Canadian Living in Panama

hello this is Jackie with Panama relocation tours and thank you so much for joining us for our live stream today I'll be interviewing a Canadian that moved to Panama with his family and will learn about his experience of moving to Panama he also checked out a couple of other countries and we'll find out why Panama won let me turn my phone off here so it doesn't start beeping in the middle of the call of the live stream uh before I get started for the benefit of you that are new to our live streams I would just want to give you a little bit of background kind of my relocation tour started in 2010 um and to date we've done the 184 um all inclusive six day seven night relocation tours across country we specialize in making your move to Panama easy and smooth and hassle-free and part of that is just providing a lot of information so that you know what to expect so you know moving to a new country is pretty scary process and for especially for people that haven't ever lived overseas before so we try to take you from being completely clueless about what to do to having total confidence and knowing what to do when you move to Panama so let me get started with my guest Hayden there you are hey Jackie thank you for having me yeah thank you so much for joining us so why don't you give everybody a little bit of background about where are you from in Canada where did you move from um so the background pretty much uh I came out kind of wanting to find a different uh place in the world to kind of put my roots down with my family um we started doing a lot of research uh before the pandemic hit uh originally we bought 100 acres out on the East Coast so we were going to build a property out in Canada but then the pandemic hit and that really kind of just yeah for some reason it's buffering a little bit mama just stood out overall um yeah there's uh you know you can build a property on a bunch of land here too but uh you're taking the advice that we give a lot of people but it's better to just live in Panama for a year or even longer before you jump into buying anything and maybe live in one place for a little while and then go try another place for a little while until you find the one that's just right but so many people especially Canadians are really attracted to moving by the beach and looking at the ocean but uh so you know most Canadians are going to be moving to the beach it seems like whether they're snowmobiles or full-time but then after a while maybe the Heat and the humidity might get you a little bit and you want to go try a different area for a little while so the great thing about Panama is they have choices you can live by the beach in 45 minutes or an hour you can be up in the mountains in cooler weather and a completely different scenery the microclimates here are absolutely fascinating literally you can drive down five minutes down the road in certain areas and you'll be in a whole different climate and a whole different atmosphere than where you just were and that's been our experience all the way throughout Panama whether it's been on the east side of Panama all the way to the west side of Panama um and it's just been a fascinating country to kind of get out and explain the time that we've been here you know we even have that situation in boquete there's like 21 different microclimates in boquete and I can be standing in my property in its blue skies and sunshine but I can see across the valley that it's pouring down rain you know just a couple miles away that it's pouring out cold and cloudy um just on the other side so another reason to not rush into buying anything is to make sure that you like the microclimate that you've picked that you want to move to live in it for at least a year experience the dry season and the rainy season um in that micro climate before you dive into buying a property so you're doing it exactly what our experience has been we followed your advice on that to the T and we've we've been in Panama in total now for longer than a year so we've kind of we've had quite a bit of time out on the west side of the country but then most of our time has actually been spent down in uh the gorgona area near Coronado and up in Panama City during our immigration in process right so it's kind of most of our time's been in that hotter drier climate with a lot of humidity [Music] so tell everybody where did you move to in Panama which which area uh so we're right in new evil gurgona which is uh the little town right beside Coronado um we find it absolutely beautiful here we live at one of the condo buildings called Bahia and we find the amenities and the staff absolutely fabulous um so much so that when we came last year we were just staying at an Airbnb for two and a half months and we left and went to Portugal to kind of get a different experience of what the European lifestyle was like and then when we returned to Panama in February we stayed in the city for about two and a half months three months before we came back to Bahia but right when we returned all of the staff on site remembered my daughter raped by name it was um it was almost like being welcomed back into the family you know right when we returned and that that's kind of right away what sunk in with us and we just wanted we knew we wanted to settle down here for a little while yeah I've been to Bahia many times it's an absolutely beautiful condo complex the pool area the views the beach it has a really long beach I mean you can literally walk to Coronado from there um it's so close but um it's a great area and that's you know a lot of people say the Coronado area and that would include gorgona which is to the east even chummy a little bit further east and then there's Coronado and then further west is going to be San Carlos and Santa Clara but each one of those different towns has a completely different vibe um so you know I know people that have lived in Coronado and they didn't like the vibe there so they moved to gorgona and it felt just right or people that have lived in gorgona and they didn't like the vibe there for one reason the other so they moved to San Carlos and then it was just ripe so um but um just because it's by the beach doesn't mean that it's all going to be exactly the same it just seems to attract different kind of people exactly and all these communities kind of have their own little uh like like subculture almost you know they have their own little uh Vibe every house has done different colors you know everything's very unique and uh that really speaks out to no matter which Community you end up down the beach um but yeah we just fell in love like I said with gorgona we can't beat it and it's the funny thing is for all the Canadian viewers it is actually more affordable to live here than to live in some of the smaller cities in Ontario when you want to rent a one-bedroom apartment these days you know the thing that Canadians bring up all the time is well what about the exchange rate um that uh you know and that so when you take into account the savings that you're having on different things and it becomes kind of a mute point but you want to address the whole issue with the exchange rate um so the big thing that I would tell all Canadians when they're looking at coming down here is before you even make the trip to your first time even for an exploratory trip um go on to wise uh dot CA or wise.com and sign up for the free Visa that they have um honestly it's the best option for any Canadian that's traveling out of the country we don't have uh really