How To Invest Overseas For Cash Flow, Appreciation, And Freedom With Mikkel Thorup

🎙️ Welcome back to another eye-opening episode of The Physicians and Properties Podcast with host, Dr. Alex Schloe.

💡 What if your real “plan B” for freedom wasn’t more clinic shifts—but a second residency, offshore assets, and cash-flowing property abroad?

In this episode, Alex sits down with Mikkel Thorup—founder of Expat Money and a veteran global investor who’s lived in 9 countries, visited 120+, and helps high-income professionals legally reduce taxes, secure second residencies/citizenships, and invest in tangible assets worldwide. We dig into how physicians can build resilience and optionality with international real estate (Panama, Paraguay, Brazil, Colombia), Timberland/ag land, and smart structures that protect downside and unlock mobility.

From pre-construction deals with milestone payments and double-digit returns, to Panama’s Qualified Investor Visa and Cook Islands–level asset protection, this is your starter playbook for going global—responsibly.

🔥 What you’ll learn:

• The 4+1 framework for going offshore: immigration, investment, structuring, taxes + lifestyle fit
• How second residency/citizenship (e.g., Panama, St. Kitts & Nevis) creates true freedom of movement
• Where Mikkel sees compelling opportunities now (Paraguay path of progress, Panama, NE Brazil beachfront, Medellín, Timberland)
• Pre-construction strategy: small deposits, milestone payments, potential equity pop during build
• Realistic returns: ~6–9% LTR, ~9–12% STR cash-on-cash + ~5–10% appreciation (market dependent)
• Asset protection 101: why structures (trusts/foundations/IBCs) matter for highly suable professions
• Financing reality abroad: why many investors go low-leverage/no-leverage and how that protects downside
• A practical 12-month starter plan: second residency, second home, offshore access to capital (e.g., allocated metals with LTV loans)

🔥 Key Takeaways:

• Plan B ≠ theory. It’s passports, properties, and liquidity you can actually use.
• Tangible, productive assets (cash flow + utility) beat speculation you can’t control.
• Jurisdiction selection is strategy. Laws, taxes, and title matter more than glossy photos.
• Lifestyle fit is a filter. Buy where you’ll happily visit, maintain, and understand.
• Work with cross-border specialists (not generalists). The wrong advice is expensive.

⚠️ Friendly reminder: none of this is legal, tax, or investment advice. Always consult qualified cross-border counsel and CPAs.

🔗 Connect with Mikkel Thorup:

• Website/Newsletters
• Podcast
• YouTube
• Newsletter
• LinkedIn
• X

If you want to learn how investing in real estate can give you the freedom to practice medicine and live life how you want then check out the links below:

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Transcript

 Mikkel Thorup: And then for capital appreciation, we're looking at between five and 10% in most of the countries we work in.  So you would take your realized gain of your cash on cash and your unrealized gain of your capital appreciation,  and you put them together  so you can be at, you know, 15,  you know, 19% return on these,  plus the 50% during the build cycle.

And by the way, it's a titled property, so it's completely freehold. There's no leasehold. You have it for the rest of your life.

Dr. Alex Schloe:  Welcome to the Physicians and Properties Podcast, the show where we teach you how investing in real estate can give you the freedom to practice medicine and live life how you want. Doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor. Now here's your host, Dr. Alex Schloe

Welcome back to the Physicians and Properties Podcast, where we help physicians learn how real estate investing and entrepreneurship can give you the freedom to practice medicine  and live life how you want. I'm your host, Dr. Alex Schloe,  and today's episode is gonna be a little bit different.  We're going global.

We're talking about how international investing, second residencies, global diversification,  can create freedom  and resilience in a changing world.  Our guest today, Mikkel Thorup, is an expert. In expat consulting,  he helps high net worth clients legally mitigate taxes, obtain second residencies and citizenships,  and also how to invest in tangible assets around the world.

From international real estate to agricultural land and timber plantations,  it is gonna be awesome. Mikkel, thank you for coming on the podcast today. How are things going?

Mikkel Thorup: Things are very good. Thank you very much for having me, Alex. I'm, I'm looking forward to today's conversation. It should be a good one and hopefully  inspire and inform your audience and yeah, it should be awesome.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Yeah, absolutely. I'm looking forward to it as well. Thanks for calling in all the way from Panama. So excited to,  to learn more about your journey  and you know, before we get started, do you mind just telling folks a little bit about yourself?

Mikkel Thorup: Sure. So I'm Canadian, but I've been overseas for 25 years now. I've been traveling very extensively during these 25 years.  I've lived in nine different countries. I've visited about 120 and I've circumnavigated the globe over 400 times. I invest overseas. My family has all been overseas. My, my wife is from mainland China.

 As I said, I'm Canadian with Danish heritage. We met in a, in Africa, sorry, we met in Germany.  We got married in Africa. My first child was born in the UAE, second in Brazil, third in Chile, and fourth in Mexico.  So all of our kids are born in different countries, have different citizenships.  We own real estate in almost a dozen different countries.

My wife and I. And yeah, just very, very passionate about these things and very passionate to, to talk to you today  about all of these things.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Absolutely. That is probably the coolest introduction I've ever heard.  And before we, we start talking a little bit more about global investing,  what's been the favorite country you've ever visited?

Mikkel Thorup: Ooh, that's a really hard one. You're gonna start it off on a really hard one, Alex. I don't know. You know, I like all of the really different countries. I like the countries that people don't go to. I like the countries that you hear all these bad things about. And then I want to go and take a look myself and see,  you know what, you know if it's true or not true.

You know, I mean, one of my favorite countries in the world is Columbia.  I first went to Columbia over 20 years ago, and it is just so stunning, beautiful, on every level  with the most lovely people you'll ever meet in your life. But. Doesn't have the bad reputation because of, you know, a man that was there 30, 40 years ago.

And, you know, a lot of things he did in Medellín and  you know, but it's this stigma. But the reality is just so much different.  And you'll find this with a lot of countries in the world. There's so many places that have, you know, quote unquote a bad reputation or something like this. And then you go over there and the people are just amazing.

