Why Belize Is on Every Expat and Investor’s Radar
Belize isn’t just another Caribbean destination. With its turquoise waters, lush jungles, and vibrant culture, it has become one of the most sought-after countries for those seeking a second home, retirement paradise, or “Plan B” residency.
The appeal is simple:
English is the official language, making daily life and legal processes easy.
Property ownership is straightforward and protected under common law.
The cost of living and real estate prices are still affordable compared to neighboring Caribbean nations.
Belize offers clear residency paths for both retirees and investors.
Whether you’re relocating full-time or diversifying your portfolio, Belize provides an unmatched balance of lifestyle and opportunity .
The 3 Levels of Immigration in Belize
Before diving into the residency options, it’s important to understand how Belize classifies entry and stay:
Tourist Visa – Stamped on arrival, valid for 30 days. Perfect for vacations but not long-term living.
Residency – Similar to a U.S. green card, residency gives you the legal right to stay in Belize year after year.
Citizenship – A longer path that can follow permanent residency, granting you a second passport .
The difference is critical: a tourist visa only lets you visit; residency gives you the legal right to stay.
Residency Programs in Belize
Qualified Retired Persons (QRP) Program
Eligibility: Age 45+
Requirement: Spend a minimum of 30 days per year in Belize
Benefits: Duty-free import of household goods, vehicles, and even boats
Who It’s For: Retirees looking for a simple, low-hurdle residency program
Investor Residency
Eligibility: Minimum real estate investment of US$250,000
Path to Citizenship: After five years of temporary residency, you can apply for permanent residency, and eventually citizenship.
Qualifying Properties: Branded developments like the Marriott Residences in Ambergris Caye meet the requirement.
Who It’s For: Investors seeking returns and a secure Plan B .
Why Ambergris Caye Is Belize’s Investment Hotspot
Belize is diverse, with mountains, farmland, rainforests, and over 350 islands. But when it comes to investment, one location stands out: Ambergris Caye.
Tourism Leader: Generates 70% of all tourism revenue in Belize.
Path of Progress: Comparable to the Bahamas or Cayman Islands 20 years ago—popular enough to generate income but still affordable.
Mainstream Appeal: International brands (Best Western, Marriott) now operate on the island, catering to middle-class travelers who want predictable, high-quality stays .
The Case for Investing in Belize Real Estate
1. Scarcity Drives Opportunity
Tourist arrivals up 91% in 11 years.
Hotel inventory only up 36%.
Demand is outpacing supply—creating high occupancy rates and strong rental returns .
2. Affordable Entry Point
Whole ownership in the Marriott Residences starts at $350,000.
Similar properties in the Caymans, Bermuda, or Costa Rica would cost 2–5x more.
3. Strong Market Alignment
Marriott earns from maximizing occupancy and daily rates.
Highgate Hotels (operator) earns from profits, ensuring efficient management.
Owners benefit directly from both high revenue and profitability .
This alignment means everyone is incentivized for success.
Lifestyle Benefits of Living in Belize
While returns matter, quality of life often seals the decision.
Healthy Living: Organic fruits, vegetables, seafood, and hormone-free meats.
Active Lifestyle: Diving, fishing, snorkeling, cave tubing, and jungle adventures.
Community: A welcoming mix of expats and locals, with social hubs like The Truck Stop in San Pedro.
Cultural Richness: A blend of Mayan, Garifuna, Creole, and international influences.
Belize is more than an investment—it’s a place where you can truly feel at home .
How to Take the Next Step
If Belize sounds like the right fit for your lifestyle or portfolio, here are three action steps:
Download the Belize Handbook – A practical guide with everything from holidays to transport tips.
Get Mike Cobb’s Book – A free Kindle download with deeper insights into overseas property ownership.
Explore Residency Options – Decide whether QRP or Investor Residency is your best path.
Final Word: Belize as a Lifestyle and Investment Haven
Belize is at a rare point in its development curve: affordable, accessible, and internationally recognized. Whether you’re chasing sunsets from your balcony in Ambergris Caye or securing a legal Plan B through investor residency, this country offers a unique mix of freedom, security, and growth.
For retirees, Belize offers simplicity. For investors, it offers strong returns. And for those seeking a second home or second passport, it offers peace of mind.
Now is the time to explore what Belize has to offer—before the window of affordability closes.
Transcript:
00:00
Mike Cobb
Liked it, you know, sleepy and quiet. But Ambergis Key is not sleepy and quiet anymore. But there are other places in the country that are, and we’re going to talk a little bit about that today as well, so. Yeah. All right.
00:15
Katie Ejikeme
Well, I think we got enough. Yep, everybody is pretty much logged in. It’s been steady, so we can go ahead and get started. The recording will be, or, I’m sorry, the session will be recorded. So if anybody makes the first couple of minutes or has to leave early, we’ll make sure that you get a copy of that.
00:30
Mike Cobb
Absolutely. And I think we have some resource material as well, don’t we?
00:35
Katie Ejikeme
Yeah, always have that Belize 101 handbook. That’s a great guide. I use that often still. Just refer to. So we’ll make sure we can get that over, I believe, in the session. We’ll have it up one of the screens. Infocidevelopment.com you can always reach out to that if you’ve missed something during the webinar or you want to request one of the resources, including your book. I’m not sure if we have a slide on that, but that is.
