New exploration in Panama

 This is my forth trip to Panama. As I have written before, Panama is a great retirement haven where we love and want to stay to enjoy for our future life. So much so that I have got my permanent residence there and have also bought a property and maybe more soon. My wife and I love to come back every 1-2 years to enjoy some leisure time here. Each time we explore something new here, we will find more things to like and enjoy. No difference this time.

Without repeating the background information I have detailed before (see here), below is the living costs posted by someone in Jul 2016:   

Minimum salary wage: around $600. Most panamanians have a salary under $1,000.00

Living cost - city centre
Renting a full apartment 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms: $1300 average
Utility (Electricity, water, etc): $150.00
Internet, TV cable and basic telephone services: $75.00
Market expenses for a family of 3: approx. $800.00 monthly.
Private school for kids: $190.00 monthly.
Cellphone plan of around 1000 minutes and 2GB data: $60.00
Movies: $8.00; VIP: $13.00
Car insurance in case you buy a car: approx. $70.00 monthly
Public transportation is still really cheap.

To live comfortably in city centre with a family of three, I recommend a minimum income of $2,500.00 and this means moving around the city using public transportation. Living outside the city is cheaper but the family may require to buy a car in order to avoid traffic.

Here is a more detailed summary of the living cost in Panama reported in International Living. Here is the specific information on medical insurance, costing about $600-700 per year for pretty good coverage.

I was also asked about the language concern as its official language is Spanish. Here is my thought. With its ever growing populations from all over the world, especially those retirees mostly coming from US and Canada, English has almost become a business standard language quite widely used. Among the local people with good education, English is also very well spoken. Then with a smartphone almost everyone has, you can easily use it for instant translation if needed. Moving forward, companies like Microsoft are developing a simultaneous translator that may be available for commercial in a few years. See why I like MSFT so much!

Now the fun part of what we have explored in the short one week trip. We stayed in the city, then in the mountain and finally in the beach, all just within 1-2 hours reach.

• Panama city

Panama city is a typical metropolitan city but still booming and growing. It is heavily influenced by the US and living here you may not feel too much different from a major US city. Infrastructure in many ways is better than in the deteriorating US cities. One of the biggest inconveniences is also the traffic, if you are driving in the rush hours. But now PC has the first subway line in operation in the whole Latin America, which is expanding. Soon one may take subway to go most of the areas in the city. Below are a few photos I took to give you some ideas about Panama City:

View from the apartment and from Multicentro Mall. The sail-shape building facing the ocean is the Trump International Tower. In the mall, you may be confused where you are as it is just like any big US mall, even the food court part.

We have a property just a few minutes walking from the mall. The tall building behind the mall is where our property is located, rented out within 2 weeks and the tenant is a business representative from another LA country and has lived there since for over 2 years. The 3 bedroom apartment (plus a nannie suite with its own bathroom) is less than $300K on the 19^th floor overseeing the mall, the modern hospital (see below) and ocean. The major cost for the unit is $200 per month condo fee that covers the 24 hours gate security, parking lot and a very large and good social area with pool and gym facilities. Property tax is virtually none as we still have an exemption for 14 years. Of course we need to pay for the property management. On the cash cost basis, the net return is roughly 5-6% and the property has also appreciated about 30% in the past 2 years. Below are also a few views from our property.

 

 

 

A very modern hospital, called Punta Pacific Hospital, is also located in this area. It is affiliated with Johns Hopkins Medical School and I was told many US or Canadian physicians are working here. See some photos and the video here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a Chinese, one major interest is about the Chinese community. I was told Chinese here are very influential and it is the second largest economic force in Panama. There is a good size Chinatown in the city in El Dorado. The ED mall is also a very new and modern shopping center with some Chinese stores inside. One thing potentially very positive for the Panama real estate is its diplomatic relationship with China. At the moment it has an official relationship with Twain but I think it is just a matter of time that it will turn to the Mainland China. Wait and see what Chinese people will do for chasing the properties here. There could be a Tsunami buying frenzy when they can easily come over here. Many Chinese companies are already stepping in right now and Huawei seems a household name now that everyone knows.   

 

 

 

 

 

We also explored a waterfront project in an island facing the famous Panama Canal. There is a long crossway connecting the island with the city and it is a beautiful area for leisure time. From there you can see the American Bridge that is across the canal. Everyday you can see a long line of humongous shipping tanks waiting there to cross the canal. Since the canal has just been expanded, nowadays some cruise ships are also bypassing and having a stop here.  As always, we enjoyed to come to have meals at a unique restaurant that has pavilions with thatched roof (茅草屋) and it has delicious fish dishes. Sitting there watching the panorama view of Panama City that is just cross the gulf under the gentle ocean breeze is a fantastic experience. If you ever visit Panama, you should go there.