The food is fantastic and the history's super interesting.  So I, I, I like that kind of stuff.

Dr. Alex Schloe: That is awesome. Yeah, the Schloe family, we, we love traveling.  We just took our kids to to Europe for a little over four weeks. My brother  lives in Germany and we were able to visit with them and go to a bunch of other countries and Cliff, dive and Malta, and it was just the best time. You know, my son's  four and a half and our oldest Jackie's four and a half, and then Owen, our youngest.

 About 15 months and  people are like, man, you're crazy. What are you doing? I can't believe you're taking kids, you know, to go travel in Europe. And we're like, well, we want to go, so  we wanna bring 'em with us. And it was so cool to make those memories and have those experiences. And  I completely agree, Columbia is on our short list of places we wanna go to.

We wanna try and travel internationally at least a month or so out of the year. And so  Columbia is is definitely on our list either this year or next. So might have to hit you up for some recommendations.

Mikkel Thorup: A hundred percent.

Dr. Alex Schloe: That's awesome. Well, let's talk about how he got into the world of global investing. How did, how did that come about for you?

Mikkel Thorup: So for my story, we have to go pretty far back in time. It's kind of divided into threes my international life. So the first call it seven years, I was just traveling and backpacking and just having fun.  I lived in ski resorts for 18 months. I hitchhiked through Central and South America for over a year.

I lived in the South Pacific. I was just kind of, you know, being a late 20-year-old early. Sorry. Late teens, early 20-year-old,  you know, just traveling around the world, just having fun. Eventually I got very interested in personal finance  and I got interested in the, the, the conversation about money and just started  different types of investing.

You know, I was doing the stock market, I traded derivatives. I did. Lots of different things and I did that for probably about seven or eight years and I made a lot of money. Alex and I lost a lot of money and eventually I got sick of losing money in this kind of up and down type of thing. And I. Went away from you know, traditional stock market equity type of investing.

 And I got really into entrepreneurship and then I was getting big into these types of things.  So I kind of took the things that I knew, which was investing  and personal finance, and I sandwiched it with what I was very passionate about and, and I'm still passionate about, which is living overseas and, and traveling.

 And that's when I created our company, Expat Money.  And you know, now our focus is like, as you said in the intro, you know, the tax and the immigration and the structuring and all of these types of things. But the investment side is really the tangible assets. Okay. I want things that I can. Touch and smell and feel and taste and put my arms around.

You know, I don't like,  you know, I have no idea what's on some of these balance sheets for publicly traded companies. You go to look at it, it's all in gibberish.  And even though I'm, you know, would be considered a sophisticated investor, I can't make heads or tails of what's going on in these companies. I want something that I can actually understand.

And for me, that's always been productive real estate.  You know, my parents were real estate investors when I was a child.  You know, they did fix and flips. My mother was a real estate agent and a broker when I was growing up. So I had like a huge background in these types of things. And when we moved into real estate,  it was like, ah, okay.

I can calm down now. I don't have to worry, especially with children,  you know, although the markets can be very exciting, you know, that's not necessarily the best way to do things.  When you have young kids around in the house, you know, you need to be focused and,  you know, it's a, it's all about providing for the family.

So for me, it's, it's very, the productive real estate or the productive assets that I put my focus in.

Dr. Alex Schloe: That's amazing. Yeah. I'm sure your parents were  super pumped to hear about you going into real estate after you also grew up in that real estate environment, and what a cool opportunity for your kids also to  get to learn from you and be in that environment as well.  Any tips or tricks in regards to being an entrepreneur, being a father  any any tips or tricks in regards to that?

Mikkel Thorup: I think the big thing for me is bringing my children into it. So my eldest is nine, our youngest is five months. So we've got a big gap in between, you know, the four of them there. They're, they're, they're pretty evenly spaced out, but I. You know, with our 9-year-old, we try to include her in everything.

So, you know, you know, we're talking about traveling with kids.  We're about to leave for a trip to go to Turkey. We have a second home in Turkey. We're going to Kazakhstan, Stan  Doha, and then I'm speaking in Prague at a conference  and then to Slovakia, back to Turkey and home to Panama. We'll be gone for about three weeks  and my daughter will speak, see me, speak on stage in a couple of different countries.

And, you know, we take her to all of the dinners. She meets all of the clients.  You know, my mother who lives with us for, you know, 10 years now  is part of the business. My wife's a stay at home mom, but she still, still participates in the business. So we're constantly talking about these things. So it's the, the, the family and the business and the investment is always front and center in everything we do.

We don't try to.  Separate  you know, work time and family time or anything like that. It's all blended together,  which I think gives a very interesting childhood. And she asks a lot of really intelligent questions, which is  really cool because we go for a lot of walks together and we talk about things and,  you know, getting her passionate and interested these things  at, you know, 7, 8, 9 years old.

You know, I can just imagine what kind of an entrepreneur, entrepreneur she's gonna be when she's. 25 or 30 or something like that.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Yeah, absolutely. She's gonna be a force for entrepreneurship. That's amazing. And what a cool opportunity also to, to travel with you, to be with you, to see you speak on stage, and to interact with all these different cultures and languages. I mean, it's gonna  make her so well-rounded and so intelligent and to just able to relate to all these different cultures.

It's gonna be such an incredible opportunity for her as, as she gets older and get started on her entrepreneurial journey.

Mikkel Thorup: Well, one of the cool things we actually do, and, and this will be a concrete example for you and I I, since you're a father, you'll probably like this one a lot.  So last year we went through the Balkans and I was speaking at a conference and we were going to these VIP dinners and stuff like that, and there's probably A hundred people at dinner  and and my 9-year-old, well, I guess 8-year-old at that time was with me and I said, okay, I've got a secret mission for you. She's like, oh my goodness,  what's the mission? And I was like, okay, you need to go and find three people and you need to ask them what their name is.

What they do for, for work and if they play a musical instrument or any sports or have any hobbies. She's like, okay.  So she runs off and she's gone for like 20 minutes and she comes back. She's like, I met this Russian woman  and she practices yoga and she plays guitar and she sings  and she does online marketing.