any providers for uh free foreign transactions or free foreign exchange rates and that's where wise kind of comes in and that's really been the best option that I've found and I can use that card widely throughout Panama have you have you uh checked into ofx it's supposed to be real popular as a way to transfer money for Canadians also yes I checked into ofx and right now uh just because we're doing smaller amounts wise is uh just as easy for us um the ofx would be more when we actually look to do our real estate transaction or something like that that we would definitely utilize that service just for everyday purchases because it comes with that Visa card and it makes it very easy here in Panama because I I found that my actual bank cards like my debit cards do not work in the machines here oh really so everything yes everything has to be done through my my credit cards and I find that the fees on any of the major Bank credit cards in Canada they're through the roof when you add that exchange fee in there and that's that's where like I say wise comes in and they really fill that Gap and it really it's for for the smaller transactions and to pay our rent every month and stuff like that I find it the easiest way right now yeah and for people that aren't familiar with it that's w-i-s-e.com um it used to be transferwise but now it's just one um so um you can check into information on there about um transferring money and getting one of their debit cards or credit cards so that you can use it to make transactions and Panama if your Canadian cards don't work and that's something real important to check out now you you're not a snowbird you've decided to move to Panama um uh full time right so do you do the paperwork necessary in Canada become a non-resident I haven't gotten to that I I just mainly because uh our we've just completed our permanent residency so that's kind of the next step in the process for us is to actually get to the point of declaring non-residency and we just have to file our final income tax report and uh and then we'll be non-residents uh it mainly comes down to having no significant ties to Canada so because my wife and my daughter came down here instead of staying in Canada that's no significant ties family wise and we don't own property there we sold all of our belongings in Canada um so it's going to be easy enough when it comes to tax time for us just to declare it and get in touch with like the Canadian Revenue Agency and get all of that established but that's like I say the next step in the process for us at this point right now you mentioned you also visited Portugal um when you were good in considering moving to Portugal so tell us about that experience and why did Panama win um so really the Portugal is an amazing country I I I'm really not going to knock the country it's absolutely beautiful beautiful people the food is to die for it's probably just as affordable as Panama um but when we were there the winters actually get really chilly like not Canadian style chili but we found we had to bundle up just to walk outside most times and it just it was a harder immigration process we found um to actually go through and apply for the Visas to get the documentation together is not so much of an issue but to actually try to book the appointments at the the ministry to go take care of it that's where it's a real kind of lag right now in Portugal they seem to have a real backlog at this at this point because of the pandemic and when we were there we were just trying to extend our tourist visa even and there was Americans on all of the expat groups on Facebook that were talking about they were actual residents of Portugal and they were trying to extend their Visa or renew their visa and they've been trying for six months to get an appointment wow yeah I've heard I've heard that you know because we went through that experience yeah there's I've heard there's such an influx of people that are interested in moving to any other country that a lot of the immigration offices have a backlog not just Portugal uh but Mexico and Ecuador and Colombia and a lot of them um the all of the immigration attorneys the facilitators are working double time it seems like to facilitate all the people uh that are deciding that maybe it's time it's time to go try out a different country for a little while yes that's that's for sure like um with Panama though like that was the other part too when we came back and we actually started the immigration process um we did it kind of different at the beginning because we weren't able to return to Canada but once the process actually got started Panama was actually very like very fast to actually get the approval done you know like we had the first day we went to immigration we had our temporary residence cards the second time we went in we had a permanent residence cards and that was within a two and a half month span so it was very fast very efficient yeah that's um you know Panama has their rules about getting a residency Visa but they're pretty easy rules so as a Canadian what documents did you have to get together to get a pension not a Visa the pension not a Visa is the retiree piece and you sure don't look like retirement age uh but she qualified yeah but you qualified yeah you can still have an online business and all kinds of other things even if you're officially retired in Panama so as a Canadian what documents did you have to gather up to get the pension not a Visa so for my family I have myself my wife and my at the time she was a two-year-old daughter um so I had to get my daughter's birth certificate I had to get my marriage license for my wife and my wife and I both had to get RCMP background checks done um with the including the fingerprints so it's the full Biometrics and then on top of that I had to get an income verification letter from Veterans Affairs that just pretty much stated that for myself and my family including the conversion rate or the exchange rate at the time that I had more than uh fifteen hundred dollars a month in income because it's a thousand for me and 250 for each dependent and by the way US dollars for you Canadians is not Canadian dollars exactly exactly so in total like I mean I can't remember what the actual conversion was at the time that I did it but it was over about twenty five hundred dollars a month Canadian dollars um so as long as you can prove that you had more than that for a family of three you know it was it was a very simple process but I had to get all of that done from down here in Panama which was the challenge this time yeah yeah but um it's great that there are some different companies that will help you get all of those documents without you even have to step foot you know fly back to Canada there's a lot of companies they'll have to gather the documents and get them authenticated and everything so that you can get your visa yes it was it was honestly it was a wonderful experience um it did cost us a little bit more uh but it filled that Gap because at the time we just weren't able to return to Canada um to actually do the documents in person so having somebody there to kind of fill the Gap and be the facilitator and in the middle ground was perfect um we had to put a little bit more money but it got the job done and ended up saving us the cost for the flight to go home and then come back with the documents so everything worked out well in the end yeah and like and you said uh from the time that you got your temporary visa to you got your permanent Visa was less than three months