The Best Way I Know to Survive a Global Economic Crisis

Editor’s Note: This story appeared on Live and Invest Overseas.

I was an average, non-professional investor. I made a lot of money until 1999 – when anyone could – and lost a lot during the 2000 tech crash.

Because I didn’t lose everything (as many do), I thought, wrongly, that I wasn’t so bad.

Then in 2008, there was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The luck was gone. Many lost their savings, and retirement plans became a disaster for millions of people.

But this time, I came out a little ahead … even if my stock took a big hit. The difference?

International houses

In 1999, all I had to invest in was stocks and mutual funds, as well as bonds and CDs … “traditional” investments.

At the time, I thought I had a diversified portfolio because I held both stocks and bonds, and because my stocks were of different types.

That was wrong. I was no different. At least not enough. All my money was in the American market, and almost all of it was in American dollars. In retrospect, I had a small view of things.

During the Great Recession, my results were very different.

Foreign investment

In 2008, over 50% of my assets were in real estate outside of the United States.

While my sales in the American market decreased, my real estate did, in fact, increase in value, based on actual closing prices.

In that limited time:

• My house in Uruguay increased in value by 87.5%
• My rental apartment in Montevideo has increased in value by 78%
• My house in Brazil increased in value by 77%

This has been my “advanced” course in portfolio diversity.

In addition to portfolio diversification

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that international real estate is always on the rise. National economies and currencies have good times and bad times.

But one thing I’ve learned is that when housing prices go down, they don’t go down all over the world at the same time … and they don’t go down to zero.

In other words, no single event or downturn in any country can wipe it out.

But it’s not just about portfolio diversification. It’s about making money. In fact, portfolio diversification, by itself, does not pay off debt.

But the increased opportunity you’ll get abroad can pay off the bills. It has been my main source of income.

Overseas housing

And it’s not that real estate abroad is categorically better than real estate in the United States. That when you open your horizons to include the rest of the world, you give yourself access to a whole new world of possibilities.

Investing in real estate overseas can allow you to take advantage of a few key features, which are easy to find when you have a whole world to choose from:

• Reliable return of employment
• High yield
• Miscellaneous, non-dollar income
• Great cash benefits
• Money appreciation and diversity

A road of hard lessons

Today, I can take advantage of some of the best opportunities in the world, and because of that I enjoy a new life with envy.

But for me, getting here was not easy.

I had to learn to speak Spanish and Portuguese after 50 years … and explore many new countries without local support. I had to sift through local markets and try to discriminate a good deal from a bad one (and a good real estate agent from a bad one).

Generally, there was no established foreign community from which I could learn. I had to get good legal support and try to separate the crooks from the good guys in the distant real estate markets.

And when that legal support was little or no, I spent hundreds of hours studying legal principles and legal decisions in foreign languages.

To be honest, it took me years of travel and research to find the people I chose from only four countries. In a way, I was lucky the way things turned out.

It doesn’t have to be like that for you. Because today there are resources from people who were struggling like me.