Caminha, Lifestyle Investing, and the Power of Relationships

Episode Summary

In this episode of Notes From the Field, Ronan McMahon shares an on-the-ground update from Portugal after time spent on the Silver Coast and in Caminha—one of the most compelling lifestyle markets on his beat.

But this dispatch goes beyond market fundamentals. Using his own home purchase in Caminha as the case study, Ronan reflects on what has made the investment successful so far, the mistakes he made earlier in his career, and why relationships—not just numbers—can make all the difference in overseas real estate.

Episode Description

Broadcasting from an airport hotel near Porto after two weeks in Portugal, Ronan checks in with fresh perspective from both the Silver Coast and Caminha. While he notes that the Silver Coast has clearly entered a much more internationalized phase—with stronger demand, more Americans on the ground, and fast-rising values—the heart of this episode is Caminha.

Rather than simply restating the investment case for the area, Ronan uses this dispatch to examine his own purchase there and ask a more important question: what actually makes an overseas real estate investment successful?

For Ronan, Caminha was never just about numbers. It was a lifestyle-led purchase—one designed to create a home his family would love, a place to host friends and visitors, and a long-term base in a stunningly beautiful location. But as the project has unfolded, it has also reinforced a much bigger lesson from decades on this beat: success overseas is not just about finding the right property. It is about building the right relationships.

From local banking support and trusted service providers to neighbors, rental managers, and project teams, Ronan explains how investing time in people has helped unlock smoother logistics, better decisions, and a richer overall experience. It is a lesson he admits took time to learn—but one he now sees as central to making overseas investing work.

He also touches on the continued momentum in Caminha itself, where demand is growing, international interest is widening, and the right kind of inventory remains limited. For Ronan, it is still one of those rare places where lifestyle, scarcity, and long-term upside intersect in a very powerful way.

In This Episode

Ronan covers:

• His latest impressions after time in Caminha and on Portugal’s Silver Coast
• Why Caminha was primarily a lifestyle-motivated purchase
• How to define success based on your actual investment goals
• The importance of building strong local relationships
• Why banks, neighbors, rental managers, and vendors matter more than most buyers realize
• Lessons from earlier mistakes in overseas real estate
• Why getting ahead of logistics and timelines is critical
• How Caminha continues to benefit from growing demand and limited inventory
• Why the market still has room to run