and that was really fast that actually I was shocked by that time I was I was expecting probably around like I was told three to six months and I was thinking okay well maybe around the four to five month Mark I'll probably get an email just saying that it's ready um and I was shocked right away around the two and a half month Mark I had an email saying hey you've been approved I checked online just to verify uh there's a there's a link that I was given you know from my lawyer that I could check the process and yeah sure enough my resolution was all approved and I just went in and picked up the paperwork and got my photo done for my permanent ID card and the way I went it was it was that simple that's good that's good uh did your you said your daughter was two at the time did she actually have to go in and get her picture taken and you know you had you had to sign your card what'd she have to do put a Crayola mark on there or what do they do for children all right so that's the funny part I actually signed for her so I couldn't made up I guess I made up her first signature um and then uh yes I had to hold her up in front of the camera and try to duck down as best I could and keep my hands out all the way as best I could to get it done but it's kind of funny you can see my hands in there a little bit yeah and by the way everybody you should know that when you're signing anything in Panama the signature has to be the same that it is in your passport so if your passport has a middle initial only that's what you use if it has your full middle name or two middle names you have to do that and if you don't they're gonna send you back and tell you you gotta do it all over again so it's not just for getting a Visa but setting up a bank account in Panama and everything it has to be exactly like it is and even the signature that you have on your passport they want it to look pretty close to that some people are really um very very picky about oh this doesn't look like your passport signature so start practicing now to get your signatures the same as as it is in your passport the other thing that I was overwhelmed with here in Panama is the amount of paperwork that they do yeah the actual hard copy paperwork yeah per person exactly yeah and you know before you get a Visa you have to fill out um I don't remember the name of the form I have a copy of it but it's like your criminal history even though they've got your your criminal report um they're going to ask you questions like have you ever been a prostitute have you ever done any arms dealing have you ever been a drug dealer you know and just they're gonna Grill you on like nine pages of questions that they ask you to fill it out and uh it's just it is you you have to you can try to say well I think this is ridiculous and then they'll say well then you can't have a Visa so you have to just surrender to the process here um their process is what it is and if you want to get a Visa if you want the privilege and honor of living a beautiful Panama then you have to just do it to be able to get a Visa but it's also worth it uh whenever you get that Visa card especially the permanent Visa card it's like kind of like winning the lottery that's exactly it I I feel great like a great deal of gratitude every single day that I'm living here in Panama and even though I'm a resident now I know I'm not a full-blown Citizen and I never will be because of the pensionado Visa um but I do feel like an honored guest in this country uh the people are so amazing um and it's something that I really cherish you know it's uh even though it was it was a relatively easy process to go through because the pensionado is not involved or as it as involved as some of the other Visa programs um it just having having that and knowing that that's in my back pocket and I can always call this place home for the future that's uh that's what really matters to me and that was kind of the security that I was investing in you know before the pandemic ever started back in I think it was the beginning of 2019 I wrote an article about what your plan B uh security insurance and I said we all have house insurance in case our house burns down and we have car insurance in case we get an automobile accident so we're covered for them we have health insurance in case we have some kind of a health problem but what kind of insurance do you have in case your country goes crazy on you and you just feel like that you need to move to another country and that's where getting a Visa in another country comes in one of the great things about getting a Visa in Panama is there's no requirement to live there um you know even though you have a Visa you want to live in Panama but you don't have to um so people as the the pandemics taught us anything is that things can change fast in your country your country can change really fast and if you don't have a residency Visa that gives you the right to be able to live in another country and definitely you're kind of stuck where you are because in other places you might be able to visit for 90 days or you might be able to visit for 180 days but you can't live there indefinitely so whether you're going to move to Panama or not it's such an easy visa to get I mean if you qualify I would encourage everybody to get a Visa in Panama because it's just so easy to get it and then you have your plan B just in case because we don't know what else might happen in the future hopefully there's no more big pandemics or there could be something even crazier than a pandemic that happens but haven't that plan be in place it just gives you peace of mind that if you need to you yeah yeah just pack a bag and go or just go and forget the bag because you can buy clothes wherever you go well the nice part is is that Panama is also a very stable country uh so for any Canadians that are worried about like security issues or anything like that like I have never once felt unsafe uh that's not saying that there's not bad things that happen anywhere in the world um but Panama like overall if you kind of just have a little bit of Street smarts anyways I've never come into any situation where I felt that I was in danger at all I find that people are more more than willing to kind of give you the shirt off their back yeah and really wanted to kind of do a lot of harm with you or anything like that and that's kind of that's a lot different compared to some of the neighboring countries that we were looking at going to um like when we think about going when we're considering Colombia for example um that would be a whole different ball game for having a young family you know uh I've watched enough material and we did like I said a lot of research on all these countries before we even pulled the trigger and jumped on the plane um we spent about a year and a half kind of just compiling all the information and from what I what I gathered was even on the street in Columbia like you can get stuck up and stuff like that with a gun and everything and I I don't I'm not saying that wouldn't happen here in Panama I just haven't experienced it I haven't even come close to feeling like that would ever happen yeah you know there's some towns that you might go to in Panama where that can happen but for the most of Panama that's just not going to happen I've heard so many reports from people that they got a flat tire and they were stuck alongside the road and you know two cars the panamanians stopped to help change the tire and just made sure that they were okay that they got to wherever they needed to go um