00:58
Mike Cobb
We do. But I want to make a quick announcement. We actually have now figured out how to give away a free copy at Amazon. It took us a little while to work with Amazon and figure that out, but if you want to get a free copy, it’s a download. You can decide to buy the paperback and they’ll ship the paper back to you. But if you want the download of the book, if you send infocidevelopment.com Dan will send you the link that will allow you to go into Amazon and order your Kindle copy. Your E Copy. Kindle copy for free. So anyway, so that resource is now readily available for folks on the webinar as well.
01:39
Katie Ejikeme
Awesome.
01:40
Mike Cobb
Yeah. All right, well, let’s go ahead and get started. We’re gonna share the screen. And Katie, you see the screen? Okay.
01:54
Katie Ejikeme
Yeah. Everything popped up for us. Belize Residency and Real Estate 101 webinar.
01:58
Mike Cobb
Terrific. All right, well, then, here we go. All right, thank you, Katie, and thank you, Diego in the background for. For getting us all set up today. And. And thank you all, most of all, for. For joining us. Taking some time out of your day to learn a little bit more about Belize residencies and the process by which you can obtain a residency and then also what it means to, you know, live overseas. I mentioned my six months in Belize back in 1998, but I actually started working in Belize 33 years ago. I Bought my very first condo out on Ambergris Cay, started a little mortgage company which in 2003 became Key International Bank. I like to put that out there for two reasons.
02:41
Mike Cobb
One is transparency, that I was a founder of the bank, I still serve on the board and the management committee. And it’s a great company because it provides mortgages not just for ECI properties. In fact, very few of the bank’s loans as a percentage are to eci. So if you’re watching this, you end up looking at properties anywhere in Belize or throughout Central America and you would like to look at doing some financing, Key bank will certainly provide that for you. But, but having worked in the finance sector early on and then starting our development company, ECI Development, 29 years ago now, so been working in the region a long time and serving a lot of folks with products and services that they needed.
03:25
Mike Cobb
What I like to do at the beginning of this presentation specifically is ask you to take a very short self reflective quiz. Probably should have had you grab a piece of paper or maybe open up your phone or something, just a notepad on your phone, anything where you can keep track of a very simple scoring system. You’re going to give yourself a number, 1, 2 or 3 and we’ll talk about how that works in a second and at the end we’ll just, you can add them up and then come up with your score. You know, we had Katie sending folks sending information to Katie, where you were calling in from. Have you been to Belize? I always like to see the results of the quiz. So at the end of the quiz it’ll take us about five minutes to go through it.
04:08
Mike Cobb
If you add up your points, send your points in. I’d love to see where you are on the Are you ready to live overseas? And a lot of these questions are lifestyle related because this is a residency webinar. So presumably people are looking to live there, be there part time, full time. But these questions also really kind of work for an investor as well and you’ll see why in a minute. So are you ready to live overseas? Are you ready to invest overseas? So here’s the first question and the point system is the same the whole way through. If the answer is no, you give yourself one point. Two points is sort of, yeah, sometimes three points is a solid yes. And so here we go. The question is, hang on, I’m going to get rid of this thing. So I can see.
04:53
Mike Cobb
There we go. Are you usually one of the first to try new things, new foods and new experiences? If the answer is yes, give yourself a three. The answer is no, give yourself a one. And if you’re in between. Right. So are you usually one of the first to try new things, new foods and new experiences? Yes. No. Sometimes. Are you able to relax, willing to adapt to a slower, easier going pace? Are you able to relax, willing to adapt to a slower, easier going pace? Are you a self starter who doesn’t wait for someone else to get things done? Are you a self starter who doesn’t wait for someone else to get things done? Are you willing to learn the basics of a new phrase in language? The basic phrases of a new language? Well, here’s the good news about Belize.
06:00
Mike Cobb
It’s English, but. But anyway. But are you willing to learn the basic phrases of a new language? Right. A lot of folks speaking Spanish, there’s so. So you don’t need it, but you might want to actually, you know, learn a little bit of Spanish or Creole actually, while you’re there as well. Question 5. Do you make new friends easily? No. Sometimes or yes. Do you make new friends easily? Are you an optimistic, glass half full kind of person? Right? Are you an optimistic, glass half full kind of person? Are you financially secure enough that you do not need to work? Are you financially secure enough that you do not need to work? Are you open to new adventures and new activities? Are you open to new adventures and new activities? Do you have a hobby or interest you really want to pursue?
07:25
Mike Cobb
Do you have a hobby or interest you really want to pursue? Yes. No. Sometimes? Are you comfortable being a visible minority in a new country? Are you comfortable being a visible minority in a new country? Are you easygoing enough to deal with long lines, delays and bureaucratic delays? Are you easygoing enough to deal with long lines and bureaucratic delays? Are you genuinely interested in getting involved in a new community club or activities? Are you genuinely interested in getting involved in a new community club and activities? When faced with problems, are you creative in figuring out how to get things done? When faced with problems and challenges, are you creative in figuring out how to get things done? Do you respect different cultures and realize that you are moving to their country? This one’s a big one.