Key Takeaway

A successful overseas property purchase is about more than buying well. It is about knowing why you are buying, getting ahead of the process, and building the local relationships that make everything else work.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi there and welcome to your notes from the field. I'm talking to you this morning from the Aporto Fly Hotel. Um some melodic lobby tunes playing in the background. Um the new hotel does exactly what I'd hope for from an airport hotel. It's inexpensive, good bed, good shower, not noisy. Um interesting setup all around. Just as I look out the lobby door, I see a big cornfield. Um to my left, I see another airport hotel, and to my right another airport hotel. It looks like it was a little piece of farmland close to the airport up to a you know a short number of years ago, and it's been converted into a small area of four or five airport hotels. But um, I came down here last night um flying back to Ireland today. Um, today, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this week. I'll be back at base in Ireland, and Friday I fly to Portland for IL's boot camp. So looking forward to seeing a whole bunch of you fellow members in Portland um over the over the coming weekend. Um but this notes from the the the field. I have been in Portugal the last two weeks. That has been four days along the Silver Coast and the last 10 days in Caminha. Um I'll save the update from the Silver Coast for another day, another moment. Um suffice to say the market now is in full-blown internationalized mode. Um lots and lots of Americans there when I was there. The real estate is is is is on a tear. Those of you who got in have done phenomenally well. Um I couldn't even get into my apartment except for a turnover window because essentially it's it's rented, it's fully rented through through through all of July. So it was great to to be there. It was great to see the how the opportunity there has materialized. But um, as you well know, here at Rita, we're always moving on to the next places. We always want to be in stunningly beautiful destinations before the people arrive, stunningly beautiful destinations where we can buy insanely cheap real estate. And that's what I found in Caminha. That's what I found in Caminha when I first put boots on the ground there a couple of years ago, and that's what I continue to to to find in Caminha. So to orientate those of you who are who are new to us here at Rita, Caminha is on the tippy top northwest corner of Portugal. You know, that might sound and feel kind of remote, like on the end of the world, but you're literally just an hour from Porto's international airport. Um you're literally just an hour from a major European city of Porto. And my wife and I bought a 5,000 square foot historic mansion and perched on a hill with just incredible views across the Minho River to Spain and to the beaches of Spain, the beaches of Portugal and the Atlantic. We bought it for an absolute song for 410,000 euros. Um and you know, to be able to buy, you know, such quality real estate in such a blue chip location for less than uh a hundred dollars per square foot, you know, it's it's pretty, pretty no-brainer. Um but here in these musings, um, I don't want to rehash the case for Camina in the alert that goes with this. I'll send you our full report about why I ranked it the best place on earth to buy real estate this year. I'm not going to tell you about Galicia, and um not because it's not important, it is, and you'll be hearing a lot about it in the coming months, and you'll be hearing a lot about it at the gathering. Galicia is just right across the border, and it's where the opportunity is headed. In this musings, I wanted to assess whether my purchase here has been a success. And if yes, it's been a success, what has made it successful? What has made me successful to date in this venture? And you know, essentially what I want to do is to hone in on some of the huge learnings I've made on my multi-decade. I wanted to just hone in on some of the the early journey mistakes I've made, to highlight them, and hopefully to make sure that that you don't have to have to make them. So first of all, how do we how do we measure success? Now, this was a we can only measure success against a against a stated goal. And that's where this whole idea of profiling yourself and being really, really clear about what you're getting into a real estate deal for becomes become becomes super, super important. Um so you know, many, many real estate deals I buy purely for a financial return. Uh, I buy many pre-construction deals, primarily looking for capital appreciation with some rental income. I've bought in multiple locations where I've bought real estate that's utterly unappealing to me as a thing, but generates great, great cash flow. Other deals, like for example, my Capcana purchase, that fits in a box, which is a mixture of lifestyle potential, capital appreciation, and income. Keminia was a deal that was primarily motivated by lifestyle. So the the goals were to buy a home that my wife and I love, a place that we'll both really want to be and to and to spend time, a place where we'll be able to accommodate visitors, um where family and friends can come and visit and hang out and stay with us, without it being overpowering, without it either being everyone cramped and all over each other, or alternatively the house being too too big and sprawling. We were looking for somewhere that was easily accessible for us. And then this is also a financial asset, you know, this is also a not insignificant investment. And wherever I'm putting my capital, you know, even in an asset that's delivering lifestyle returns, I also want to be able to see a financial return over time. And you know, that financial return comes in two buckets, capital appreciation and rental income. And in this case, the rental income expectations were extremely low because it's in a place where the people haven't started arriving in great numbers outside of peak peak holiday season yet. Um so uh we bought a home that was you know uh in the perfect move-in shape, but I guess what we found when we got into things is that uh the the aesthetic wasn't quite what what was was what was our dream, and there were things that needed to be changed. Um so uh the the the first uh thing is uh you know the the first assessment of the success of this, you know, relates to uh the the the team I assembled to be able to make it all happen. And while musing on this, you know, a huge learning point that I've taken into this beat over the past, I guess, past close on a decade now is the importance of building relationships. So a couple of decades ago when I started at this beat, I was extremely busy. Um I took the view when I'd go to sit down with a vendor, let's say it's a bank offering a mortgage or a lawyer offering legal services or a rental manager. I kind of took the view that hey, you're in the business of selling me a mortgage, I would like a mortgage. Can we just cut the chit-chat and can we just sign on the dotted line and move on with our lives? And what I have found on this journey is that investing in relationships, it just is the key that unlocks everything. You know, we're going into places where these dealings aren't transactional. We're going into places where people will do business with you if they like you, um, and they just won't care if you know if you're not polite and not courteous and not, you know, not just respectful, but when you build that relationship, um it's the key that that unlocks everything. And you know, in terms of the early stage success of this Caminia venture, um so much of that hinges on the relationships and friendships that we made locally that unlocked contacts, unlocked vendors, and just unlocked huge generosity. And these are the types of things that you know can make the difference between a venture like this being a total nightmare and um just a heavenly smooth experience. And and our experience thus far has been has been extremely smooth. So