I'm Blown Away even at the local supermarket a man lost his wallet an expat and uh right away somebody picked it up and started running after him with it to return it so that he didn't lose any of his money or his valuables right it was yeah you know if you were in Canada or the states uh I don't really know the percentage on that one so there's this thing that happens in bouquete because um uh Ann bouquete especially they know I know I know so if anybody loses their wallet they at the grocery store they leave their credit card at the grocery store they always call me Jackie do you know how to get in touch with this person or get in touch with that person um to find them to let them know and and they you know they keep never any money missing the credit cards aren't missing IDs aren't missing everything's there so um and that you wouldn't have that necessarily in some of the other countries I I also check out a lot of different countries and you wouldn't have that but people are very respectful in Panama yes and that's what I found is that uh like with a young daughter that was my main concern is that I want to make sure that like if when she's growing up that she can even walk herself to school if she need be um you know and she's not going to run into any issues along the way and really the best example that I could give Canadians is Panama is almost like how Canada was like 20 years ago you know where kids would play to like the street lights came on and stuff like that like it's uh it's a whole different atmosphere and I really don't feel like my daughter's ever unsafe in any of the community that I'm at um like she goes around and she's just kind of adored by all the locals so it's it's just a different experience and I think by the time she gets to school age I think she's going to have nothing but friends here and uh I think it's a lifestyle change compared to Canada that I I don't think I could go back anytime soon I I understand Panama and kind of right even when I went back for a quick trip um it kind of felt like my heart's in Panama now that's how much of a change you know that's how a welcome I feel here yeah and it's a it's especially important for children to you know it's the way I grew up that you could just ride your bicycle play kickball in the street and you know the rule was when the straight lights came on you had to be home um but you could play in your own front yard and you know walk to school and do all those things that's the way it used to be and it's still that way in Panama and we all want our children to experience that kind of uh growing up and just feeling loved and safe and also getting to know all your neighbors that if they needed something um they would know someone neighbor's door that they could knock on and say can you call my Daddy to come and get me or whatever exactly and it the neighbors part that's the other part of the culture that I'm completely blown away with down here as well is that people literally just take time out of their day to stand there and talk to you and get to know you uh just because you're a neighbor and they see you in their Community um and they just it's it's not to kind of get to know everything about you or anything but it really they want to build friendships here and uh I've been to some places in the world where it's kind of people a little bit more standoffish they're a little bit uh you know more afraid of actually like letting people into their circles uh and that's one good point to point out with Portugal is that we stayed with friends while we were there and it was really great we had great experience okay but to try to actually build friends of our own and to find our own Circle because we didn't speak Portuguese we found that actually very challenging um whereas here in Panama even though we don't speak Spanish fluently or anything we already have like dozens of friends and that's not even just expats that's even including locals um and I found even even just hanging out and talking to the locals just getting to know them uh because that's what they want to do my Spanish has improved immensely yeah and you're in a great area for that that's one of the things I really like about gorgona is the condo complexes they're kind of a gated community where the condo is but most of gorgona is just a residential area and there can be um you know little house next to a big house but you just see lots of people walking walking to the grocery store walking down to where the fish people have brought in their fish and another chance to meet people and you know a couple of little restaurants they have there that are just Hangouts for locals as well as xpass so it's a good way to meet people but those smaller towns make it much easier I think to meet people exactly and it's I find even when we're thinking about moving up to El Valle in the future up on the mountain it's another small community and um yeah once you become part of it you kind of it's real easy to kind of work yourself in and you know you're fully a part of a community at that point it's not like you're the outsider in an area like everybody wants to come by and meet you and like it's just been a really cool experience that's good um so a lot of people have some questions but I'm going to ask you to hold off just a little bit on your questions um in about 10 minutes I'll let you start asking questions and when you do ask a question please put three question marks in front of it so I can quickly and easily identify it because there's this whole conversation going on over there and I can't read what you're saying and pay attention to my conversation with Aiden at the same time so um when um so you found a rental I know originally you were doing airbnbs because you weren't sure if you're going to be in Panama City or Coronado or move to Portugal or stay in Panama so we it was temporary residency but now um you're in a more of a long-term what is it a six month lease one year lease um we actually chose just because of the area that we're in we chose to do a 12-month lease just to kind of lock in the price for the entire year so I'm more worried that because the seasonal prices change here a little bit uh you get a high season in the low season right that if we would have done a six month in June by the time December hit we might have had a big rent increase because the high season or we would have run the risk that there would have been absolutely nothing else available in any of the buildings around here and we just didn't want to risk it so we ended up doing a 12-month lease yeah so and that's you brought up a really good point that I want to reiterate with people especially in the Coronado gorgona San Carlos area a lot of snowbirds go there I'm usually starting about December until April and landlords Jack their Renault um in those months so something that might rent for twelve hundred dollars a month if it's a one-year lease might be 1800 or even 2 000 a month if you come to rent it in December um so getting you don't want to ever have a lease in that area that's going to expire in December January February March and April because it's going to have much higher rents and less inventory available so you did the right thing and the other thing is people from Canada if they actually want to relocate here on a permanent basis or even just to come down try it out for six months or a year and see what you think it is actually better if you're looking at this beaches area here to come down and look for your rental during the off season so anywhere from uh