08:55
Mike Cobb
Do you respect different cultures and realize that you’re moving to their country? Are you healthy enough, both mentally and physically, that you do not need constant medical attention? Are you healthy enough, both mentally and physically, that you do not need constant medical attention? All right, add them up, folks. Add them up. I’ll give you just a moment to do that. This this quiz that we just took, it’s so simple, right? It’s 15 little quickie questions. But in the, you know, 30 years of working with folks looking to move overseas, this quiz has been the absolute best predictor of success when people move overseas. And it really goes to culture shock. If you had to kind of boil it down, are you going to be able to handle culture shock, the various elements of it?
10:00
Mike Cobb
And this quiz, believe it or not, as simple and as quick as it is, has proven to be the absolute best determiner on the front end whether somebody will be a good fit, whether. Whether you will stick or not, right? Many people make the move, you know, some don’t stick, right? This quiz really does determine that fairly accurately. So here we go. So if you got less than 20 points, please just stay at home, drop off the webinar. Although if you’re, if you’re thinking about this as just an investment, you might stick around. But if you’re thinking about moving and you got 20 or less, it’s gonna be really tough. 20 to 29, it will be tough, but you can work your way through it. You can, you can get to the other side of the culture shock.
10:48
Mike Cobb
You know, 30 to 35, you’re in pretty good shape, right? If you got 30 to 35, you know what, you’re gonna face the culture shock, you’re gonna wade into it, and you’re gonna be okay. Anything over 36 you like, you’re on your way, you go for. Really, Is that deterministic? This, this survey is incredible. So I hope you guys will put in the comment section of the question section. I can’t remember which one it is, but wherever Katie had you putting where you’re from, and have you been to Belize, put your score in there. It’s always nice to see that. And what I know from experience in doing this now for a long time is that if you’re on this webinar, you’re probably in the 30 to 35 at least, and a whole bunch of you guys are in the 30 to 40 plus.
11:42
Mike Cobb
So anyway, we got a bunch of.
11:45
Katie Ejikeme
Folks in that 40 plus range. So we have a good crew on the webinar today.
11:50
Mike Cobb
Absolutely, Katie. I’m not surprised. I’m just so not surprised at all. It’s great, but thank you. That’s great. And thank you for putting them in there. It’s just wonderful to see, right? To know that folks really are ready to go, so to speak, at least mentally are ready to make the move and do what it takes. So anyway, here’s where Belize is. I think most of us know if we’re on this webinar, but just sort of a very visual map. I did not know where Belize was when I went in 1993 on my very first trip, but I said yes, and I went anyway. Belize is a lot of things. It’s beaches, its towns, its mountains, its farmland. It’s many things. It’s islands, about 350 islands off the coast, right? So Belize is not one thing. Belize is many things.
12:39
Mike Cobb
And that’s really important to understand. And we’ll drill down into that a little more as we get there. But before I like to talk about sort of this, I call it the Detour. But you know, for a lot of folks, you know, we have to say, you know, why do folks want to move to Belize? Or why do folks want to move overseas? But in this case, we’re going to talk about Belize today. There are really two reasons people move overseas or get a residency overseas. One is the easy one, which is running towards, right, the weather, the lifestyle, the affordability. I mean, all the things that are just wonderful. But there are folks, and it doesn’t have to be one or the other. By the way, I think a lot of folks carry both the running towards and the running from.
13:22
Mike Cobb
And we’re not going to spend a whole lot of time on the running from today. We’re just going touch on the two main reasons right here. This is the only slide on that. The two main reasons that people really are running from their home country. Generally. I think a lot of folks see this incredible train wreck of debt. The deficits are insane. I don’t know what the percentage of GDP is. I think it’s over 100% now debt. So I think there’s this real recognition of the problems that this debt is going to create for society. And that’s really the second part. As things start to rattle and come apart a little bit, we have social unrest and we’re starting to see some of the signs of that.
14:09
Mike Cobb
And so if we’re looking for a place to run, you know, run to, right, we’re going to run from something we want to get away. What we really call that is a Plan B, right? It’s a Plan B. And I think a Plan B is simply something that we, maybe we’re glad we have it, right? It’s sort of the Boy Scout motto of prepare for the worst and hope for the best. A Plan B residency is becoming more and more popular. So many folks are now doing it. In fact, we’ve helped, I think the numbers about 800 folks now with residencies overseas, not just in Belize, but throughout the region. Because people want that Plan B, they want to have a residency overseas. And we’re going to talk about what that means later.
14:53
Mike Cobb
But if you hear somebody talk about a Plan B residency, what it really is it’s something you put in your wallet or put in your pocketbook. You hold on to it if you ever need to leave because stuff’s hitting the fan. You have a place to go, you have a place you can stay, and it’s your Plan B. That’s really where the words Plan B comes from on that. But what we’re going to talk about for the rest of this presentation really is the concept of running to. Running to Belize. In this case, running to a wonderful lifestyle. We’re going to drill into that, but first we’re just going to talk about Belize. The population is incredibly small, 360,000 people. I mean, there are many US cities. I mean, like we say, a small city in the United States is 350,000 people.