And she's like, I don't know what online marketing is, but it sounds very interesting. It's like, that's amazing.  So she leaves again and then she comes back and she meets this German guy  who plays the drums and likes bodybuilding and things like that.  But it was so funny 'cause I'm walking around afterwards and I'm talking to people and everyone's like, your daughter's amazing.

 She's like I felt someone like. I'm yanking at my shirt sleeve and I, and I turned around and there was no one there. And then I looked down and there's this little kid, and she wants to know if I play any musical instruments.  And she's like, my daughter just goes out there and talks to, to, you know, grown adults  for 20 minutes, for half an hour, completely not shy.

 No inhibition of these types of things and just asks all kinds of questions. I mean, this is, you're a doctor. Every time we go to the doctor, I'm like, okay, ask the doctor  how long they went to school and why did they become a doctor and are they, do they enjoy it? And,  you know, what are the number, the three number thing, the three most important things they need to know about being a doctor?

 every time we meet different people from around the world,  I'm always encouraging her to ask questions. So I think that's cool. I, I really, I, I think this is amazing personally.

Dr. Alex Schloe: That is absolutely amazing. Yeah. It's, you know, I hear, I heard a saying and it's, you know, how to,  how to essentially network and it's, you know, instead of trying to be the most interesting person in the room, be the most interested, and your daughter is already learning that as she's going and she's asking these incredible questions and she's gaining this wisdom and  insight from people from all over the world.

I mean, what a really, really cool opportunity. I,  I absolutely love that. Mikkel, what was your. What was your personal kind of aha moment that led you to build expat money? Or was this something that over time kind of built itself?

Mikkel Thorup: So good question. So as I said before. I was kind of up and down, up and down with a lot of the, the stock market and things like that. And I wanted to do entrepreneurship, but I tried a few things and I failed. I mean, it was, entrepreneurship is not easy. It was  a bit of a trial and error. And I was,  I, I am, was very into fitness as well.

I'm very, you know. Like a lot of exercise. I'm a very athletic person, always have been  even since a child.  You know, I tried to start a gym. I tried to start a clothing company. I tried to start a  supplement. I do all these types of things, but I had, you know, besides an interest in fitness, I didn't really have any competitive advantage of those things.

Then I remember just sitting down with a piece of paper and a pen and just kind of listing out all of the things that I was uniquely positioned to help people with. And it was like, ah, okay.  At that point I'd probably been to,  I don't know, call it 70 or 80 countries, you know, and I was, you know, very early thirties or late twenties or something like that.

 And it was like, ah, that's. Probably pretty unique, you know, 15 years maybe at that time  traveling. And I was like, okay,  you know, I can talk very intelligently about these things. And something that's very difficult to do.  That takes a lot of money, a huge barrier of entry  to go to these places. And, you know, we talked quickly about some of the countries I like.

I mean, I've been to North Korea, I've been to Iran. I was in El Salvador 25 years ago.  You know, I've drove across Africa multiple times. I spent time in Nigeria and  you know, I've been to China 20 times and  you know, all these countries that most people would never have a chance to go to. So. That was something that I had a huge competitive advantage over.

So once I kind of put that together with, you know, finance and money, which is a massive industry on its own,  I was able to carve out a bit of a niche. And there's not many people who do what I do. You know, there's no.  You can't go to expat school or offshore university or something like that, right? Like my work is,  you know, one part lawyer, one part account, and one part,  you know, property developer, one part precious metals dealer.

 You know, all of these things I need to know and be able to speak about and understand and have contacts in. Well, there's nothing like that. You can't go to school for these things. I mean, I didn't go to, to university to learn these things. I. Traveled. I did. I was a Guinea pig. I, I went through it myself.

 I read thousands of books, literally thousands of books about the topic.  And then I mentored under some of the top experts legal minds and accounting minds in the world.  And that's how I built this, know this base of knowledge. But that's not a common path, I would say for a lot of people, but it worked very well for me.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Absolutely, definitely a unique path for sure, and I'm excited to dive further into that. So  let's talk about global investing. Kinda lay the groundwork for global diversification and, and tax strategy. Again  you are, you're not a, a tax attorney, so if anyone is. Wanted to know the nuts and bolts or specifics of this.

Talk to your, your tax attorney or talk to an accountant.  But for someone like myself who's built wealth primarily in the United States,  what are the the biggest reasons to look internationally, whether for investing, tax planning, lifestyle freedom? How would you answer that question? Mikkel?

Mikkel Thorup: Well, yes, and, and just to, you know, double click on what you said, I am not a tax lawyer or a CPA, however, I have full-time lawyers. That work for me at my company.  So you know, we develop a lot of these strategies, but I have the lawyers sign off on everything that I do,  and I work with tax attorneys in the US and Canada and around the world on all of these things.

So, although I'm not a lawyer myself, I do have lawyers who work for me. We're about a 30, 32 person team here@expatmoney.com.  So a pretty fleshed out team  now. As for your question on, you know, why people might wanna look overseas, well, people are doing it for a whole host of different reasons.  I mean, part of it is.

The downside protection. If we look at what happened in Canada during  you know, the trucker convoy where there were people protesting and the government didn't like it,  so they started freezing people's bank accounts. Literally just freezing them arbitrarily.  Even people who were donating their bank accounts were frozen.

 You know, if you don't agree with that, then you know, maybe having an offshore bank account. Might be a good idea, right?  Having a credit card or a debit card in a foreign country,  which your home government can't just arbitrarily turn off, right?  I think that's a very good reason for having a second passport.

 Look at what happened during COVID. They were not issuing new passports. They weren't renewing passports.  You know, it was very difficult to travel in some countries. There was upwards of a six month wait on getting another travel document. That's your freedom of movement. That's your ability to travel in and out of countries,  you know, that is, I would say, one of your rights, you know, to be able to have a, a solid freedom of movement.

 I even had someone during, I mean, putting political stuff aside,  I had a, a friend of mine, a colleague of mine  whose girlfriend accidentally put his passport. In the washing machine, it was in his jeans pocket, and she put the, the jeans in the washing machine destroyed it,  and as I said, there was a six month wait, so he couldn't get a new passport.

