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Panama: Driving in Panama:
NO incorrect john
Panama: plan of working here?:
Some of you are thinking that your fed up with the states, and a move here would be a great change of life, slower paced ect. which it is. but then you think that you can pick up a part time job to off set your income. ahhh great plan..
of course panama is not like the u.s. that will allow anyone to come here and work.
they love for you to come here, buy a home, hired workers ect. they love it when you start a company and hire their people to work for you. but they don't allow you to just come here and work.
you must get a work visa to do that, and you must work for one of them. In order for them to hire you they must already have 10 people working for them.
plus your pay is going to be very low. a bank teller makes around 500.00 per month. a yard worker makes around 200.00.
If a boss is caught working you, the fines are very high for them.
Panama: shipping your stuff?:
If you are here's a word that you need to know.. DON'T.
Sell it all where ever you live and come here with a suit case and not much more. If you think your going to ship something, you need to understand all the little hands that will be pointed your way for you to place money in them to be able to get your stuff off the docks.
No one tells you about all that. but once you ship your stuff you'll learn it really fast. lets take your car. we shipped one in, it sat inside the inpound yard for 6 months, until I was able to get it released. you pay 10 percent duy on things you bring in, but the value on that car is based on what they say it is, not by the BLUE BOOK that the world goes by.
while the van sat in that fenced lot, they serached it, thinking or hoping that we might have hidden something in it, which means that they torn out every thing they could in it, someone even got on their back and pushed their greases shoes into the head liner to see if something might be there. they also stole parts off the van, like the battery, spare tire, jack, all the fuel out of it, and the radiator cap. On top of that they couldn't find the keys to it.
think that maybe that was just bad luck for me? well before that, I had shipped two fourty foot shipping boxes with my house hold goods in it. The shipper in the u.s told me 12,500 from my front yard in the u.s. to my front yard here. total.. well it ended up costing me about twice that price.
they don't tell you about the custom broker you must hire, or the two inspectors you must pay, or the 600 per box for bug spray, nor do they tell you that for everyday they can delay you from getting your boxes moved they charge you 50.00 per box per day to store it.
nope, these little things you are not told. you see they know what's in it, you listed everything and had to put a price on it, they put the price they think it's worth on it. and they understand you really need your house hold goods and will pay to get them.
you might see where the two inspectors have to do that job and it's free, no charge to you. and that is true. but here's how they work it..
hello mr gringo, my name is carlos, it's my job to pull everything out of your box and check it for drugs or weapons. as you can see we have thousands of shipping boxes here today, I might be able to get to yours in say three or four months. so you pay him to do yours. then you repeat that same story for the next one.
Of course neither one opened the boxes to look at anything. nor did they bug spray either one of my boxes. but of course I paid...
so if your thinking on moving here, sell it all. we have cars for sale here and anything else you might need.
Panama: CONSIDERING PANAMA:
RICOBREEZE@AOL.COM i'LL HELP YOU IF i CAN
Panama: Aussie nurse:
Hi, by law your not suppose to work. You can live here full time, but the visa's that they have are tourist, investor, or a retirement visa. tourist you get to stay up to three months, investor you need to invest 300k. or retirement which you have to prove you have at least a outside income of 500.00 per month. please check with a lawyer before you come here.
Panama: Volcan or El Valle:
el valle, you can find homes in the 500 to 800 per month range. volcan to me is just to far away from panama city. which you WILL need to go to from time to time. we are about 2 hours from it, volcan/david area is more like 10 hours.
Panama: By the water:
Yeah you would need to look at coronado, or rio mar project. both of those are safe with many expats. coronado is a private gated type place. but it's huge, with homes, and condos. check out this online paper http://www.encuentra24.com/clasificados-page-b443-panama-316-en.html that should help you..
Panama: Work?:
It's hard to find work here. first off they don't allow you to just come here and take a job from one of them. you can however get a work visa which will cost you 1k or more to get, or you can start your own company and hire some of them to work for you.
