Ladislas Maurice

No government owns us. No government owns us. We're too diversified. We have too many different citizenships and residencies and this and that. Like we're not happy somewhere we leave. We feel that there's pressure to educate our children a certain way. That's it. We change jurisdictions. We're completely free.

Speaker

If you're within three feet of me, we're probably talking about real estate, much to my family chagrin. But here's the thing, most people see 7% rates in freeze. I see opportunity. They're waiting for the perfect deal and well, I've analyzed thousands of them and perfect just doesn't exist. So I talk to operators across every asset class, flippers, multifamily, syndicators, note investors, and whatever else is working. No sales pitches allowed, just real lessons from people actually doing it. I'm Ed Mathews, and this is Real Estate Underground.

Ed Mathews

Greetings and salutations real estate under grounders. It is Ed Mathews, again with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you again so much for all of your comments and and letting us know what's resonating and what's not, frankly. That's one of the ways that we decide to. Take different directions. Obviously this has historically been a multifamily apartment owners and investors show, but over the last six months we've been taking the opportunity to talk with a whole bunch of other investors who do a whole bunch of other things. And today is a unique opportunity. This is someone that when I'm actually not. When I'm not trying to find the next deal and I need to just enjoy something for 20 minutes, I watch this gentleman's YouTube channel. And so it's some people like Anthony Bourdain. I like Lalas, Maurice, and I'm really happy to envi have him join us on the show today. Thank you very much for joining us. It's really good to meet you.

Ladislas Maurice

Thank you. The bar has been set really high ed.

Ed Mathews

That's okay. It's all right. It's only a couple of people listening, so you're good. A lot of sauce. If you could just do me a favor and tell us tell the audience a little bit about who you are and what you do for a living, and then we'll get into it.

Ladislas Maurice

Sure, I'll just give a bit of background. Studied business in Canada, then went through business in law school in Australia. Started working for Nestle, the big international food company in Switzerland. And then they expatriated me to Africa for seven years. So I spent most of my. Most of my twenties in Africa, actually. My last role there was managing the Nestle milk business for a few West African countries. So at the age of 30, I left.'cause I was, my twenties in Africa. Great. One company time to move on, try something else.

Ed Mathews

Sure.

Ladislas Maurice

But before looking for a new job, I decided to go on a road trip with my parents that were retiring at that time. So we drove from Oman. To Paris by car, so Oh my goodness. Through the UAE through Oliver, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, all of Turkey, down to Greece, up to Ukraine, and then to Paris by car. And it was the first time that I had two things. One, a lot of time and two money. Yeah, and that's actually really rare to have both time and money. So as we're driving around and traveling, I, we'd stop in these cities and I'd go out, I'd meet people, I'd go to real estate agencies, I'd meet lawyers, et cetera. And just along the way, I just saw opportunities like, gosh, this is some cheap real estate, and I see the catalysts. So I started doing some deals. And I never got back to looking for a job. So now it's been nine years that I travel around the world full time with a focus on emerging and frontier markets. I invest primarily in real estate, but also in other asset classes. And yeah. And now I have a, and a few years ago I decided to start documenting my journey through a blog, the Wandering Investor that turned into a YouTube channel. So that's what I do full-time and we help people do the same thing as well.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. That's wonderful. Before we get into the real estate piece, I'm curious about the other asset classes that you stocks you pay attention to. Stocks. Oh, okay.

Ladislas Maurice

Yeah. And not just emerging market, normal stocks that you would find like commodities, et cetera.

Ed Mathews

Gotcha. Okay. So as far as the real estate goes, what does your buy box look like? This is gonna be interesting.

Ladislas Maurice

My buy box.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. What do you like to buy? What do you focus on?

Ladislas Maurice

Primarily residential and land. I like land. So residential for a yield and a combina. A combination of yield and capital appreciation in emerging markets or sometimes just lifestyle.'cause some of these places are just so amazing, right? And, but land can be really good from a capital appreciation point of view.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. And so with that land, do you develop or are you holding and then selling off at, a the opportune time?