15:39
Mike Cobb
And so you’ve got a whole country with a very small population. And the great thing about that is the country of Belize doesn’t have the same kind of population pressures that other countries do. And that really manifests itself in many ways with lots of open spaces, lots of rainforest, lots of jungle, and lots of affordability. If you want to own a piece of property, English is the official language. These are the only two points I’ll make here. English being the official language, what that means is that all contracts, all paperwork, everything official that you would need to do for your property ownership for your residency, those documents are all in English, and they’re legal in English. That’s a big deal.
16:23
Mike Cobb
Because if you go outside of Belize to the rest of Central America, while you can get it’s all Spanish and it’s all civil law, you can get English translations, but the Spanish language document is always the legal document here. It’s in English, presumably. English is, for most of us, our first language. We can read the documents, we can understand the documents when we’re there. We can move around in society with little or no language issues. It’s tremendous. While Belize is a mainland country, it really fronts to the Caribbean, and it just feels a lot more like a Caribbean country than it does a country of Central America. Part of that’s the language, but. But a big part of it’s also the heritage. They’re part of caricom, which is the trade group for the Caribbean. So they’ve kind of re.
17:10
Mike Cobb
They’ve kind of faced towards the Caribbean and obviously there’s a lot of coastline and a lot of islands that do just that, water sports. People love to be on the water. There are incredible Mayan ruins. The diversity inside the country is absolutely incredible. Everything from jungles to lowlands to mountains to beaches. Again, the Mayan ruins are absolutely spectacular. If you get there, you’ve got to try cave tubing. You can see you. You push off here and you float into a cave underwater. You see, everyone’s got their little minor light helmets on. And it is truly otherworldly to float through caves. In fact, I think Belize. Belize is the only country in the world that I know you can do this. It is. Is incredible for the adventurous.
17:58
Mike Cobb
If you want to do some skydiving out over the Blue Hole again, just tons of things going on that are just wonderful activities, amenities, both in the water, in the jungle, in the rainforest. Everything from big groups of people, exciting stuff, to just spending time, you know, out fishing and enjoying what nature has to provide living there is very healthy. The, the Mennonites do a ton of farming. Organic fruits, vegetables, fish right out of the ocean, meats and cheeses, organic farm raised, free range, hormone free, Very affordable. If we go back in history, we see the Mayans settled about 2000 or about 1500 BC. So it’s about 3500 years ago, about the 12th century. They kind of just faded away in the ruins. You know, the cities became ruins in the jungle and they’re being reclaimed and they’re just spectacular to go visit.
19:00
Mike Cobb
And then Christopher Columbus came over in the late 1400s and then it was really. There’s been one war in the entire country. It was in 1798. And in fact, a war is probably too strong of a word. It was a battle, a single battle in between the Spanish and the English. The Battle of St George’s Key. And it became British Honduras in 1798. And that’s the only war the country has ever experienced. And what’s that? 200 and 230 years ago, something like that. Incredibly diverse population. Mexican, Mayan, Garifuna, British, U.S. canadian, Latin Americans. It really, truly is an incredible melting pot of people and cultures and language. English is the official language, but you’ll hear many different versions of English, the dialect Creole, you’ll hear Spanish spoken, you’ll hear French spoken as well.
20:03
Mike Cobb
So it’s really kind of interesting, all the different elements of the diversity there. Belize set itself up. And by the way, it went from British Honduras to Belize in 1981, they gained their independence. They still remain a member of the British Commonwealth. The Queen is still on the money. And they, like many of the other British Commonwealth countries, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos, British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Bermuda, they really looked at how they could take financial services legislation and make that a core of their economy. Agriculture was probably the biggest, certainly before 1981. And then in the 80s, they said, you know what, we can really work on this financial services legislation. We can put in great asset protection laws, banking laws, and focus on tourism.
20:56
Mike Cobb
And so they’ve really, as a country, modified how they promote their country as a business destination. And asset protection, financial services and tourism have grown and grown, and for lots of good reasons. You saw the pictures before of all the incredible bounty that Mother Nature has gifted the country. And then on top of that, there are these great business reasons to also be in Belize. Key bank, again, I’m founder of the bank, sit on the board and the management committee, financing properties all over Belize, all over the region. And again, not just for eci, but for. For anybody looking for a property in that part of the world, the bank can serve them. And that’s again, because of this incredibly strong financial services legislation that is there in the country. Let’s move on to talk about residency a little bit.
21:52
Mike Cobb
And I know a lot of people will have a lot of very specific questions about residency in this presentation or at the end of the presentation, I’m going to basically say, now that what we’re talking about is very general information and you may have specific questions that would be relevant to you. What I would ask is if you have questions about residency that you either send them to infocidevelopment.com or put them in the chat, but if you send them to the email infocidevelopment.com then one of our property consultants will get back to you with very specific answers to your specific question. So at a very general level, there are really kind of three, I don’t know, three elements to a residency. Right. Or a visa. Like, let’s start on the left. The tourist visa. Right?