 

 

 

 

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• Alto del Maria in Sora

Our next stop is in a mountain and stayed in a lovely house with a haven type of view. The road towards the top over 900 meters above the sea is very well maintained. Amazingly we see a small Chinese supermarket and a building material company store own by Chinese deep inside the mountain. The weather here is very comfortable with a temperature averaged in 17-25 C year around with much less humidity. The infrastructure is superb with very stable Internet connection and power and water supplies. Wake-up in the morning, you are welcome by the music like bird twittering or rooster crowing with super fresh fragrant air. The trees with various flowers are waving hands to you, a truly dream-like life that you can easily afford to live here!

The host of the house we stayed is a Canadian lady moved to Panama 10 years ago. She owns 2 properties: one large house over 3000 SF with a great view on top of a mountain and a small rental property (500 SF) nearby, both of which are part of a managed community. To maintain these 2 houses, all her monthly cost is only about $300. This also includes the monthly fees for the home owner association that manages a gated community that includes a fairly large natural park with jungles as well as a helicopter facility for medical emergency. She gave us a tour by driving us from top of the mountain to the valley on a very well maintained road with a sea level difference of 900 meters. We also hiked inside the jungle that has an amazing stoned trail lasting 4 km long. Along the trail, we see huge waterfalls and natural swimming pools (see pictures) throughout. We feel like we are living in a natural park like 张家界or 莫干山。For all of it, the monthly managing fee is just $50! She bought the lot 10 years ago for about $70K and built the house with just $32K. Now her rental house is fairly fully booked year around with about $80 per night. So she is pocketing in over $20K now every year that is more than enough to pay her primary home. As common here in Panama, people usually hire full time or hourly based labor to do the gardening or house work and they only pay $20 per day.  So you can really live like a king/queen here with very little money needed. We also asked her about medical insurance. She said it is very cheap but she does not even bother to buy an insurance as she’d rather pay as it goes when needed, which could be even cheaper if relatively healthy. For example, physician’s visit is $12 each time.  

We are definitely very interested in this area, great natural life style but close to Panama City within 1.5 hours. There is a high likelihood that we may buy a house or a lot to build a house here. The videos below introduce this specific area and the rental house we stayed with is also featured in the first part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Punta Chame

Our final stop is in the beach called Punta Chame. On the map, it is just like a finger extending into the Pacific Ocean. I thought it was a well-established tourist area with busy streets and shops like in the South Beach in Miami. But it is still an underdeveloped area actually. Basically each lot is built up by the owner and there are still quite a lot of lots available. Having said that, it is a beautiful beach islet about 5 miles long with white fine sand pounded by the ocean waves. And amazingly there is also a Chinese supermarket very well known by the locals.  Although the long beautiful beach is public, each beach house owner is almost like having a private beach directly connecting with their backyard. We stayed in a very unique house, called boathouse. The owner is a Columbia immigrant who moved here over 30 years ago. He bought the lot for only $20K over 3 decades ago and now with his own development on the lot, it’s worth about a million dollars now. It is indeed a lovely boat shaped house with the ground level as the dining area that is open without walls. Sitting there you just enjoy the comfortable ocean breeze. At the boat level, you indeed feel like at the boat deck. The bedrooms are at the top level like attic with windows around and sky-view V-shaped glass ceiling. The whole house is built with lumbers just like a boat. Think about a scenario: you fall into sleep listening to the tapping sound from the rain plus ocean wind and you wake up by looking into the blue sky with colorful sunrise, shadowed by the wavering tree leaves. The next day after we arrived, my wife and I had a long walk on the soft sandy beach without anyone else. We were accompanied by the ocean waves dancing up and down nonstop with baby sea birds playing around under the watch of their mom. What a poetic picture in front of us! Then suddenly the sky turned to grey with heavy clouds moved in, followed by pouring rain dumped onto us. But believe me, it was a fantastic experience to be totally soaked in the heave rain on the beach. I couldn’t help but simply jumped into the ocean to join the salty ocean and danced with the tides. Then I heard the whisper from my wife: should we also consider to own something here……….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The temptation here is simply too strong. Unfortunately I don’t have good writing skills to do a better job in presenting the attractive life style more vividly. But I hope you can get the sense how deeply I have fallen in love with Panama. By physical age, maybe we are still too young to think about retiring in Panama but mentally and financially we are ready to do so now. Maybe we will soon seriously consider to at least partially move here to do what we love to do. The life is just too short to waste. Follow the heart and enjoy our life as much as possible, friends!