But if you have a second travel document, you, if you're a dual citizen and you have a second passport,  well, while you're waiting for the new one to come in, you can use your secondary passport. So there's all these different ways and, and reasons that you might wanna do it.  We follow, you know, a plan B or an economic plan B.

So if you don't like the direction, well, you've got money and assets and a second home and, you know, probably some clothes or something like that offshore or some precious metals offshore that you can  use. If in case you need, I mean, this is all insurance. I mean, it, it's a form of insurance to protect your downside.

If you look at, you know, your niche, I mean, doctors are probably, well, not even probably,  doctors are the most sued profession in the world, along with lawyers, accountants, and nurses.  So it's, in most cases, it's not a question of, you know, if you're gonna get sued, it's when you're gonna get sued and how much you're gonna get sued for.

So, you know, imagine  two scenarios. You have everything in your own name, you know, in your local area, and you get sued. Okay. You've got insurance, great. But a lot of the suits now are going well above the insurance levels,  and they can come after everything. You know, I, I, by the way,  the, probably the largest groups of my clients are doctors and lawyers.

First of all,  doctors and lawyers know the value of specialized information.  You spent a ton of time going to university and learning what you guys know, and then you bill obviously at, you know, very high rates. So if I can save someone  a thousand hours of research or going through this like you guys are.

Clearly very smart. There's no question about that. You could do what I do, but it might take you a thousand or 5,000 hours to study it. You know, what do you bill at, right? So if I can stop an expensive mistake or stop you from getting sued, you know, in my example,  you know, everything is in your own name in your local area, opposed to someone goes to sue you and you're like.

You know, your lawyer goes forward saying like, yeah, you can absolutely sue. So, you know, everything is held offshore in a Cook Islands trust. Nothing's in his own name.  He has like $53 in his personal bank account and, you know, come try to bring a suit to Cook Islands. 'cause it's, you know, I, I used to work under a lawyer  and he said it's not about hide and seek, it's the kids' game show and tell.

Right.  Show and talent. So it's like, okay, I gotta Cook Islands Trust, or I have a Panama Private Interest Foundation, or  you know, Ian Stein Family Foundation or something like that. And this is all legal, completely compliant, but you can hold things offshore and then this  contingency lawyer is not gonna take on the case.

There's no way they're gonna do these things. You know, it's gonna be extremely expensive to go overseas.  Often they'll have to put up the dollar amount or fr, or say 40% of the dollar amount that they're trying to claim. You know, as a bond  before they would bring the suit in, in these foreign countries.

So it, it's just so different and, you know, you change these types of  environments and you can really protect your downside.

Dr. Alex Schloe: That's an awesome answer. Yeah. Really cool to hear.  And it makes complete sense that attorneys and  physicians are, are some of your, you know, most common clients and, and I,  you know, want to foot stop the point you made of. It's worth it to pay the extra or get in the community  to save that time. Right. To save that 500 to a thousand hours at your hourly rate  to go to the expert and, and do that.

So that, that is really helpful.  Let's take a step back and talk about, okay. I'm, I'm a physician reaching out to you, and I just want to  learn the basics of, of what may be beneficial. I have an interest in real estate.  How, how would you approach that person coming to expat money and working with you?

Mikkel Thorup: Yeah, so I follow what I, I call the four plus one.  So the four plus one is the immigration side of things, the investment. The structuring and the tax obligations. Okay, so that's the, that's the four.  The plus one is the lifestyle. The lifestyle is what ties everything together.  Now, if I'm gonna get you a second residency or a second passport, Alex.

If I can do it on the back of real estate, then amazing. So I can, you know, help you buy a piece of real estate. And on the back end I can get you a permanent residency,  which is the legal right to live, work, do business in a foreign country.  But now the question is, alright. How, you know, what are your tax obligations for this?

So,  you know, there's the tax obligations back to your home country, maybe the US or Canada or UK or whatever it is,  and then the tax obligations of the new country.  But we might also wanna structure your property offshore. We might wanna use  an LLC, an IBC, an international business corporation, an SA associated that anima or a trust or a foundation like we were talking about a moment ago.

Well, what are your tax obligations to that third country where we have the structure in? Right? So. You know, this is your immigration, this is your real estate, this is your taxes, this is your structuring, and then lifestyle is. Well, let's try to pick the piece of real estate in a place that you actually enjoy spending time in.

Let's get a lifestyle property or somewhere  that you can go and visit it every year, or you know, if you need to go and check on it and everything like that, you know that you're actually gonna wanna get on an airplane and visit that country because there's no point in doing this and putting it in a country that you hate or you don't like the weather.

I grew up in southwestern Ontario. I don't like the cold weather at all. I like  beaches and sunshine and white, fluffy, fluffy clouds, and you know, blue skies, this is for me, right?  So this is kind of where I start, is we're trying to, you know, work through all four, four plus one of these types of things,  and then we're building it out piece by piece by piece.

Make sense?

Dr. Alex Schloe: That makes a lot of sense. You mentioned second residency or citizen by citizenship, by investment.  What, what does that really mean and, and who's that best suited for? I.

 Mikkel Thorup: So there are many different types of immigration plans. I mean, on the far side you can, you can think of things like a student visa or a temporary visa or a work visa or something like that. Okay.  That is a set amount of time with set qualifications that you get to have that. All right.  You go to university for two years in Spain,  all right?

You get this visa, you know you're gonna work for that company.  You're under contract the moment you leave the visa expires, right? I don't do too much with that. I do another one called permanent residency visa,  so a permanent residency visa. The, the qualifiers are usually to hold that piece of real estate.

For a certain amount of time and spending a certain amount of time in the country every year. So for example, I live in Panama. We've got a program called the Qualified Investors Visa.  My firm and my partners here, we do roughly 50% of the country  of Panama's visas  for this best visa. The the qualified investors.