the end of April till the beginning of December but past that point you're kind of you're probably running the risk where you're going to be getting the high season rate even if you're looking for a 12-month lease right and a lot of people that are going to be going in December they've already rented it um even though they're not there yet they've already rated they might even be paying rent on a place that they're not living in yet just to lock in that view that they want to have or the particular unit it could be one that the snowbird rented last year and the year before that and they just re-ran it every single year so really good advice and I always always say don't rent something without seeing it first because the pictures that you see on the internet could have been taken five years ago it might not even have that furniture it might not even be the same unit that you're going to actually live in so you really really really need to have boots on the ground to come and look at the property and talk to the neighbors and say you know do you have any problems in this building um things like you know it has the does electricity go out very often do their generators kick in especially in condos some condo complexes if the electricity goes out there's only one plug-in that has well powered by the generator for the refrigerator none of the other ones will work so you need to find out um do they have a generator what happens if you're in the elevator and there's a power outage is the generator going to kick right in find out how many parking places you're going to have does it have a reserve water tank um but you need to come and see the property yourself instead of just renting something if you're just going to rent it for a month off of Airbnb that's one thing you don't have to see that first but if you're going to sign a six month or 12 month lease you definitely want to come and see it yourself and there's many good other advices that you've given me during our entire time here as well like the article that you've written about the net listings yes that was a huge one for me that was a big wake-up call and I didn't really realize that when we first got involved in this real estate market here um like you mentioned like I was doing airbnbs to begin with just for sheer convenience because we wanted to go and explore the country we want to see different areas airbnbs worked and when we came back for the immigration process at the beginning airbnbs were great um when we came down to actually look for a long-term rental that's where we kind of had this big whoa moment because it wasn't uh as easy as just going and logging on to Airbnb and just clicking the book button um it was uh it was a whole different experience then when I was kind of talking with you about about some of the experience as we were going along and then you gave me the net listings article and you know a couple other articles about about the process here it was very very eye-opening yeah and you know um especially in your area if you you know if an agent tells you it's 1500 and you try to negotiate and say well if I sign you know they want a six monthly say well if I do a 12-month lease will you take 1200 or will you take 1300 and you know some of them get pretty offended by that and you can get um so you have to be careful yeah yes what I will tell all the Canadians right now is do not bring your negotiating tactics from Canada they do not work that well here um even if you're dealing with uh foreigners that have gotten into the real estate game here um the one thing I found is there's there's almost no confidentiality so once you kind of start talking to one agent they kind of all know that you're talking to one agent and when it comes to negotiating price um it's very hard like I I got I'll just say this I got blacklisted within three days so me finding a place that took me a whole month to end up finding a rental here uh in this area but that's not everybody's experience most people can find it like right away when they come down it's just that I came in with kind of the Toronto mentality of like you know negotiation and you know the sales process and the real estate process and it uh it was not to my benefit here let's just put it that way so I would just take a difference sometimes but sometimes it can not work in your favor um here if you're trying to find a condo it's very hard to find the owner like directly it might be easier if you're driving the community and you want to rent a house or something like that because they usually have the the parent signs uh on on the property and you can just call the number directly and sometimes you're talking right to an owner but with the condo building that we want just because the location that wasn't really an option uh and like I say that was why it was a little bit of a different experience for us as well but if you're going to do a deal I I definitely would follow your advice to Jackie of you know if you can do it do it with an owner directly you'll usually have a better better outcome overall yeah and better a more pleasant experience so um so you're looking for a two bedroom two bath condo can you tell me what was the range of prices that you were finding in that gorgona area the prices okay so I I'll let you know with the here specifically because I mean I had a whole ton of units that I saw here um I had we had friends that just moved in at the beginning of June here to a two bedroom two bathroom unit and they were paying about the thousand dollar a month Mark and yes they had to put a little bit of furniture in but it was semi-furnished so it wasn't fully furnished um I came in with that thousand dollar a month Mark at my bottom negotiating line and I moved it up to the 1200 a month Mark and that apparently was still low because the two bedroom two bathroom units I was getting offered all the way up to 1800 even sometimes and these are the low season prices so that whole net listing thing really matters because one person that you talk to will have one listing and they'll say 1800 and then you'll find another agent that has a same listing and they'll say 1600 and maybe the owner actually wants only 1200 for it you know and the owner might have it advertised on Craigslist for 1200. um so that's something that's something that you're going to find here in Panama whether it's the Coronado area in Panama City or boquete or Bay or anywhere else it's quite possible that you'll see the exact same property advertised for rent or for sale at three or four different prices by three or four different companies um so you have to be careful yeah you know and even if you have to knock on neighbors doors try to always get the owners um talk to the owner directly and find out what the real rent is on the property sometimes when you're standing there with an agent or two um it's kind of hard to knock on the neighbor's door but and they won't leave you so that you can do your own investigation but um that happens all the time in Panama well the other thing too that you mentioned about the generators too like that's a big concern for us if we are doing our online business uh we can't afford for the power to go out so there's some buildings where like you mentioned either they might just be all staircase buildings and they don't have a generator or if they have a generator maybe it just Powers the Emergency Services like the elevator and the emergency lighting and then you've got other buildings where they do they actually power the entire unit of the the condo and that's