Ladislas Maurice

It depends. And sometimes I would say, in, in the US when you do business and you're gonna be, and you buy a plot of land, you should have a business plan. You should know exactly what you're doing in some of these countries. There's so much growth, there's so much volatility. Things change so much from one day to another that you just buy and then you have to remain open to various alternatives down the road.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Ladislas Maurice

So it's a, it's, when you operate in countries that are very data poor and that are a lot less liquid than north America you, you just have to be a bit more flexible.

Ed Mathews

Yeah, so it's interesting,'cause the liquidity piece is something that obviously, I'm used to I operate in the United States, so it's a much more liquid market for sure. How do you. Before we hit record, we were talking about I thought you might've been in Central America. It turns out you're in Montenegro which is very far from Central America For those non geography people out there how do you decide where to go? And I know that your moniker is the wanderer, but I'm sure there's a method to your madness.

Ladislas Maurice

Sure. So there's a, so essentially I have a map of the world in my head and I spend a TA lot of time reading. And then I'll see countries that, where there, there's some macro developments happening. And when a country ticks a few boxes from a macro development point of view, I'll go there and then spend a few weeks, a month, two months, and then I'll ask myself. Do I want to play this market? And two, how can I play this market? Yeah. So for example, a few years ago in 20, I don't know, 2018 or something, 2019 Uzbekistan in Central Asia was opening up. It had been essentially they had broken off from the Soviet Union, but the communist dictator was still in power. He died, A new guy came over and he started rolling out the red carpet to foreign investors. So soon as this happened I went there. And my thinking initially was, I'll buy an apartment, right downtown. The ownership, the legality of ownership of real estate in Uzbekistan at that point was very much in the gray zone. I'm comfortable operating in the gray zone, but that one was a little too gray for me. So I was sniff. I spent more time sniffing around. And then I saw that there's a local stock exchange. That no one really talks about. It's not, it wasn't even connected to the Bloomberg terminal or anything like, there's just no barely any data, like a half broken website. I went to the stock exchange. I was like, how do I buy stocks? What do you guys have? And then they sent me to a broker, just just one office. And and then I just came across companies that had just, no debt. That had a ton of cash on their balance sheets that were spitting out dividends of 15% and that were growing 20, 30% a year. Wow. At p ratios of three. So I went to Uzbeki, good opportunity, wanting to buy real estate, but then I left with a brokerage account. Yeah. So sometimes I'll go to a place and, there's. I can see the country's gonna grow, but I just don't know how to play it because Yeah, real estate might already be very overvalued because it's the only means for people to save. Yeah.'cause they don't trust the banks their capital controls for local residents. Yeah. There's no stock market. They don't trust bonds, so just everything gets piled into real estate. And you look at that and you're like, do I really want to enter this market? So it's

Ed Mathews

already played.

Ladislas Maurice

It depends.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So you mentioned that there's a couple of box, there's a handful of boxes that you look to check before you enter a market. I'm curious, can you tell me a little more about that?

Ladislas Maurice

I'm looking for catalysts. I'm looking for the potential for growth, or I'm just looking for a bottom.

Ed Mathews

Okay.

Ladislas Maurice

It depends. You have to be very flexible. It's all about flexibility, right? Sometimes I'll invest in places where everyone tells you do not invest, right? I've been buying land in Nicaragua. If you look at US media, you'll hear that Nicaragua is a communist dictatorship and this, and it's not investible and this and that. I'm buying land for probably a fifth or sixth of the price compared to El Salvador. And the Chinese are just building out massive infrastructure throughout Nicaragua.

Ed Mathews

Yeah, they are.

Ladislas Maurice

And the country is a lot bigger and et cetera than El Salvador. So the place is not hyped up. But I'm seeing a lot of value. Now, am I saying that it's risk free or that it's, it's gonna be easy money, et cetera. No, but I'm buying lots and I'm just sitting on them and I'm just gonna revisit in five to 10 years. And if there's a revolution in the meantime, my lots aren't gonna disappear. That's even in Venezuela, they didn't go and nationalize and seize the assets of like just individual real estate investors. So flexibility is the name of the game. Yeah. And being diversified, not being all in.