We've done hundreds of these, and even when the government. Wants to make changes to it. They consult with our office. We actually work with the government of Panama to make sure that things are going forwards and this is what people want, but it's a $300,000 real estate investment.  You have to hold the real estate for a minimum of five years.

If you wanna sell the real estate, you can move it into another project, another piece of real estate,  but you have a six month window to make sure that's done. Then after five years, you can sell the real estate. You can do whatever you want,  but during that time, you have permanent residency and for time on ground, you only need to spend one day every two years to keep it active.

So it's a perfect residency in your back pocket. Okay?  So this permanent residency, you can have it for the rest of your life. So as long, Alex,  as you do those two things, you keep the real estate for five years and visit the country one day. Every two years you're gonna have this forever. After five years, you can apply for citizenship.

So this is through naturalization, spending enough time in the country, having substantial ties there, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. For example, my application went in at the end of 2024 to become a citizen. Probably mid 2026, I'll get my Panamanian citizenship and I'll get another passport. Okay,  so that's.

Permanent residency. Then we've got citizenship by investment or citizenship by economic contribution. So this is where you give a donation or you do something meaningful for the company,  and in return for that, they're gonna make you a citizen. So, for example, I'm a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, which is a small island country in the Eastern Caribbean block.

And I made a donation to the government of St. Kitts and Nevis for roughly a quarter of a million dollars.  And in return they made me a citizen and I was able to get a second passport. Their passport has visa free travel around 157 countries. So. Pretty solid passport you know, internationally rec recognized, and I even get to go to countries with that St.

Kitts' passport that I don't get to go to with my Canadian passport. For example I took a group of my investors to Brazil a couple of months ago,  and it was funny. I was I was traveling in business class, so I was first row of business class. I was the first person off the airplane  and we were flying to Mano in the Amazon,  okay?

The, the major city in the Amazon.  I was coming in from Panama and I knew that Canadians needed a visa. So I kind of looked through the internet in advance,  went through my passports. I was like, okay, St. Kitts and Nevis doesn't need. So I went up to immigration. I handed it to him.  He looked at it, he looked at me, goes, this a real country?

I was like, yeah, yeah, bro, it's a, it's a real country. So he gets on the internet, this is just a quick story,  gets on the internet and starts typing around and stuff like that. And he's like. Is this your country? I was like, no, man, that's not my country. Like he's like, this it. I was like, yep, that's the one.

That's the one. He's like, okay. So he pulls up. I swear to God on my life, Alex pulls up Wikipedia and is looking at the national anthem and the flag and all of these types of things. He's just like, like stamping the thing and he's like, can't be, can't be never heard of this country, but visa free travel.

And I got into Brazil with that where everybody else was standing in line for an hour because they had to get a,  a visa in advance. And then they had to pay all this money and then they had to go through it and scan. And I was the first one through immigration. Because I had a second passport. So second citizenship or citizenship by investment is a good option that allows you to do a lot of things like travel to countries you normally wouldn't be able to.

 Or if you put your passport in the washing machine  like I talked about, you know, now you have another travel document and I could go on and on and on about stories about why these things are are beneficial to investors like us.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Sounds like no shortage of of benefits in terms of global diversification of  investments. What are, what are some of the, the cons or what are some of the gotchas in terms of investing? I'm sure  that's certainly location specific, but what are some things that folks should consider looking into a little bit more closely if they're gonna invest internationally?

 Mikkel Thorup: So you definitely need to know the laws. Where you're going to be investing. And more than that, you need to know the laws of your home country and what your tax obligations are, because it can get very, very complicated.  You know, you said something earlier about, you know, check with your tax attorney. Yes and no.

I mean, you need to check with a tax attorney, but you need to check with one who understands cross-border transactions because if they don't have experience with these types of things, their answers are either going to be  no, or it depends. It depends. In legalese is code for I don't need, I don't know the answer, and I need to go and look this up,  and I'm gonna charge you a lot of money to go and try to find out these answers.

All right. That's why it depends.  So instead of working with just a, a local, you know, CPA or local tax lawyer, you know, your best bet is to find someone who specializes in this so that they can give you definitive answers on what is allowed and what is not allowed, and how we, how we file, what our reporting requirements are, what your tax obligations are,  and they just have a much different view of the landscape.

I'll give you a, a doctor analogy, okay?  You don't go to an oncologist for brain surgery, right? Like, you're not gonna go to a dermatologist if you know you're, something's wrong with your ankle or you need orthopedic surgeon, or,  you know, you, you, you have to go to the right specialist for the right thing.

It's like that with doctors. It's exactly like that with lawyers. Okay? So, you know, not all lawyers have the same breadth of knowledge. You know, they might be extremely good at criminal law, but know absolutely nothing about asset protection law or real estate law or tax law or something like that.  So my recommendation is find the right professional and that's why everybody that we work with@expatmoney.com.

Our, you know, brain surgeons in our specific, you know, field on, on these types of things. Make sense?

Dr. Alex Schloe: That. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that.  Well, you work with clients on, on foreign real estate. Where are you seeing some of the best opportunities right now in terms of real estate?

Mikkel Thorup: So I'm a big fan of Paraguay. I've been visiting Paraguay for several years now. I've had an opportunity to meet the president of Paraguay on a few occasions,  and it is just an amazing country with so many things going for it.  So it is a small, well. Relatively small country in the, the heart of South America.

They have no coastline.  They have major rivers that run through it, but no ocean. They're very friendly with their neighbors and it is a pro-business, right-leaning government. I've had an opportunity, as I said to, to meet the president, Santiago Peña. I met him here in Panama for a private luncheon with a, with a few people from the private sector.

 Then about a month or two later, I had an opportunity to sit down with him for about half an hour, one-on-one in, in Paraguay, in kind of an off off the books type of meeting. But I'll quickly tell you, you know, I was talking to him and I was advising him on immigration  and what foreigners are looking for in foreign direct investment and things like that.

And he was listening, you know, very intently.  And suddenly Alex, he, he, he leans forwards and he touches me on the shoulder and he says, Mikkel. I know what you're talking about. You're talking about freedom, and I was like, yes, Mr. President. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's exactly what I'm talking about.