how Bahia is set up so that's also another big consideration for people to consider is you know what are your power requirements and yeah it it my suggestion would be for people to come down and maybe rent an Airbnb try out a couple different locations along the beaches and see what area you kind of vibe with and what you where you kind of fit in and then maybe while you're at that Airbnb sit down and try to talk to people while you're there that's probably honestly the best approach um I found that most of the intelligence that I was getting was from people that have actually lived here they're the owners of units in this building and they've been here from anywhere from five to 15 years and they kind of had all the nitty-gritty on everything so yeah it won't be the sugar-coated version you're going to get the the facts on what's really going on by the way in our complete Panama relocation guide which is available here um we have a list of 17 questions that you need to ask before you sign a lease on any property important things like you know do for especially in condos is there a generator how many parking places do you get um what does the generator actually power so um does it have Reserve water because in the dry season um at the end of April whenever it's the dry season especially in the hotter climates you could have really really low water pressure sometimes no Municipal Water coming at all and I remember a couple of years ago at Bahia they were taking buckets of water out of the pool to flush toilets there so but then they got in a reserved water tank so they don't have the those problems anymore but it's important I've been told that in the if it's a really hot dry season that still those tanks can go dry and sometimes you don't have enough pressure for example in a uh two bedroom two bathroom unit to reach the master bathroom which will stir this one away from the water supply so um not that's something that some of the the owners here have actually made me aware of that they've noticed and but it's a really uh like hot dry season that that you can experience even in Bahia here still yeah and crazy little things like um if you think you're just because you've got two bathrooms that you can use two showers at the same time two different people no you know what somebody both of you are going to have real a really cold shower so you have to really just use one shower at a time so you know like I said we have these 17 important questions that you need to ask before you sign a lease and one of the best ways to find the answers you can ask the real estate agent or the property manager but the best way is to a lot about he on other places they have the um the little place where you can get food out by the beach they have the restaurant there just go there to have a meal and chat it up with the people that already lived there and get the scoop from them definitely well the other cool thing is is that this area has a high concentration of Canadian expats compared to a lot of the other areas throughout Panama um so even when you walk through your local communities you're more than likely going to run into another Canadian somewhere along the way and they've had experiences here as well and it yeah it really is the local population or the people that have been settled here for a few years that are really going to give you the lowdown on everything in the area yeah and you'll you'll run into people that say well I used to live in this condo complex but I had this problem this problem so now I moved over to this condo complex and I don't have those problems anymore so that local information is really important yeah I'm gonna start taking a couple of questions um because we got lots of them coming in so we've mentioned a net listing and people said well what is that and is it in your online guide actually you can go to just my website um maybe go to Panama relocationchoice.com and in the search feature at the very top type in net listing and there's a whole article about what that is so what in that listing is is when the owner tells the property manager I would like to rent my condo for twelve hundred dollars a month but the property manager puts it out there for fifteen hundred dollars a month hoping that they can put 300 a month in their pocket plus their property management a commission that they're going to get so um and the I never knew that that really existed here until my son moved to Panama and he was out looking for property and he looked at a house in the morning and it was um I think a two bedroom two bath for 8.95 in bokeh he needed something the fence yard for his dog and then he saw an advertise a property that was advertised there weren't really any pictures just said two bedroom two bath for 6.95 and he wouldn't look at it it was the same property uh so one was advertising it for 6.95 the other one was advertising it for 5.95 but we've also that's happened with our tour groups that we've um you know we contact certain agents or property managers and say can you show us a property um we're going to be in your town this afternoon so they show it and you know for 1200 I said well we saw this two weeks ago and it was a thousand so these little games happen here and um if you're aware of it um the solution is to try to get in touch with the owner say you really want to talk to the owner and by talking to the owner you find out what the right rent is are talking to some of your neighbors and just asking them what are you paying for rent and if they say well I think I've read and I said well why my and thirteen hundred it's the same unit so just talking to your neighbors is a good way to find things out too and depending on what building it is and whatnot even if you have somebody that's a local Panamanian that you get to know really well they might even be able to call on your behalf and negotiate even a better price than you can as a foreigner so that's another thing to consider if you actually have somebody that you trust enough and you know they're looking out for your best interests they can definitely yeah like your immigration attorney you know a lot of times they can intervene on your behalf so because they're going to always be a Panamanian they can certainly help so someone's asking um because I think you said you got all of your paperwork when you were already here so part of getting the paperwork is getting fingerprints so you can get your RCMP it's called in Canada or your National criminal report so um what did you do to get your fingerprints here on Panama G's OLS or a different company so I actually be honest with you I found OLS very expensive um I when I when I first looked at them loaded up for my family it was going to cost quite a quite an arm and a leg um and then I spoke with my lawyer here in Panama about it and she actually recommended another company to me um and that's where I came across a company called the fingerprint room and they will actually handle all of your rcmbp background check you can send them all of your other documents that need to get authenticated or not uh like in Canada it's authenticated it's not a fostile um so they'll they'll actually take it all down to the Embassy and get everything stamped off for you and then send it by FedEx down here to uh to Panama um with the fingerprint side of things uh what we had to do was they give you a printout a digital print out so you print that off you take it down to a notary of public notary here in Panama they witness you roll your fingerprints or if you're at an actual uh like a