22:45
Mike Cobb
The tourist visa is what you get when you come to a country. You’re not planning to live there. You’re just going on vacation. You walk up to the immigration booth and. And they say, you know, welcome to Belize, and they stamp your passport. And in Belize, that tourist Visa is good for 30 days, right? It’s 30 days. You can come in the country, you can have a great time, but at the end of 30 days, you got to leave, you got to go home. It’s a tourist visa, right? Residency, true, residency visa is something different. A residency visa is equivalent to a green card in the United States, right? The last one is citizenship, right? The third level citizenship. But let’s just talk about residency for a second.
23:27
Mike Cobb
You know, one of the fallacies that many U.S. and Canadians and even Europeans and Aussies have is that, you know, like this plan B idea, right? That if stuff hits the fan, I’m just going to leave. You know what? Yes. You’ve got a U.S. canadian, you know, German, Aussie passport. No problem. Get on an airplane and leave. You can go to 100 countries around the world, walk up to the immigration booth, and they stamp your passport with that thing on the left. It’s called a tourist visa. It allows you to enter the country, you can leave your home country, you’re blessed with a great passport. But 30 days into it, you have to leave because it does not give you the right to live there. It just says you can come and visit, right?
24:08
Mike Cobb
So if stuff’s really hitting the fan back home and you truly want a plan B, then what you don’t, what you really need, is not the ability to leave. What you absolutely must have is the ability to stay. And that’s what a residency gives you. It gives you the right, the legal right to stay in that new country for some period of time, year, 2, 10, lifetime, whatever that is. That’s your plan B. Your plan B is the right, the legal right to stay outside your home country for as long as you want or need to. And that residency is what gives you that right. The last thing on the right is citizenship. Now, citizenship is a big step. Not very many people get a second citizenship. You can. It’s possible. And it’s also possible with the residency to citizenship process in Belize.
25:03
Mike Cobb
It takes time and it takes money. For most people, a residency suffices. But for some of you who may want a second citizenship, that path is also possible here. Belize has a few different residency programs. The easiest to get, and for many people, this is Perfect, is the QRP, the qualified retired person, 45 or older. So they make that hurdle pretty low to jump, right? You got to spend 30 days in the country. You can bring stuff in duty free. It’s a great program. If you’re going to live in Belize, you’re going to be there more than 30 days a year, six months a year, you know, 365 days a year, you meet the qualifications, boom, you can pick this residency up. It’s very easy to get and it’s great if you plan to spend a lot of time in the country.
25:55
Mike Cobb
The permanent residency is this next one, which is the investor’s residency. I’m going to go to a. Well, that’s good. I’m going to bounce past the next slide in a second. But basically what the investor residency says is if you make an investment in Belize, a qualified investment, which the Marriott Residences, which is one of our properties that we have, qualifies you, then you can get an investor’s residency and it will lead to citizenship. The eligibility is the US$250,000 minimum investment. You can live and work in Belize. But the nice thing is that it gives you the ability to transition to a citizenship at some point in the future and the other residencies do not give you that option.
26:43
Mike Cobb
So if you’re looking to move from residency to Belize and an investment is the way you want to go, you don’t want to spend, you know, four weeks a year in Belize, you got other things going on. This is the way that you may want to look. The timeline is simply very simple. We’re going to send this out and in fact we have a residency guide that we’ll send out that’s even a lot more detailed than this. But anyway, basic timeline. You know, you get your residency, you know, you submit your application in person, interviews, you get a five year temporary residency. After the fifth year, you get a permanent residency. Now you have a permanent right to live in Belize after the fifth year. And then if you choose to, you can take that permanent residency at that point and apply for citizenship.
27:33
Mike Cobb
So now let’s talk about some properties in the country, some areas of the country that we choose to work and, and they’re pretty representative of what’s happening and throughout the country. But there’s a beautiful part of the country in the south called the Placencia Peninsula. It’s on the beach. We are working with a, a property owner there to develop beautiful farms. They’re close to the mountains and it’s incredibly fertile land. Beautiful rivers bordering the property and then homesteads, farmsteads as we’re calling them for folks that want to have a lot of times a Plan B, right? It could be a Plan B. I’m just going to get the property and hold on to it in case they ever need to move there. But a lot of folks want to have a place that they can call their own overseas.
28:20
Mike Cobb
And you can put a small home on it for $30,000. Right. 299 bucks a month. And, and it’ll be a place that you could actually, you know, have a wonderful home, have a farmstead. If you’re interested in this, please hit us with an email and let us know that and we will send you the information as that property becomes available for ownership. There’ll be one and two acre properties there. You can certainly get a couple of them, combine them. If you’re looking for something a little bit bigger. Out on the island of Ambergris Cay, this is the largest of the islands off the coast. It’s 26 miles long, you know, 2, 3 miles wide. Most places we have the Best Western franchise. We’ll talk about why the branding is important later. But it is a beautiful residential resort community.