Ed Mathews

So how do you manage that risk? Is it just, it's just a matter of the time is your friend and you'll let things play out or,

Ladislas Maurice

yeah. Diversification. Okay. So I'll have one part of my portfolio that is hyper liquid. Again, stocks in western markets. And then for real estate, I have a preference for less liquid but less liquid emerging in frontier market real estate that has more upside. Okay. But also in many cases, a lot less downside because when you buy real estate in the us, and I'm certainly not here to criticize real estate in the us I invested in the US before. The access to leverage is amazing. You do not have this when you venture overseas. Sure. You're effectively just a cash buyer when you venture overseas. So it's a different, it's a different game. If you want to become rich, fast. Invest in the us, get leverage, invest in the us. Yeah. Let's just be clear up front here. I'm talking about international diversification. I'm not promising better returns.

Ed Mathews

It's just more interesting.

Ladislas Maurice

Yeah. It's, yeah it's more interesting for sure. So I lost my train of thought. What was your question again?

Ed Mathews

So I was asking about risk and how you manage that and.

Ladislas Maurice

Yeah, so look, the reality is when you invest in western real estate, so by this Western European, north American real estate is not a hard asset anymore. It is part hard asset part financial asset. Real estate prices are extremely dependent on interest rates.

Ed Mathews

Yeah,

Ladislas Maurice

so what you have is when you look at a multi-family unit, you think you have a multi-family unit. What you actually have is a derivative. Yeah, of interest rates of finance. It's a financial product that you have, like for the most part. So when I invest in these markets where there isn't any leverage, I'm paying the true value of real estate, I'm buying a real hard asset. So it means I have a lot more downside protection. So in many ways, my investments into emerging and frontier. Real estate markets are actually a bit less risky.

Ed Mathews

Okay, so

Ladislas Maurice

tell me more about that. I'm paying the true value. I'm paying the true value. Okay. Interest rates can go up, it won't change. If interest rates go down and banks start lending, then the party's on.

Ed Mathews

Interesting. Interesting. So tell me about a deal that you looked at. It was worth getting on a plane for, or maybe this isn't the way you think about it, maybe, so you tend to actually, let me take a step back. So you tend to land in a place and then figure out what you're gonna do, right? Yeah. So when you are looking at a market, tell me about a deal that you looked at, you thought it was interesting, and then something clicked that told you this is probably not the place to put your money a deal, you said no to.

Ladislas Maurice

I'll put it this way, the deals you want to say no to are the deals that you get too emotionally involved in.

Ed Mathews

Amen to that.

Ladislas Maurice

If you really don't have a clear thesis, right? Sometimes the thesis is not clear, but you see a few exits. It's fine, but sometimes there's no exit. There's really not any clear exit. So just be very careful'cause it's very easy to get emotionally involved in a deal, especially when you go to beautiful places around the world.

Ed Mathews

Indeed. Yeah.

Ladislas Maurice

And I invest mostly in beautiful places around the world. Because that's where money likes to flow to. That's where money goes.

Ed Mathews

Right.

Ladislas Maurice

Beautiful places around the world.

Ed Mathews

So let's talk about the portfolio. How do you, you have, I was looking at your, at the map in preparing for this conversation and, there's a, there, so there's a map on LAIs law's. Website that talks about places he's traveled to and places he's lived. And you look at that map and there's, there are very few places you have you can't check that box that you've been to in some way, shape or form. And I'm, so I'm curious, your assets are spread all over the world. How the heck do you manage that?

Ladislas Maurice

The property managers.

Ed Mathews

So you have local property managers in every one of those areas.

Ladislas Maurice

Local property managers and in every place I have a backup property manager as well. Because that's, if you know you need to be quick to fire property managers. It's one of the downsides of investing in emerging markets. Often talent is a bit harder to find.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Ladislas Maurice

Once you have it, you're fine, but talent can be a bit harder to find. So it's not like the US where you can go into any random small town in Idaho or Wisconsin and there'll be a competent property manager that's trustworthy. In some of these markets, especially if you go into second, third tier cities, there's potentially no competent property manager. That's honest.