And I just doubled down and started investing so heavily in Paraguay afterwards. I, you know, I own commercial real estate. I own office space, I own residential, I own raw land.  I've just been putting in tons of work and money and energy and effort.  We just had a group that we brought to Paraguay of our investors where I actually led a tour there.

For eight days. Eight nights,  and I think we had around 50 people. 50 investors on the trip, and these are all, you know, high net worth or ultra high net worth families who are coming down to take a look. And everybody was just blown away by this country and what they're seeing in the path of progress there and what this, what is happening.

So it is a developing country, but it is catching up so fast under Santiago Pena, you know. 47 years old, you know, really good head on his shoulders, you know, taking away all the friction  and the barriers to investing, and it's like, wow, this is amazing. I actually even started a newsletter called Paraguay Potential Paraguay potential.com,  just because I'm so passionate about talking about this country  and what's going on there.

Dr. Alex Schloe: That's amazing. I, I have to admit, I don't know a whole lot about the country, but definitely gonna look into it. That's, that's really cool.  Are there any other countries that are top of mind right now from a real estate perspective or an investing perspective for you?

Mikkel Thorup: Yeah, I mean, I do a lot here in Panama where I'm located. Panama's, a Dollarized economy. We've got the the Caribbean, the Atlantic, we've got the Pacific, we've got mountains. It's organic food.  It's a very safe country. Phenomenal medical facilities here. Very international you know, group of expats, not just from US and Canada  or Europe, but also from the rest of South America.

You think when Venezuela went socialist and, you know, Peru and Bolivia and you know, all the productive members of society, they moved to a country, you know, that respects property ownership and things like this. So, you know, we've done a lot here in Panama.  I'm constantly having clients visit me like.

Usually three, four times a week.  I'm having dinner with clients here in Panama 'cause they're in and out of the country.  So we really like Panama a lot. We mentioned Columbia before. I have a lot of projects in Columbia, specifically in Medellín,  which is my favorite place in Columbia. We also own some Timberland in on the, the far east side we have about 6,000 acres of Timberland out there.

 And, I think that's a very good option too. You know, a lot of the stuff in Columbia's because of this perception versus reality. We're very invested in the northeast of Brazil. I think that there's some really interesting things happening in Brazil about, you know, I've got a lot of Brazilian staff.

I love Brazilian culture and music and food. My second child, as I said, was born in Brazil, so I'm a big fan of that. You know, we do a bit in Costa Rica,  you know, lots of countries, a lot in Latin America. I, I will tell you that, you know, we're not finding the freedom in,  in France or in Sweden or something like that.

You know, those places that have. Potentially 80% taxes.  We like the low tax countries or the zero tax countries.  That's a lot more interesting for me.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Yeah. Well that makes a lot of sense for sure.  Well, you mentioned Timberland, so what, what are your thoughts on tangible investments like timber, agricultural land? How do those fit into the portfolio for you?

Mikkel Thorup: So I think it's very difficult to get into these types of things. In North America, the price of the land is very, very expensive.  But in Latin America, you can still pick up large portions of land for very affordable prices.  Now, the interesting thing is that in some of the regions you're going to invest.

They don't have. You know, a long-term mindset, a lot of it is very short-term.  So if you can come in,  you know, very educated, if you can have a long-term mindset and see things  that go well in other places, and then kind of transplant those ideas and work with the local communities,  then you can do some really, really spectacular things.

And that's usually what we're doing. You know, I work with a family office.  In Medellín Columbia and you know, they've got European background and  you know, we're bringing in some really, really smart minds. But the price of land is, is so, so cheap in Columbia that you can just do these amazing deals that you would never be able to do in the US or,  or you were able to do in the US but a hundred years ago.

Right? So we can kind of look back through history and it's like, alright, what worked in, in, you know. Western countries.  And now how do we take those ideas and move them offshore  where the cost of labor is a lot less,  where the cost of land is a lot less. And then scale it up with modern technology and modern ideas.

And I, I'm a big fan of Timberland.  I like agricultural types of things. I like productive real estate opposed to, you know, ragging on  the stock market. It's like, alright, so you have a PE ratio of like. A thousand and you have no idea, you know, this company's never made money before. You have no idea what's going on and you're just supposed to hold it and then, you know, one day sell it, which is okay, great capital gains, but now you have a capital gains tax  opposed to productive real estate, which generates income and you can live off of and you know, put a roof over your head and feed your kids and stuff, you know.

That for me is a lot more interesting.  Now, I know there's dividend point, you know, portfolios and stuff, but those are usually 2% or 3%.  I'm talking double digits in, in cash, on cash return, plus capital appreciation.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. A lot, a lot of benefits. And then adding on the  specific, you know, country benefits as well and path of progress, as you mentioned,  certainly can, can make. That investment even more exciting. And,  you know, I, I just keep thinking about how cool it would be to own some somewhere abroad and be like, yeah, I get to go visit and hang out in Panama and stay in my house that I own.

You know, just really,  really cool opportunity.  Well, how can someone evaluate the stability or the safety of investing in another country? Or if someone's listening to this and like, wow,  the world's big. How am I gonna start narrowing this down?

 Mikkel Thorup: Well, you definitely need to do your research, and I highly encourage people to visit the places on their own as well. That's why we do quarterly investors tours. This year we've already been to Paraguay twice.  We did Brazil, we did four or five trips to Panama, and now at the end of the year we're going to Columbia with a group of people.

 I choose these countries because this is where I see the biggest opportunity. And every year we try to go to new countries and we're checking out new things. And the cool thing is, Alex, that you know. I have. Okay. My research team, you know, we've got a, a PhD, political scientist, expert, you know, who's, you know, looking into all of these things.

 I'm very well connected with a lot of the local administrations and I know a lot of the ministers and, you know, minister of tourism came and spoke to us in Brazil when we were there.  So we're getting a lot of connection directly from the government. We meet a lot of the private sector. We have the research, but it's it's really cool because.