29:12
Mike Cobb
Huge swimming pool, bar, restaurant, fitness center, places to hang out, lots of activities going on there. You know, the aerobics, people hanging out, having a good time in the evenings. And a new building that’s just under construction right now should be finished up here in the next several months. The tagline on this, you know, really is the bottom there off water affordability with all the amenities. Right. You’re three blocks from the Caribbean. This is a brand new building. I think there are maybe eight or nine of the residences left. Beautiful appointments and finishes and financing available, of course. Right. With KeyBank. This is one of the studio. Beautiful views from the top floors out across the bay. You’ll have sunsets out across the Bay of Chettamol, but all the amenities are there.
30:06
Mike Cobb
The pool, the clubhouse, the gym, the bar, the restaurant and financing is available. Just some ideas of again what the property is and if you’re looking for affordability. Three blocks off the water. This is incredible. If you were to go to places like the Turks and Caicos or the Cayman Islands or Bahamas, you just be adding, you know, times three, times four to this number to get the similar property three blocks off the water. This is a beautiful little community. There is only one remaining left here. And if you’re interested in a beautiful tiny home over the water, $268,000. This is a fantastic new neighborhood just coming online. The pool is being finished as we speak. It’ll open up in the high season of this year. Just a tremendous property and a great place that you can come visit.
31:04
Mike Cobb
And when you’re not there, put it in the rental program. And now I want to talk about sort of this. I call it the investor alert. And this is important because while we’re talking about residency and lifestyle, I know that many of you are looking at Belize as predominantly an investment, at least in the short term. Maybe it’s a place that you would want to come to later. And I want to talk about why. Ambergis Key, Belize, and it is Ambergris Key, Belize, truly is the best investment in Central America today. I was on a call with one of our property consultants earlier today, talking with a gentleman and, you know, why is Belize such a great investment right now? And we’re going to talk about that.
31:48
Mike Cobb
But it really boils down to this very simple concept, and that is Ambergris Cay is like the Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos or the Cayman islands, you know, 15, 20, 25 years ago, right? This is a time machine opportunity. Because you could imagine if, if HG Wells showed up right now in your home or office, wherever you’re watching this from, and said, hey, hop on this thing with me. I’m going to take you back 20 years, bring one check with you. I’m going to let you run around for an hour or two. You can make one investment. I’ll bring you right back to this exact moment. I’m pretty sure that all of us are coming back a lot wealthier, right?
32:29
Mike Cobb
Hindsight’s 20, so if we could go back 20 years and buy a condo in the Caymans or Bermuda or Bahamas, I’m pretty sure that most of us would do it right now. Belize is that opportunity. It is coming through this path of progress, right? Countries or parts of countries, they come through this path of development, path of progress. Places like Bermuda, the Caymans, the Cancun, Mexico, very popular, right? Cash flowing like crazy. But the price of the real estate there is 2, 3, 4, 5 times what it is in Belize and places like Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, not nearly as popular. The price of real estate’s less, but there’s not as many people going there. So you don’t get the kind of cash flow that you would get in a place like, you know, Cancun or the Cayman Islands.
33:19
Mike Cobb
Belize is in the sweet spot of this curve. It’s popular enough to cash flow, but the prices of real estate are still a fraction of what they are in these other mature destinations. This is why Belize is truly the best investment in Central America in today. And we’re going to look at why that is a little before I got there. But not much before the late 80s, this was the airstrip in San Pedro, right? And seaplane and a little bit of pavement, right? Today it’s a bunch of Cessna caravans and big, you know, big air traffic to bring the, you know, the tens of thousands of people that come out to the island every month. If you look at the overnight arrivals to the country of belize, back in 2009, it was 230,000, right? Ramped up to 20, 19, 500,000, bam. It’s going strong.
34:10
Mike Cobb
Covid hits poof, right? It gets knocked way back. But look at that recovery. Look at how fast that Recovery went from 150,000 to 560,000. Best year ever last year. Overnight arrivals are skyrocketing for the country of Belize. And the reason the overnight arrivals are skyrocketing and is it’s easy to get there from like all over the US and Canada. You’ve got Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, the big carriers, United, Delta, American, they’re coming, right? But you’ve got WestJet and Air Canada coming in from Canada. You’ve got Copa bringing people from Latin America up, right? Airlift to Belize has exploded incredibly, making it easy and affordable. Southwest, right? Airlines, discount carriers. So again, very affordable to get to Belize. And there are hints of European carriers looking at direct air connects now as well. So we’ll certainly keep you posted as that changes.
35:11
Mike Cobb
But today, about 75% of the arrivals are from the U.S. and Canada, 25% are from, you know, the rest of the world, Europe and other places. What we’ve decided to do as a company. But I think it’s important for all of us to understand, you know, if you’re looking for a market to serve, you want to serve the travelers that come to that destination. And Belize is a middle class market, right? The Uber rich, they’re off to the Caymans because they don’t care if they spend, you know, $3,000 a night, right, Or Bermuda, right? They’re going to, they’re going to spend lots of money to be there, right? Belize brings in a middle to upper middle class clientele. And as you see from this chart, the yellow is the chunk of population. It’s the largest piece of the population, right?