police uh station where they they it's approved to do it here in Panama they can do it there as well but because of the pandemic that was actually closed and we had to go to a public notary um then he'll he'll witness it he'll notarize it then you FedEx it to Canada this company will receive it they'll digitize it and then they'll send it and submit it to the RCMP um ours took about two and a half weeks to come back uh that company yeah that's pretty good yeah yeah especially a very fast turnaround and this is when the RCMP was very backlogged and they were expecting it to be about a two-month turnaround and it came back about two and a half weeks so um we were actually very satisfied uh the the that wasn't the company that we actually used though the fingerprint room they actually handle all of the authentication the RCMP checks all of that the company that we use just because we needed just the RCMP check was Gambit ID services in Ottawa right now they did the RCMP check and then sent it off to my mother and because I had my mother in Canada and she was located uh close to Toronto so she could go to the consulate on my behalf um I got to say this as well Michelle Delgado at the Toronto consulate is absolutely fabulous she is probably one of the most well squared away people dealing with the immigration process here in Panama as far as all the documents and doing the authentication she knows everything you need so no matter what Coast you're on or where you're in in the country give the Toronto consulate a call Michelle can answer any question you need um but like I say because my mom was able to take it in she took it in in person and I didn't have to pay for that extra part of the process right that's good so here's a really good question from Carol what was the biggest adjustment for living in Panama and what is the one piece of advice you'd have for fellow Canadian considering moving down I don't expect things to happen too fast yeah like we're used to in Canada that overnight delivery or two-day delivery from Amazon and stuff like this and Panama is not that way at all uh and don't expect to come here and change that system okay that system will evolve and uh and morph into its own thing in its own time it's not any place for us as foreigners to come in and try to try to speed that up because it's not going to happen um so that's that's the one thing is that uh just kind of realize that you're coming to a different area and where it's more of a laid-back culture and things still get done but it's done on a different time frame that we're used to in Canada and that's probably one of the biggest shocks to a lot of people that I speak to yeah and along those same lines um whenever you're anywhere and you and don't tell people well that's not how we do it in Canada because they don't want to hear that yeah it doesn't matter how they doing candidates how it's done in Panama exactly exactly Panama like I say it's it's their own way or the highway kind of and that's kind of just how it is you know it's like it's widely accepted down here and uh they're not willing to change for anybody really and that's great you know that's that's a pride in their country and you know it's something that I'm also proud to be a part of now so yeah I wouldn't expect them to change in in their own due time maybe they'll get a a computer system uh stacks of paperwork or files that are this stick at immigration but who knows yeah I wouldn't count on it they like their paperwork and their staff and wet signatures yeah yeah so here's another question my wife and I are common law do we have to get married in Canada under qualify so you do have to be married Panama does not accept common law marriage you know you can either get married in Canada or you can get married in Panama um the only thing if you get married in Panama then you're going to have to wait about 10 days for your marriage license to be registered in Panama before you can actually apply but you do have to be legally married with a marriage license it'd be probably easier to do it in Canada maybe I'm not too sure about it uh I know that it takes a little bit to actually get the certificate so the big thing with Panama is your documents when you actually get them sent to you in Canada when you first apply for them I think you have six months from the date that they're issued uh until they expire for immigration here um so if you need to go through the marriage process or um if you're not if you're not considering the marriage process then you probably have to file separate applications is what I assume um about a month before you receive your marriage license yeah so yeah if you don't want to get uh married and you want to stay common law then you would each have to qualify for the Visa individually um you wouldn't be able to combine incomes exactly so um does living in Panama impact your excuse me the amount for later in life um so the actual CPP amount in this part I'm not a financial advisor or an accountant so I can't really give you sound financial advice and I would always recommend that you probably speak to somebody in that field um but what I will say is that I know that as a Canadian you lose the old age security benefit when you leave Canada but your CPP is still intact but you can verify that with your own professional yeah so on October the 22nd I'm actually interviewing a Canadian accountant or CPA and he'll be able to answer all those questions about um old age pension and CPP and how that's impacted whenever you move overseas so we'll have that interview also he's going to talk about the pros and the cons of becoming or a non-resident versus staying a legal resident in Panama so that'll be on October 22nd and they'll be sure and send out some information about that when it's time so another question that I noticed too is if I actually declare um non-resident status my tax on my pension income actually goes up compared to when I'm a tax resident and that's because Canada if you have a pension income and you declare a non-resident status they do they deduct a 20 off your pension um so right now my pension it might be like 17 or something like that or 15 that I pay in taxes uh for federal taxes so that does go up five percent or x amount of percent so that's something to be aware of that I noticed too yeah and you obviously don't look like retirement age but you should know that you were in the military you see you have military yes yes that's correct yeah um so there's um so we'll add we'll wait and ask these questions about Resident versus non-resident and exit tax and all that stuff let's wait and ask those questions of the CPA when we have him on the 22nd because he'll be able to answer it um a little bit better um then I certainly could in um Aiden is new to being a foreign resident so let's uh be honest with you I got very familiar with a lot of the systems throughout all the different countries in the world like all of the tax systems the immigration systems um that was another big draw for Panama for us too was the fact that it was a territorial tax country um and I don't know if like if your viewers are on and they don't know what that is that means that for example I run an online business and I'm selling products to uh North Americans or Europeans um I don't have to pay tax to Panama for any of that earned income because it's made from abroad uh so that was a very key benefit to us as well when we considered a country on on where to locate yeah so in Panama you only have to if you sell any products in Panama or