I'll go to a country, I'll start investing there. I'll be the Guinea pig,  and if I like it, I bring the clients.  And now I've got 50 other smart, sophisticated investors  who are asking developers and bankers and politicians and stuff. You know, a whole multitude of questions.  It's like, here's what I see, you know?

Here's what Mikkel Thorup sees. All right. Now what do you guys see? All right. Do you see the same thing that I see?  Do you see the same path of progress? Is this interesting to you as a community? We're actually a lot stronger 'cause it's not just reliant on one person.  You know, I'm not the bottleneck in any of these things.

Because we've got all these memberships and we do all these special reports, you know, we're constantly updating them and,  you know, modifying and we're following all the local politics and geopolitics and,  you know, all the changes in the laws. And,  you know, we read all the laws that we're talking about.

You know, we read the Constitution. I've read the Constitution of most of the countries  you, so when I tell you,  okay, Panama's a territorial tax country. Am I just repeating something else?  No, it's at the constitutional level. I've already read the laws. I actually know how this works. I've already gone through it.

I've sat down with the lawyers,  I've sat down with the government officials  and looked at the taxes and how, you know, where it applies and where it doesn't apply. You know, we're the originators of a lot of these ideas. Sometimes you see stuff online and it's like, people have never done this themselves.

You know,  they've never worked with, you know, side by side with clients. They've never actually been to these places.  But like we're in the thick of it. We're on the front lines of all of this. So to answer your original question,  I mean, would be to join a like-minded community and work with people who know and then, you know, get a bit of boots on the ground experience.

You know, I think that's the best way to go about it.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Yeah. And I think another question that comes up and, and probably comes up quite often is,  is financing and, and what does, what that looks like in other countries. And I'm sure  each country has its own flavor and it's probably not the 30 year fixed mortgage like we have here in the states.  What does that look like?

Mikkel Thorup: If you could give a brief overview of what financing  a real estate property, for example, may look like in another country.

So here's an interesting one. We do almost zero financing. Now, it is possible to do financing, but I don't really agree with it because remember we were talking about protecting our downside. You know, if you look at 2008, 2009, what happened?  You know, people went underwater on those properties, so they add, ended up owing more than the property was worth.

This is when they mailed back the keys. Okay. I don't want a situation like this at all. So what we're doing is we're being very strategic. So for example, in the northeast of Brazil, you can get, or you know, you know, I have gotten  beach front property and I mean front row on the beach, not, you know, squint in the distance from the third floor and you might see the ocean.

I mean front row on the beach  lot plus home,  brand new build rental ready for around a hundred thousand US. So you don't need to finance, most people will not need to finance something like this, right?  And because we do pre-construction, actually what we're doing  is we're putting a small deposit down and then we have milestones.

 So let's say it's 20% down. So in this example, call it 20 grand, right? And then they do the permitting, they prepare the land and they put the foundation in, okay, foundation in,  you know, another 10% or another 20%, something like that. So, you know, it's. 20 grand in and then maybe another 10 grand six months after that.

 Alright, now walls go up, roof goes up, you know, they seal the place they, they close it in  another 10%. So you might be in 30, 40% in, and then. A couple weeks before keys delivery, that's when you pay off the balance.  But during that time,  you've probably, the, the price of the property has gone up by, you know, anywhere from 30 to 50%,  but you've only been in for 30 or 40%.

So really, what have you done?  You've doubled your money  within two years  at far fair market value for the property. Now, some people just trade the paper, so before titling,  they'll resell it at a profit. Other people hold it.  They'll go through the titling process  and then they'll cash flow on it. Like I, I'm a big fan of holding properties for long period periods of time.

Or sometimes people will buy multiple properties, put down as little as possible,  then sell a few of the units, use that cash  to pay off the first ones. And so now you have. A couple of properties free and clear that you basically got at a discounted rate. And what we're seeing with a lot of these is, you know, if you're, I'm gonna talk in general terms.

This is not individual investment advice and nothing in life is guaranteed. All investment contains risk, including the risk of, you know, loss of your principle, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  Is cash on cash return for long-term rentals, you're probably looking at about  six to eight, six to 9%, and then  short-term rentals, you're probably looking at around nine to 12%  in year one.

 So that's just the cash on cash. And then for capital appreciation, we're looking at between five and 10% in most of the countries we work in.  So you would take your realized gain of your cash on cash and your unrealized gain of your capital appreciation,  and you put them together  so you can be at, you know, 15,  you know, 19% return on these,  plus the 50% during the build cycle.

And by the way, it's a titled property, so it's completely freehold. There's no leasehold. You have it for the rest of your life. Property taxes are very, very low.  And by the way, we were able to get you a permanent residency on the back end to have a plan B.  And oh, by the way, it's a beautiful place to go on vacation  and you know, talk to your local accountant,  but should be a good tax write off if you need to go and visit the property every year to go do maintenance or check on it or something like that.

 There can be deductions. For going and taking a look at it.  So, you know, all of these things build on one another piece by piece by piece. And I mean, I don't see, I, I look at a lot of investments, Alex. I don't see a lot of things like that, you know, in Toronto or Vancouver or,  you know, places in the States as well.

So, yeah.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Yeah. What a cool. Opportunity for sure and  a, a great value stack in terms of investment in return. That's not just the tangible,  you know, kind of cash on cash return. It's some of these other things that we don't think about as much  that that's really important.  That, that is awesome. Well, you know, Mikkel, a lot of physicians.

Who are listening to this, they value freedom. They value freedom from burnout, from bureaucracy, from  financial stressors. How do you feel like international strategies fit into that pursuit of freedom? I know we've,  we've kind of already hit on some of those things, but is there anything else in terms of the freedom equation that you feel like we may be missing?

 Mikkel Thorup: So  Alex, I've been traveling for 25 years straight. As I said, I've been to roughly 120 countries. I've. Done some amazing things in my life.  I've looked at many different countries and religions and histories and cultures.  I try to see the world from many different people's points of view.  You know, my family, we speak four languages in the house at all times.