36:00
Mike Cobb
You get off to the, right, the rich people, it’s a pretty thin yellow strip out there underneath the red line, right? Middle class. This is the market for Belize. And one of the things that really is important to focus on as an investor is, you know, what are people saying about the destination, right? TripAdvisor is wonderful because TripAdvisor is just people like you and me who go on vacation and we write about it to TripAdvisor. Yeah, it was great. Whatever we want to say, right, we don’t own hotels there. We’re not doing advertising. We’re just saying, what experience did we have? Ambergris Cay, Belize, in the top 10 destinations. Now take it to the other side of the equation. Business owners, right? People who own a property and they put it on Airbnb. These are business owners, right?
36:48
Mike Cobb
They have a property and they’re renting it out as a business. AMbergis key, Belize. A plus, right? Tamarindos, Costa Rica. A minus. Not bad. But the other places on here, getting Bs, right? But ambergris key, A plus. The business people are saying it’s a great place to do business. And so why is this an investor alert? The answer is a major. And that’s probably not even the strongest word I could use. Phenomenal. Unbelievable market shift. And, and, and the reason I put this pizza slide up, because people are like, I love doing this presentation live because I can see people’s face. And they’re like, what the heck is that? If you’re an investor and you own a pizza parlor and you hate anchovies. Presumably, if you’re a good business person, you will sell anchovy pizza. Because it’s not about what we like.
37:48
Mike Cobb
It’s about what the clients like. It’s always about serving other people with what they want. If we’re in business, right? It’s what our clients want. Well, you may say to yourself, I don’t want to live in, like, little Cancun, right? And Ambergris Key is not quite little Cancun, but for the country of Belize, it’s the Cancun of Belize. I would say it that way. And you might say to yourself, well, that’s not for me. It’s not what I want, right? And if this is about lifestyle, there are beautiful beaches, there are beautiful farmlands, there are beautiful mountains. There are places all over the country that are very different where you could find the lifestyle you’re looking for. But if you’re an investor, you want to be where the money is. And when you look at Belize, it drills down to location, location.
38:39
Mike Cobb
And the location you want is Ambergris Cay. If you’re an investor, 70% of all the tourism revenue for the country of Belize, 70% of all the tourism revenue for the country of Belize goes through that little island right there. You got to follow the people, you got to follow the money. If this is an investment, if you’re looking to make an investment in Belize, you want to make your investment on Ambergris Cay. And the town out there is called San Pedro. So you’ll hear us talk about Ambergris Cay, you’ll hear us talk about San Pedro, right? Same thing. It’s quaint, it’s charming. Like, this isn’t Cancun, right? But for the country of Belize, it is the Cancun, right? It’s, it’s full of golf carts.
39:24
Mike Cobb
And, and we talk about this transition of the country, but even again, more specifically, San Pedro and Ambergris Cay from this niche market to a mass market. How did that happen? Well, let’s go back to when I first started going there in the mid-90s. All you saw were divers and fishermen. There were Mayan people went out looking at the Mayan ruins too, of course, right? There were ornithologists looking at the birds in the jungle, the Mayan ruins. But out on the island, you had really two groups of people, divers and fishermen. And I use the word fishermen because you almost always saw men, you saw very few women. There were guys out there fishing. They were staying in pretty basic accommodation. Fishing camps, fishing lodges. Why? Because they wanted to fish, they wanted to dive. You know, they were out, they’d gone fishing.
40:14
Mike Cobb
Like, they didn’t care about the room. That was a place. They spent a few hours to get a few, you know, a few hours of sleep before they get up, you know, pre sunrise to go fish or dive again. Right. People that were there for those niche markets, they weren’t spending money on the hotel. They were buying a third tank of air or a fourth tank of air to go diving again later, maybe a night dive or something, right? And so that’s what you had. And over the last, you know, 30 years, we’ve moved from this niche market of mostly men, very simple accommodations to a vibrant tourism destination where you see young people and couples, right? You see a whole different demographic of folks. You see people coming for honeymoons and getting married. And, right. You see families and kids.
40:58
Mike Cobb
You never saw kids, tourist kids. I mean, you see local kids, but you never saw tourist kids 30 years ago. Now it’s so different. And we’re going to talk about the why. What happened, right? What moved Ambergris Cay, Belize as a country, but Ambergris Cay specifically, from this extreme niche market, right, to this vibrant tourism destination. What did it, because if we understand what did it and the why, we can make a really good decision about what might be a great investment. We got to go all the way back to 1986, you know, maybe eight or nine years before I even went there, Madonna came out with a song, La Isla Bonita, right? She’s talking about last night. I dreamt of San Pedro, the little town on the island, right? That’s really the first popular culture reference to Ambergris Cay and Belize.
41:48
Mike Cobb
But then bam, right? All of a sudden this TV show, Temptation Island, I think it was cbs. Anyway, major network is one of the three major networks. Back when people watched network television, prime time, Temptation island was filmed on Ambergris Key, Belize, right? That put Belize in a much bigger popular culture. And then the Survivor series did a couple episodes, a couple seasons in Belize. So again, you had Temptation island, then you had Survivor, right? So now it’s in the popular culture, it’s on prime time, it’s on the major networks. This is getting people to really think about Belize. But what changed the market more than anything else, what shifted the market were the cruise ships. The cruise ships started coming to Belize, a few in the 90s, but really in the 2000s.