Ed Mathews

And walk me through your week in terms of the process or maybe it's a monthly effort where you are reviewing the performance of the property, dealing with anything that, any issues that have come up. Tell me more about that. Is do you take more of a laissez-faire a, a approach or are you a

Ladislas Maurice

Absolutely. You can't go into these markets and be a micromanager.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. Okay.

Ladislas Maurice

You, you have to accept somewhat lower standards than you would be used to if you are a micromanager. If you're a perfectionist please do not venture into emerging market real estate. You will be miserable. Please don't do this. Yeah. And you will fail. You will absolutely fail when you navigate in these countries. You have to accept that things won't be perfect. You have to lower your expectations in terms of people, and you operate in a very data poor environment typically. So there's a lot more following your guts.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. It's interesting. I was so my father and I are very similar personalities and when I was a teenager, he moved to California and so I, I've born and raised on the east coast us, so it's go. And we're in Southern California and we're in this shopping mall. And I'm walking up the escalator and I feel a tug on my belt and my father looks at me and says, where are you going? And I, and he said, look around. And I looked around and I was actually the only person walking up the escalator. Everybody else was taking their time. And then when I got older. I started to travel to Denmark and Amsterdam and a few European cities. And in Denmark one of my favorite places on earth actually. The the population, they barely drove cars. Everybody walked, everybody rode bikes. No one was in a hurry. And then I and then I also experienced something that I was working for this gentleman. He was from Wales. He was explaining to me cricket, and so we made this. We made this deal. I said, I'll take you to a baseball game and I'll explain baseball and you can explain to me cricket. And the concept I could not get my head around is the fact that you can play cricket for three or four days and nobody wins. And yeah, it was a very, as an American, I it almost short circuited my brain. I, I was like, how can you spend that much time and no one wins? And what all these experiences taught me is that the world moves at a very different pace than it does here in the us. Even the differences between the Northeast and the Southeast and the west coast are very different. Times 10 when you go into the rest of the world. I've never been to Africa or the Middle East or any, but I, I have friends that do a lot of business there and it's a very similar, pace. Yeah. And it's interesting, what's, what struck me was the fact that when you said you can't be a micromanager, and I'm thinking type a personality and be successful in international real estate investment because. Those people just don't move with the expediency that they do here,

Ladislas Maurice

it's worse'cause then everyone turns against you. It's worse than that. It's not just that you're not happy, but people suddenly think you're rude. Yeah. You're and don't wanna deal with you anymore. And suddenly Exactly. And then suddenly like nothing. Like literally no one will want to deal with you. And people just try to sabotage you. So there is look, this is quite extreme what I'm saying, but it's the case, it's reality. You seem to be a bit more chilled. Yeah. Yeah. You just seem to be a bit more chill. And in terms of risk mitigation. Two things. One, always hire some of the best lawyers in town. That's how I operate wherever I go, I just get some of the best local law firms. I don't try to be cheap when it comes to, to, to transactions because there's just so many I. Unknowns, unknowns for you. When you go into a deal and if you use a cheap lawyer, the cheap lawyer will not necessarily understand the issues that a foreigner has when investing overseas. For example, in Columbia, you need to register your funds with a central bank. So that you can get your funds out later. If you just go to a random lawyer, he'll tell you, oh, you just transferred the money directly to the seller and that's fine. Or through escrow, and it's fine. You'll be able to buy it. But when you sell in seven years time and you try to get money out of the country, the bank will ask you, oh, where's your central bank declaration? Suddenly you have a problem. So always use lawyers that are familiar with the. Issues that foreigners have when they invest so that they can really educate you properly and then protect you through the transaction. The second thing I'd say is, look, I'm very diversified across the world. I've invested in real estate, north America, south America, all over Europe and Africa, like East Africa, west Africa, middle East, Southeast Asia, really all over. I sleep very well at night because I'm so diversified that at any given point, something's blowing up in my portfolio, I'll give you that, but I know that something else in my portfolio is doing great. So I'm very resilient from that point of view.

Ed Mathews

Sure.