My kids are native level in English, native level in Spanish, native level in Mandarin Chinese, and speak Brazilian, Portuguese as well. Very, very, very, very international family. I am. Freedom on all levels, at all fronts. This is the most important thing to me. There is nothing, Alex, nothing that compares that I have ever seen in my 25 years  that will move the,  the ball downfield for freedom.

As much as going offshore. I mean, this is  the practical side of libertarianism. Everybody is always asking, you know,  you know, the theoretical side is why we should pay less taxes, or why we should deregulate or why all of these things.  But this is the practical side of it. It's like, how do you pay less taxes?

 How do you protect your downside? How do you,  you know, travel and live life on your own term? And freedom of movement and freedom of speech and negative freedoms, freedom from coercion, you know, things like this. This is it. You know, this is, this is the practical side of it. This is how you actually do it,  and that's what I've dedicated my life to.

Dr. Alex Schloe: That is awesome. What a great answer.  I feel like a lot of people who are listening to this are intrigued, but maybe intimidated by, by the process.  What's the first step to explore this responsibly?

 Mikkel Thorup: So I will do a blog for our newsletters. I think that we have a very solid newsletter and a couple of smaller sister newsletters. If you go to expat money.com, you can sign up. We've got about five different newsletters depending on what your interests are.  We've got EMS Pulse, which is our daily correspondence where we're writing.

 We have the Expat Sunday Times, which covers all of the news  and the new laws and the new things that are coming out.  We've got Paraguay potential, Paraguay potential.com talking about Paraguay. We've got Brazil beachfront. Talking about all of the things that are going on in Brazil,  and we just launched a new one called Off-Grid Plan B,  which is about off-grid communities, about solar, about mature.

You know, we, we've got projects where we've got mature fruit trees  and you know, water independence and how do we, you know, protect our downside from. Kind of systemic type of things or, or problems with the food supply.  So, you know, depending on what you're interested in,  you know, we've got a lot of free content on our website@expatmoney.com and I'd, and I'd love to invite  you know, your physicians and anybody listening today to go and sign up.

I mean, you'll be in very good company.  There's a lot of really cool people in the community and we put a lot of work into these newsletters and and they're a lot of fun too. They're not boring stuffy newsletters. If, if you've got anything from today's conversation,  I mean, nothing is very boring.

Or Stu you know, there's a lot of stories. It's, it's really interesting stuff. And if you're interested in freedom, then this is the practical side of it.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Absolutely. We'll be sure to include those links in the show notes as well. And I've, I've read some of your newsletters and I can agree they are, they're not stuffy, they're not boring. They're really insightful. I learned a good bit about Paraguay and that was exciting and I'm looking forward to exploring some of your resources more  as we kind of wrap things up here.

What. Two to three practical steps. Obviously getting the resources going to expat money.com.  What are two or three practical steps that maybe a based physician could take in the next 12 months  to begin diversifying globally?

Mikkel Thorup: So I would say everybody needs to have three major things. These would be the foundational pieces of an offshore plan. Okay.  The foundational side doesn't mean this is where it stops. This is just where. It starts,  so number one would be a. A permanent residency or a second citizenship in a foreign country.

Okay?  This is the immigration piece.  So you want to have somewhere that you can go to  in case you know things get bad or you need to travel or you lose that travel dock, everything we talked about. So  you know, the immigration number two would be a second home. I encourage you to get,  you know, a property overseas, you know, short term rentals work really well.

So while you're not using it,  you can rent it out cash flow a little bit.  If you can get a lock off closet or a lock off room or  something down in the parking garage, you know, with a, a storage unit or something like that,  you can put in a couple suitcases  with a change of clothes and some personal effects and things like that to make it your own.

 And then if something happens,  then you can go to it while you're not using the property. You can rent it out, you can get some cash.  Then the third thing would be some finances or some money or some gold or something offshore,  some access to capital.  For example, at expat money.com/gold,  we talk all about precious metals held offshore.

 And if we look at the performance of precious metals over the last year  call it. A year and a half has been extremely good  and these types of ways you can actually get access to capital overseas.  So we even have a way that we work with a fully allocated, fully segregated, fully insured depository  in the Caribbean.

 And let's say you put in. A hundred thousand dollars. If you need access to cash,  you can take a loan against your precious metals, which is not a taxable event. So you don't have to sell your metals. And they have an LTVA loan to value ratio of 70, 70%.  So if something happened there was an emergency, or you needed access to capital within a day or two or three,  you're gonna get access to that capital.

They can send it anywhere in the world. So I think if you put those three things together  over the next 12 months, you're gonna be drastically better off than your peers  and a lot more protected.  So a second residency,  a second home, and access to capital overseas,  for example, offshore banking or precious metals or things like that.

That would be the starting place. And then we would build and grow and, and add to it from there.

Dr. Alex Schloe: That's amazing.  I feel like that is a great place to wrap things up. Mikkel, this has been eye-opening.  Is there a place where folks can reach out to you, connect with you if they want to know more? You mentioned expat money.com. Is there any  anything else you'd like to plug or anywhere else that folks can reach out to you?

Mikkel Thorup: Well, I think expat money.com is  definitely the best place. We also have our podcast. We've been going for almost 10 years, hundreds upon hundreds of episodes. We have a new episode airs every Wednesday. I think yours is also every Wednesday. So wherever you guys are listening to us today,  there should be a brand new episode of The Expat Money Show on there.

So just search that. But yeah, amazing conversation. I really appreciate your time and having me on, and,  and a fantastic program. So keep up the good work. Thank you very much, Alec.

Dr. Alex Schloe: Thank you, sir. Really appreciate it. I'm excited to go to expat money.com and dive down the rabbit hole. So luckily I don't have any meetings for a little bit coming up, so  looking forward to learning more and reaching out to you. I appreciate your time.  Thanks everyone for listening. With that, it is Mikkel  and Alex with another episode of the Physicians and Properties Podcast, signing off.

 Hey, real quick, if you're still listening to this, I'm assuming you got value from it, so I need your help. Specifically, my two year vision with this podcast is to help 100,000 physicians learn how investing in real estate can give you the freedom to practice medicine and live life how you want. There are two main ways that a podcast grows.

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