.

A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY
Central American Countries Lure U.S. Retirees.

BY ANDREA PETERSEN
The Wall Street Journal


Add this to the gift list for new retirees: a Spanish-English dictionary.

As legions of baby boomers prepare to retire and relocate to warmer climates, a widening range of Central American countries are vying to be their new home. While places like Costa Rica and Belize have long lured U.S. retirees with pristine beaches and cheap living, prices in those countries have risen sharply during recent years.

As a result, a new breed of intrepid retirees is branching out to such countries as Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua. These countries, in turn, are rolling out the welcome mat in an attempt to snare Americans' retirement dollars.

In Panama, the hilltop town of Boquete now has a population of about 300 American retirees. Dozens live in the new real estate development, Valle Escondido, which has a nine-hole golf course, high-speed Internet access and a 24-hour manned security gate.

On the island of Roatan in Honduras, retirees have snapped up beachfront property and are taking advantage of ''pensionado'' visas that allow noncitizens to live in Honduras income-tax free if they can prove they have an income of $1,500 a month.

And while Nicaragua may conjure up images of civil war, real estate agents are offering entire islands off the Caribbean coast for less than the cost of a condo in Florida.

No one tracks the total number of Americans retiring abroad, but there are sizable settlements springing up.

Costa Rica, for instance, is home to between 20,000 and 30,000 Americans, according to the U.S. embassy there. Overall, in 2002, 242,128 American retirees had their Social Security benefits sent to foreign countries, according to the Social Security Administration. That is up slightly from the 219,504 who listed a foreign address in 1999. Those numbers don't represent all of those retiring overseas, since many people keep a U.S. mailing address.

The move by retirees to more remote destinations is being driven partly by rising prices in the more traditional hot spots. Home prices in San Miguel de Allende, a Mexican colonial hill town that is home to more than 10,000 Americans, have risen 8 percent to 11 percent a year for each of the past three years.

Annie and Michael LaFoley moved to Boquete, Panama, from Colorado in 2000, after deciding against Costa Rica. Instead, they plunked down $144,000 for six acres of land in Panama that include a working coffee plantation. They built a main house, a guesthouse and a greenhouse for Annie LaFoley's orchids.

''The quality of life, the cost of living is a lot better'' than in the United States, says Michael LaFoley, 56, who owns a shopping center in Massachusetts.

FINANCIAL INCENTIVES
Countries like these are rolling out the welcome mat to Americans with a variety of incentives. The LaFoleys, for instance, are in Panama on a pensionado visa similar to what is available in Honduras, which lets them live there after proving they have $500 a month each in income.

Panama also lets retirees import a car tax-free every two years, import $10,000 of household items tax-free and buy property tax-free if it is the owner's only home. In Honduras, those over age 65 receive a card good for discounts on airline tickets, medications and their electric and water bills.

The primary appeal is the cost of living, which can make it possible for retirees to live on nothing more than their Social Security benefits -- or live lavishly on a bit more money. Retirees are hiring live-in housekeepers for $150 a month in Panama City.

FEWER PERKS
Countries such as Costa Rica have been so successful at luring retirees that they are starting to eliminate some of the perks they once offered to lure Americans.

''We used to have incentives, but today there are not many,'' says Alejandro Cedeno, minister counselor and consul general at the Embassy of Costa Rica in Washington.

Next door in Nicaragua, real estate agents say that Costa Rica's cooler reception is partly what is driving some retirees to consider the formerly war-torn country. The expatriate community is small, and residential communities are just getting off the ground. On the Pacific Coast, Rancho Santana is a new beachfront community with pools, tennis courts and a helipad. Two-bedroom houses are selling for prices starting around $99,000. Quarter-acre ocean-view lots begin at $52,900. Some of the tiny islands that dot the coasts are also for sale: A five-acre Caribbean island with a two-bedroom house, a generator and coconut trees is currently being advertised online for $230,000.

One big promoter of retiring in Central America is International Living, a travel newsletter published by Baltimore-based Agora Publishing, and Agora Travel, a related travel agency. International Living ( www.internationalliving.com) acts as a broker for real estate in Panama and is one of the backers of the Rancho Santana development in Nicaragua. Agora Travel runs real estate tours of Nicaragua, as well as Panama, Honduras and Europe.

A few other resources for people considering retiring abroad are www.ExpatExchange.com, which includes country-specific message boards, and the website for the Association of American Residents Overseas ( www.aaro.org), an advocacy group that has information on tax and health-insurance issues.

For retirees abroad, the living isn't always easy. For one thing, Medicare doesn't cover medical care received outside the United States. Many have the added expense of emergency-evacuation insurance, which pays for flights to U.S. hospitals in case of a serious illness.

Shopping can be tricky, too. Michael LaFoley, the retiree in Boquete, Panama, likes to cook but has trouble finding some ingredients at the markets in Boquete -- and even in the Costco nearby.

''I had someone bring me horseradish from Miami,'' he says.

http://insidecostarica.com/business/glden_opportunity.htm