Ladislas Maurice

In, in spite of operational challenges and things aren't always going well, right? With every single project, I sleep very well knowing that I'm in a very secure place and I think that's something that your audience should think of, right? A lot of your audience is entirely invested in the US potentially in a single asset class. Which is fine. It's worked out fantastic and I'm certainly not telling people sell everything. The dollar's gonna crash, blah, blah, blah. That's, I'm not here. I'm not coming talking like this. But it's probably not unreasonable to have a small percentage of your assets outside of the single jurisdiction that is the United States. I think we see tension in the US. A lot of tension. An increasing amount of tension. People just do not get along. There is true. Not just from an economic point of view, but from a social point of view. Yeah. And there are just these, let's face it, there is some pretty sketchy things happening in the financial system. Is it that unreasonable to say, look, I'm gonna take X percent and buy myself an apartment in. A Panama or just deposit$200,000 in a bank in Panama and get residency for myself and my family. It's literally that easy. You just need to shift$200,000 from your bank account in the US to a bank in Panama, just one wire. And you just need to go to Panama three, three times in two and a half years short flight. It'll be nice vacation. And then you'll get your permanent residency after two and a half years. And for the first two and a five years, you have temporary residency. Once you have permanent residency, you just need to go back once every two years to keep it active. There you have it. You have your bank, you have your plan B, and after three years of that term deposit, you can send the money back to the US and keep your permanent residency. So just by shifting a bit of money around. You can just prepare pretty solid Plan Bs I Turkey's another one. You just invest$400,000 in any Turkish real estate. We're talking of a country of 80 million people. You can find Istanbul, a city of 15 million people.

Ed Mathews

Yeah,

Ladislas Maurice

you can get gross rental yields of five to 6%, which is decent for such a huge city. Keep the real estate for three years. Or keep it for five years and then sell without local capital gains. They'll give you a citizenship within a year. A passport. A passport. Buy$400,000 of any Turkish real estate. They will give you full fledged citizenship, a Turkish passport for you, your spouse and your underage children. And then when your kids have children. They'll be, as long as they register the newborn at the Turkish consulate, that kid will be Turkish as well. So just by shifting$400,000 to Turkey for just a few years in real estate, you are building generational. Diversification, like your grandchildren will have these passports. Your great-grandchildren will have these passports.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Ladislas Maurice

And we don't know what the world will look like in a hundred years from now. Maybe. Maybe people will be very happy to have a Turkish passport.

Ed Mathews

Very different is the only guarantee.

Ladislas Maurice

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

Wow. That's it's fascinating. How how you approach your life experience. And, I'm curious about, you mentioned earlier that you're in Montenegro, so what drew you to that country?

Ladislas Maurice

I came here in 2016 on a, just a vacation. And I just saw how beautiful the place is. And then I just walked into a few real estate agencies and I felt it was very undervalued compared to Croatia, right up north.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Ladislas Maurice

So I just started doing flip operations, just buying stuff, renovating, selling, and then over time I built a a portfolio here, and now I spend part of the year here in Montenegro.

Ed Mathews

Okay. Wonderful. So where do you see opportunity right now in terms of real estate?

Ladislas Maurice

Personally I'm investing quite a bit in Africa. More specifically Kenya. I bought four apartments there last year and in a few weeks I'm flying back to Kenya. I'm gonna buy some apartments on the coast. Look, I'm buying. I bought apartments in the best neighborhood of Nairobi, which is, the capital city of Kenya, which is also the economic and political hub of East Africa. The city of Nairobi is expected to double its population by 20 50, 20 60. Wow. So talk of strong demographics, right? Yeah, and I bought in the best neighborhood. A really cute street. Close to a big mall, but just great walkable area. Great. Very green as well. Next to a park. Beautiful church. The whole deal. And I bought apartments for one bedroom apartments for about 65,$70,000. One bedroom of apartments with US dollars. Swimming pool dollars. US dollar. Okay. Yeah. With heated swimming. Heated indoor swimming pools, gym, a playroom for the kids, the whole deal. So we're talking about like a net surface, about$120 per square foot.

Ed Mathews

Wow.

Ladislas Maurice

So honestly, when I see this and I'm expecting net rental yields of about seven to 8%, it's like, how can you go wrong with this? Right?