Panama: Need help:
you have a hope and a dream my young friend.. well first off, to rent a house or a apt. is easy, nothing to it.. as far as nto having a car, well that's really a good thing because traffic here is bad, plus parking is almost null and void. they have one way streets, that sometimes they change without you knowing, plus to really keep you guessing, they don't use any type of street address here, plus you will be lucky to find street names on most. If your in a wreck, you'll be there in the middle of the street for 3 to 5 hours. taxis are everywhere and know the places you want to go, maybe 2 to 3 dollars. also a host of school buses that go all over the country.
as far as your visa.. well age doesn't matter. you can apply for a retirement visa, but you must be able to show 500.00 per month steady income, like s.s. check, or retirement check from some company. if not then they have a investors visa, only 300k that you must invest in something, if you can't do those, then your only out is the tourist visa. which means that you can stay here for three months, then you must leave the country for 48 hours, then you can return for another three months.ect.. be aware thou, that for everyday your over that time, you pay mroe money, and if they stop you and see that your over that time they can arrest you and they will depot you out of here, with a no return 5 year stamp in your passport. you also can't pop in here and get a job. they don't like expats taking a job from one of them.
Panama: Topic of the Week: Real Estate in Panama:
real estate in panama. first off when they see gringo they see money.. what has happen is many years ago, gringo's would come down here and pay top dollar for a home. of course it was still cheaper then in the states. but once they found out that a gringo would pay top dollar they all started to jack the prices up and its still that way today. not only on homes but on many things you buy. one price for them, another one for you.
I also find here that these people don't stand by their word. One friend of mine agreed on the price to buy a home, then they came back with a higher price, when they agreed on that they raised it again. to the point my friends walked away from the deal. the way they look at it is wow this gringo is willing to pay this high price for my home, I bet he would pay more.
some real estate people here, will find what you want, but they will make a side deal with the onwers, say they want 100k for a home, they will tell them anything over that is mine, and show it to you for 150k.
we have titled land and then what they call ROP. which means the government owns that land, and the person who is living on it can sell it to you, but you don't have a title, you just get the right to use it. If at any time the goverment needs that land for what ever reason you will have to move off of it. There is a lot of talk about giving titles to that rop land to the people, but there is also talk about you having to buy that title from the government, so that means that you will have to buy it twice.
They talk about 20 years tax free on a home, well that is true to a point, that applies from the first day the home is built, like if you buy a ten your old home, you only have ten years tax free left on it.
this is a good link to find property http://www.encuentra24.com/index.php?lang=en
or the news papers. I would find land that is for sale by onwer, that cuts out about 10 percent of the selling price that the real estate person is going to get.
what I looked at in buying a home here is weather. In el valle it's wonderful. in the city it's really hot. In el valle I am 30 mins from the beach. another hour and a half from panama city, and el valle is up in the mountians. so you have the best of all worlds.
In many places you need to look at water both the drinking kind and rain. You might look at a home during the dry season and buy it only to find out during the rainy season your back yard turns into a lake. That home with the great roof, doesn't show the rain leaking in until the rainy season as well.
you need to check and recheck everything about your home/land. don't just let a lawyer do it and trust that everything has been checked and is right. one law firm, which is huge, made 5 errors on my paperwork, which I found, anyone of those would have left me open to be holding nothing. make sure the taxes have been paid, the power and water has been paid, down here just because that is in the sellers name and he used it, doesn't mean a thing. it falls to you to pay it.
many people here will act as a real estate person, but are not. they just want to bring you to the seller so they can get paid.
I have bought many properties here but have only found one real estate person that I trust. he works for you, while the other companies work for thier pockets. I have seen them tell a seller this property is worth far more then what you are asking, and we have a gringo willing to pay more. that way they also get more commission off of it. Giovanni Greco & Rachael Greco are a young couple that I have found will walk away from a deal if they feel its not right for you. They hide nothing, and will work to get you a fair price. this is their site http://www.elvallerealestate.com/ing/home, he sells land and home in el valle but he also can deal for you any place in the country. They are the only team I trust to handle my deals.
When I first came here I was shown a piece of land on main street. the guy showing it to me said here it is this whole city block, the area that is fenced in is the lot. well Giovanni saw walking that lot and later found me drinking coffee in town and asked if I was thinking on buying that lot, I said yes, he said do you know that all that land that is fenced in doesn't go with the sale? wow. so you see that other guy was about to sell me a fenced in lot that of course I thought was all one piece and was what I was going to get, but it wasn't. even thou Giovanni didn't show it to me, he still had it listed as well so he would have gotten paid if I had bought it, but he told me the truth and lost money because of it, that is something rare here. which is why I am posting about him.
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