in terms of my banking relationships with with Kaisha and Caminha, I mean I I just I just don't have words for how well um I've been treated there. Just the the the the warm welcome, the open arms from you know from Carla the bank manager, Daniel who handled my mortgage application, from everyone else who's who's who's helped me. And um you know I would like to think that that's in part a function of you know me being more open and me being you know excited and enthusiastic about building that relationship. And you know, to to a large extent, this this idea of of forming relationships, you know, for me it was a bit of a learned skill. It was something that I had to work on in those early days, because remember, I was in my you know, early, mid-30s go-getter, you know, thought I was very important, thought I was very busy, and um didn't felt I didn't have or didn't want to commit the time to to to small chat. You know, it turns out that investment in small chat can be the best investment you can you you can make in this entire journey. You know, also we built other friendships and contacts locally, you know, for for example, we had been staying in a wonderful hotel called Via Via Idalina, um which is very very close to our home. And um through through Via Idalina, we found our interior designer and project manager for the project. So she came twofold, both highly recommended, and also we had seen firsthand the quality of her the quality of her work and and loved it. You know, when it came to meeting meeting with rental managers, you know, I followed a rigorous set of steps. So what I did was I identified who were the top performing renters of comparable, you know, size houses in the area, who was commanding the top rates, who had the top reviews, and then followed the trail back to see who was managing those properties. And um I found my way back to um to to a group, um, and they came and visited the house before we had the renovations complete. They came out to visit again um this last week when they were complete. I've been very impressed with their proposal and the overall quality of what their customers say about them. And um and I haven't signed on the dotted line yet with them, but I but I expect we will. So I got out ahead of things like finding the right rental manager, you know, at at earlier stages in my journey, uh, I would arrive, take possession, and then go, oh hey, now I need to find my rental manager, and then everything is rushed and it's bad decisions, you know, get out ahead of things and let get out ahead of things, map a process, let the process decide the outcome. Um so we have, you know, the another big takeaway. We had we've subtrees that overhang our our neighbors, part of our neighbor. We've an avocado tree that overhangs part of our neighbor's property. We have a barbecue that we built that's close to our wall, a coal-fire barbecue. And our neighbor had voiced some concerns about these two to the guys who were working on the property. And um, you know, we we we could have got defensive and we could have reacted negatively about that because you know, she also has things overhanging our garden, and she also is a barbecue. Um, but we went with a very open mind and in a spirit of neighborly friendship, and uh you know, we've struck up a great relationship with with our neighbor, and you know, it's incredible how much of a richer experience that that's made things because it turns out that our neighbor was actually born in our house, and we were worried she'd want us to cut down some of our trees. But when we went to speak with her, she could tell us the history of every tree in that garden, and there's a particular type of orange tree in the back in the back of the house, and her face nearly welled up in tears when she'd describe how how sweet the the the oranges that come off that tree for two weeks in in mid-December are. And um, you know, what I could see is a woman who you know has this connection with our home, and I'm guessing that that that sweet fruit is a connection with Christmas time and and and growing up there. So all these things have just made the experience unbelievably smooth, rich, and and just possible because you know there's there's courtesies and there's protocols around things like parking, neighborly behavior, and um now I make a very very big and concerted effort to get out ahead of of all of these things. And um, you know, to to repeat this, this was a strategy, and unfortunately or fortunately, this is in part a learned skill, and it's also a part of of where I am in life now versus um versus 15 or 15 or 20, 20, 20 years ago. But it's what it's become is it's not like it's a learned skill that becomes difficult to repeat or a chore to repeat. It's a learned skill that's been been truly, you know, just truly fun and enriching. And you know, I had to go to the bank on on a number of occasions last week, and I was just really looking forward to it. I was really looking forward to going in, having a chat, seeing my friends, shooting the breeze, and um doing my business, getting really, really well looked after and moving on. And that's that hasn't been my experience dealing with banks any anywhere else. And you know, I've no doubt it's just not possible in in other places, um, but here it is, and it is once you invest in in that relationship, then to the financial side. I mean, or I'm very, very excited. Again, this place was was lifestyle motivated with some financial kicker. The market there is is really really strong. And it's really, really strong. There's more lot more Americans coming, more northern Europeans coming. The Caminia area is really opening up to tourism beyond that well-heeled Porto market that it had been dominated as. Nearly all of it could have been prevented or circumvented by being well out ahead of it. You just need to be well out ahead of managing all of this stuff. Because remember, you're you might be in a place like, I mean, I've been moving back and forth between Portugal and Ireland in August. You know, you're looking for a lawyer or you're looking for um another professional, an accountant in in August, in Portugal or Ireland. I mean, forget it, you know. I mean, it's just not even, I mean, everyone's on on holiday. So these are the types of things you need to understand and work around and get out ahead. And if you think you might need something from your lawyer in August, you better be asking them in June, or you better be signposting what you need and and when you need it. And then what you'll get is trust and generosity, and you'll have professional relationships that where there's a very high level of trust, and you have a comfort and a security that they're they're acting in in your interest. So that's the big takeaway. All the other kind of macro ideas about Camina, about being ahead of where the people are moving, that is just happening faster, stronger than I ever imagined. The Camina window isn't closed, um, there's still an opportunity there. And um, you know, we'll I'll dig more into that in the coming weeks about the specific types of homes where there's where there's still opportunity, but this is a very, very special place. Um, you know, it is a place that I set, I believe will continue in a stealth explode mode. And when I call it stealth explode, I mean that more and more people are going to come, and there's limited inventory because it's not a place where you can build a lot of condos in that. Um, and I think values will for the right type of real estate in the right location will pop, but it's a truly, truly special place, and you know, it's just very interesting. Also, the this idea of figuring out where the well-heeled locals go, where do the fancy people from Porto go? Well, Caminha is one of those big places. Where do the fancy people from Greece and Italy go? Where do those locals go? Um, because those locals are typically out ahead of the wave of foreigners coming. So there you go. Um, I'm gonna jump in my airport shuttle now, head to Porto Airport, and um get back to Cork this evening.