Ed Mathews

Yeah, that's a great, that's a great deal,

Ladislas Maurice

right? So sure you'll see headlines in the next year or two of protests in Kenya and protestors getting killed by the police and this and that, and sure, maybe an IMF bailout like, but. It's fine.

Ed Mathews

That's also happening here though.

Ladislas Maurice

Yeah, exactly.

Ed Mathews

See, Washington, dc, Chicago, Portland, Oregon, the list is getting longer actually. Political and social unrest is everywhere. Okay. I would love to talk with you for hours and hours, but I know you're you I only carved out an hour of your time and then you've been very generous with it so far. We're gonna move on to the lightning round right now, and then we can. We can keep going. So I am interested in your purpose, right? What gets you outta bed on Monday morning? Your worldview is very different from probably from mine for sure, and probably most of the folks here on the listening to this episode. So I'm curious, what gets you outta bed on Monday mornings?

Ladislas Maurice

There's no such thing as a Monday morning for me. I'm always on. Okay. Except for Sunday mornings. I'm on.

Ed Mathews

We'll get you outta bed this morning. How's that?

Ladislas Maurice

Maximizing freedom for my family.

Ed Mathews

Okay, so tell me more about that.

Ladislas Maurice

We like, no government owns us. No government owns us. We're too diversified. We have too many different citizenships and residencies and this and that. Like we're not happy somewhere we leave. We feel that there's pressure to educate our children a certain way. That's it. We change jurisdictions. We're completely free.

Ed Mathews

You're truly a global citizen.

Ladislas Maurice

I, I wouldn't say global citizen in the sense that. I value diversity. In the sense that I want countries to remain different. I am, I value the fact, I value when countries try not to change and try not to become globalized. Actually, I value this. So I'd say I'm a, I'm just an individual and that goes around, that wanders around, but I wouldn't use the term. Global'cause of, its because of its connotations.

Ed Mathews

Okay. Fair enough. I'm curious about the mentors you've had in your life or the people that have impacted your life. What's the best advice you ever got and who gave it to you?

Ladislas Maurice

A very good advice was given by my father. You don't have to answer every question.

Ed Mathews

It's just, it's, and that's interesting. It's so tell me more about that. What does that mean to you?

Ladislas Maurice

You don't have to answer your question. Sometimes you incriminate yourself. Sometimes you put yourself in a very uncomfortable situation. And when you go into emerging markets where a lot of the. Communication is actually subliminal. It's not direct. It's not, like you and I talking right now,

Ed Mathews

sure

Ladislas Maurice

they will say something but mean something completely different. A bit like the Brits actually, or whatever they say. It's the opposite that they mean, right? So you don't have to answer a question. Do not always answer a questions.

Ed Mathews

Gotcha.

Ladislas Maurice

And it's something that's a little hard in the, when you grew up as a, let's say Anglo-Saxon Christian, where you know, you have to be polite. Someone asks you a question, you answer, but that can actually line you in trouble down the line.

Ed Mathews

In many cases. And in fact, I'm notorious for that myself. That's good advice. So tell me about a decision that you look back on, now that you have the perspective of time and you think, boy, I'd love to have that decision back. Tell me about a, a situation like that.

Ladislas Maurice

Yeah. So I made a mistake investing in west Africa. Gotcha. I got the macro right, but I got the specific investment wrong. So I invested in Ivory Coast, TiVo a few years after the Civil War. There were just so many catalysts. It was just, I had to invest there. So I went there just for 10 days. I didn't have much time. I was still working back then, I still had a full-time job and. I tried to be smarter than some of the realtors that were actually giving me good advice. Because one of them was a buyer's agent charging an extra fee, and I was like, ah, I don't even so then I ended up buying an investment that was just turned out to be very suboptimal. So even though the market boomed absolutely boomed so I had that right, but my the one investment I bought, the one house just just stayed flat. I completely missed out on the boom. So I think that there are two key learnings here is. One, when you just go to a new market just for a week or two and you try to buy real estate, which is gonna be the case of most of your audience, if they try to go buy something in like Italy or Panama or Costa Rica or wherever. Sure. Just understand that your biggest risk is making a mistake, right? It's not like you should aim for market level. That should. If you managed to get market level, you did well.'cause it means that you managed to just in one week understand and not get screwed.

