RETA Archives

This is the list of infrastructure projects I was sent from the Governor of Ceara's office in Brazil.

If you haven't yet taken advantage of our all expenses paid trip to Mexico's Riviera Maya, I urge you to act fast--prices here have already increased, and are due to go up again in 8 days.

As I suspected, it was confirmed last week that Fortaleza will be one of the host cities for the World Cup soccer tournament in Brazil in 2014. We'll benefit from this in three ways.

On Aug. 20, a Brazilian developer is going to launch to the public a new project 40 miles east of Fortaleza. The project will be called Areias Coloridas Resort. It will be a unique project, the first of its kind in this area. If you share my interest in this stretch of coast you need to pay close attention to this deal...

Ronan is in Brazil hosting the International Real Estate Investment Forum. Yesterday he gave a special VIP lunch for RETA members during which he revealed his newest pre-construction deal in Brazil. Don't worry if you're not reading this from Brazil right now--Ronan recorded the whole presentation (about 35 minutes) and you can listen to it here.

I consider crisis investing and distressed sales to be one of the hottest international real estate plays today. I’ve called on several sources to help me identify the best opportunities--bankers, developers, finance specialists, and others. This morning I spoke with Colin Murphy. Based out of Madrid, Spain, Colin spends his time pouring over the books of banks--cherry picking the best distressed opportunities in Europe’s major markets. Through his company (Torcana), Colin offers these opportunities discretely to his clients. This is what’s know in the trade as an “off market” deal, i.e. deals that will never be publically advertised. Here's what we discussed.

In March I told you about an exciting opportunity in the Gran Bahia Principe Resort on Mexico’s Riviera Maya. Today, I’m passing on an all-expenses-paid invite to visit the property for a weekend. This is the same invitation I personally received when developer Benjamin Beja first offered to show me the development. In other words, most visitors won't receive this level of attention.

I'm in Brazil with 20 of your fellow members. As usual, places on our scouting trip went fast. I'll send you a full briefing of what we find when I get back to the office. But meantime, there's a way you can "ride along" with us...

Crisis investing means buying when everyone else wants or needs out. At an aggregate level, markets overreact and overshoot both on the up and downside. Assets become mispriced. Mispriced assets = profit opportunity.

True rental guarantees--that accurately reflect the market--are rare. So rare, that I think of them as a unique type of program for savvy investors--it's a type of resort rental, but I call them "Gilt Resort Programs" because of the guaranteed fixed payments. I know of a few programs like this in France…and one in Mexico, which is the opportunity I'm writing to you about today.