services in Panama then you would have to file a tax return and pay taxes in Panama but if you're not selling in Panama then you don't owe any taxes in Panama so it sure does simplify your life because some countries you'd have to pay a tax in their country and attacks in the country that you move from and you may get a credit for it but still it can get very very complicated well the one one nice thing for Canadians with the non-resident status is that once if you do end up applying for that and being granted it uh you no longer have to file an income tax return after your final one so that eliminates the paperwork Trail in Canada for you um and then you obviously if you're if you're making sales abroad rather than here inside Panama you don't have to file one here in Panama so it really simplifies things I know for Americans uh you have that tax exemption amount but you still have to I believe file every single year yeah yeah unless you make like less than twenty four thousand dollars a year or something then you uh in your pension then you may not have to file but um if you make over that then you're going to still have to file a tax return and report your worldwide income and by the way for U.S citizens just so you know worldwide income includes the interest that you're earning on your bank account in Panama uh bank accounts in Panama pay you know some of them go two and a half three percent interest on just a regular savings account so us U.S citizens we get to pay U.S taxes on the interest we earned on our plan in my bank account but as a Canadian non-resident you wouldn't have to do that so that's good so where do I find your six month plan um so what I think you're probably talking about is our six-month checklist so in our online guide if you just do a search for a checklist then you'll see the six month checklist and what that is is we say six months before you move to Panama you need to do this this and this and this five months before you moved to Panama do this and this and this four months before you move to Panama do this and this and it's just um a reminder of the things that you need to do so that nothing falls through the cracks so you don't get your Panama and say oh darn I forgot to change my address you know forward my mail or I forgot to um change my phone number or whatever that you need to do but we have all those things that is in a six-month checklist before you move to Panama so we've only got a couple more minutes Aiden and um do you have any final words of wisdom for any Canadians that are thinking about coming to explore Panama or to move to Panama forever the amount of cost savings that you can actually experience here in Panama especially because of the high inflation in Canada right now um it's second and on it could lead you to a better life it could lead you to an earlier retirement you can find really fresh healthy food here that doesn't need to be imported to Canada I mean any Canadian will know that you go to a grocery store and you get a pineapple and it's it's still green because it hasn't ripened fully you go anywhere here in uh and you're paying for it like probably about like seven dollars for a pineapple if you go anywhere here and on the street they're really nice orange and yellow fully ripe full of sugar and you're paying a dollar or two you know it's just uh it's such a different experience and I would tell people that if you're really considering it just jump on a plane take a trip experience something new you never know where it's going to lead you and like I say it could end up leading to so you're relocating here permanently yeah to a better life and I think um you know the stress of inflation in North America and Canada and the United States um that reduces the your life um so when you move to a place where you can remove that stress and have healthier food and breathe cleaner air and just the moving the stress away it can really add yours to your life um yeah and over the last couple years we've actually seen a decline in all the the age limits in Canada or like the expected age expectancy in Canada in the United States so I mean Panama is kind of a way to counteract that as far as I'm concerned yeah uh but you know also the warning it's going to be a little bit like a step back in time like Aiden said earlier it's kind of like the way life was 20 years ago where you're going to see little kids um you know five and six year olds walking to school by themselves without their mom and dad and they're perfectly safe um and you're and uh you'll see somebody riding alongside the road on a horse um so you're going to see things that you know the way it used to be which is actually very refreshing yeah experience like you still are coming to a developing country you know so you'll see people from all walks of life just like you would in Canada but just maybe more so on uh you know on a developing country scale you know but um like I say everybody here that I've met is friendly enough like they they would give you the shirt off their back in a heartbeat um yeah it's just a different lifestyle like I say it takes it back 20 years so yeah uh I know for my daughter it's probably the most ideal place in the world for her to grow up at this point in her life um like maybe later on like my wife and I were also looking at maybe Asia just for a business aspect for my daughter but that'll be like a long time in the works you know so for right now for the foreseeable future Panama is everything that we could ever wish for so I think I might have scared people a little bit when I said that it's like stepping back in time to 20 years ago 20 years ago was before internet basically before uh cell phones and all those kind of things so it's a step back and try to make stuff we still have fiber optic high-speed internet we still have cell phones um that work uh really really well cable TV Fire Sticks so you can watch uh um any Canadian sports that you want to watch are going to be readily available on TV and if you're especially if you're in the Coronado area there's going to be a lot of other Canadians there also so I want to thank you so much yeah go ahead the internet thing here absolutely uh I think that uh like even just utilities for an example uh in Panama uh the cost savings is immense uh like my cell phone bill for any Canadian I have unlimited data per month 300 minutes uh throughout Panama 21 a month you know that's that's insane uh the internet's the exact same thing internet and the cable package here 35 a month and it's high speed uh my this video might be a little bit laggy from time to time and that's maybe because I'm on the Wi-Fi and not a hard connection but uh don't let it don't let it fool you you can get up to like a gig a gig and a half here for internet speeds yeah so thank you so much Aiden for sharing the information about your move to Panama and I'm so happy for you and your family that you found your happy place in gorgona don't worry thank you for having me Jackie it was a pleasure I really appreciate it yes thank you very much and thank you to everybody that joined us for this live stream today on a Thursday um we're going to have another live stream not this Saturday but next Saturday we'll do this again bye everybody goodbye Aiden see ya have a good one

Channel: Panama Relocation Tours

Views: 7,783

Keywords: Panama, Retire in Panama, Move to Panama, Canadians in Panama, Living in Panama, Panama Relocation Tours

Id: EbGy5SC_IG8

Length: 64min 0sec (3840 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 29 2022