Ed Mathews

Right.

Ladislas Maurice

And that's a big win. Yeah. Because most people go and in one week suboptimal, boom they, they hit below the market. They don't do well. So just go in there with, managing your expectations and trying not to be too greedy.'cause when you end up in these kind of lower tier investments is'cause you try to be too greedy and you weren't you didn't quite understand the market. Two is don't hesitate to pay for a buyer's agent that really understands the market. Like sure, he'll charge you 3%, but you're gonna get that ROI. Yeah, that's, you're gonna get that RI That's,

Ed Mathews

It's just like your advice on, on, hiring the best attorney you can find.

Ladislas Maurice

It's, yeah.

Ed Mathews

It's money well spent.

Ladislas Maurice

Don't be cheap. Don't be cheap. I think we all know this, we're all real estate investors, but also we're real estate investors and

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Ladislas Maurice

I

Ed Mathews

was looking for a deal.

Ladislas Maurice

We tend to be a little cheap.

Ed Mathews

Right, yeah. If I can pay, we shouldn't,

Ladislas Maurice

but we are.

Ed Mathews

If I can pay 65 cents on the dollar, I will. Yeah, that's funny. That's and very true. So I'm curious about how you take in information and, to become smarter and to learn more. What's the book or whatever information source on your physical or virtual nightstand, like how do you take in information and from a author or creator perspective, who are you paying attention to?

Ladislas Maurice

Look, that's a good question. So I'll read, all the usual stuff. New York Times, the Economist, blah, blah, like the normal stuff. I'll go into also kind of rabbit hole stuff as well, because it trains you to think differently. You don't necessarily have to agree with the rabbit hole. But. They essentially disagree with everything. So you always have thesis antithesis. Thesis antithesis. Yeah. So from that point of view, it just trains you to look at things from different perspectives. But when I read a book I'm not gonna read a business book. I absolutely not. I'll read history, I'll read literature. The goal being, getting a greater understanding of the people and cultures I deal with.'cause I'm not gonna get that through YouTube videos or a short article.

Ed Mathews

No,

Ladislas Maurice

you're not. I'm gonna get that through reading their literature.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Ladislas Maurice

And reading their history.

Ed Mathews

Couldn't agree more. So finish this sentence for me. What does success means? What to you

Ladislas Maurice

being a good man.

Ed Mathews

It's

Ladislas Maurice

passing the judgment of God.

Ed Mathews

Good luck. It, and as a as a fellow human being, it's the Never ending com competition between the voice in your head and the voice of God has gotta be a bit of a challenge, right? Lala I really enjoyed this conversation and congratulations on the life you've built for you and your family. And I wish you all the best when you're not talking about real estate or hunting for the next opportunity. What do you enjoy doing

Ladislas Maurice

spear fishing in Montenegro.

Ed Mathews

Okay. Excellent. And so if people want to learn more about you or your travels or your investments what's the best way to do that?

Ladislas Maurice

Sure. So we have a newsletter, notes from the Road newsletter on the wandering investor.com. So as I travel around the world, I talk about real estate residency options, citizenships. We also help people obtain citizenship by investments. If they just want to buy a passport, for example. We help with that. I have a YouTube channel as well, the wandering investor. I'm on. Instagram, all of that. And we have an event coming up in Argentina, in Buenos Aires in March. And that one is really exciting. So it'll be full days. It's an investor tour. We're expecting about 30 people. There's still a few spots left. Two days. We will be going to, we'll have economists coming over, professors venture capital, private equity, and we'll go to some of the largest listed Argentinian companies. Some of them have ADRs in New York. Actually. We'll be, yeah, we'll go to their headquarters. We'll, see how do they operate in that environment, how the reforms are impacting them. And then we'll have two days of full real estate viewings on the secondary market.

Ed Mathews

Wow, what a great opportunity. I'll make sure that we put the information in our show notes so that we can spread the word on that. Lalas Maurice, thank you so much for joining us today. This has truly been an honor and a pleasure, and like I said, continued good travels and I wish you well.

Ladislas Maurice

Thank you, ed.