42:38
Mike Cobb
And, and the thing about a cruise ship customer is that they are a mainstream traveler. They are not niche in any way. They’re getting on a cruise ship, they’re going from place to place. They’re getting off, they’re doing some fun things, they’re getting back on the ship, right? It’s about as mainstream as travel gets. And there was resistance in Belize. There was a lot of pushback from the hotel association and the Belize Tourism Industry association in the late 90s and early 2000s. Because rightly so, you know, the associations are saying, well, the hotel association, like, why would we support cruise ships? Why would, why do we want them here? These people don’t sleep in the country. It doesn’t help the hotel business at all.
43:20
Mike Cobb
And there’s a woman on Ambergris Cay who really became my mentor when we bought our very first hotel property there in 1998. And she and I really pushed back hard and helped to maybe not support the cruise ships, but to certainly remove the opposition to them coming. Because the argument was, you know, short sighted to say, well, they don’t stay in hotels. That’s true. But with cruise ships, maybe, you know, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 people on these ships, some days there’s two or three cruise ships dropping off, you know, three, four 5,000 people, right? Some small percentage of those people are going to walk around Belize or go cave tubing or go snorkeling or whatever. And they’re going to say, that country is awesome. We got to come back here again someday.
44:08
Mike Cobb
Honey, let’s, you know, and it might be three years, five years, 10 years from now, but they’ve been to Belize and they want to come back someday, right? Well, when they come back, they don’t want to stay at Mike’s hotel. They don’t know who Mike is. They have no idea whether the, you know, there’s going to be a coffee maker, the water, will the Internet work? Is the bed going to be comfortable? They don’t know me from Adam. And so when those cruise ship travelers, those mainstream travelers decide they want to come back to Belize, they’re going to look for a brand. They’re going to look for a brand. It’s certainty. I know what I’m getting. Best Western. Yeah.
44:44
Mike Cobb
I mean, it’s not a high end brand, but you know what, I’m pretty sure that there’ll be a coffee maker in the room, there’ll be water, the Internet will work, the bed will be comfortable to be clean. Right. It’s not fancy, but it’ll be what I can expect. I’ll get what I expect for the price I pay or marry it. Right? It’s definitely on the higher end and you’re going to get more of a luxury experience. But both fit the middle class, but both serve a mainstream traveler who’s coming back to Belize who wants certainty in their return visit. And so we look at the distribution, right? The Best Western serves sort of that solid middle class. Marriott serves the upper middle class, but they serve the middle class, just slightly different segments of the middle class. And so why Belize? Why right now?
45:31
Mike Cobb
Why is it, why is Belize the absolute best investment in Central America? Well, Belize really is in the sweet spot of the curve. The prices of real estate are very affordable compared to Bermuda, Caymans, Cancun, Costa Rica, right? Those places you just multiples times two, times three, times five, right? Those numbers get silly, right? But 20 years ago they were kind of where Belize is today, right? They, the prices were similar, right? That’s this time machine concept. So Belize is in the sweet spot of the curve, but it’s also the type of product, right? The type of product is the branded product. The mainstream traveler wants a branded product. And so the niche guys, they didn’t care, right? They were sleeping wherever they could sleep. Cheap, right? But the Mainstream traveler wants something different.
46:25
Mike Cobb
They want activities like these, they want to go diving and snorkeling and fishing and they want to do some of the same kinds of things, but they want to stay in a nice hotel where they get the kind of predictability and certainty of their experience. When we had all the money to build the hotel, which was the early part of 2022, we broke ground. It was ceremonial, we hadn’t done anything at that point, but we had the money, we’d secured the funding to complete a Marriott hotel and so we had our ceremony. This is what it looked like, I don’t know, three months ago, something like that. The steel is going up, concrete starting to go in. The hotel is rapidly taking shape. Some renderings of what it’s going to look like. One of the studio units here, a view back from the ocean.
47:08
Mike Cobb
A beautiful British colonial styling that will grace a beautiful 450 foot stretch of oceanfront property. Two swimming pools, kids club, four dining, food and beverage outlets. This is a world class resort property and you can own one of the residences. Whole ownership, you own it’s titled to you for $350,000. These numbers are absolutely unheard of in any of the other destinations that have already progressed past this. If the residency is something, the investor residency, it meets the qualification because the minimum is 250 and the Marriott Studios start at 350. So if the residency is something you’re looking for, this is a great path to get it. Scarcity, yeah, absolutely. Scarcity makes the ultimate investment. If you look at overnight arrivals to the country in an 11 year period, it went from 300,000 to where it is last year at 500,000. Right.
48:14
Mike Cobb
Overnight arrivals are up 91%. Room inventory is only up 36%. There is a massive gap between room and overnight traveler. And if you factor in the fact that they’re the, that the branding piece, right. That that opportunity window grows even greater. Alignment makes the ultimate investment, right? So scarcity does it. We can see the scarcity like that Slide screams opportunity. Overnight arrivals up 91%. Hotel room inventory up 36%. Like if you’re an investor, you’re just hearing the words opportunity screamed as loud as possible there. Alignment is the second function that really makes a difference, right? It makes a huge difference because are the goals of the various partners in good alignment? You know Marriott gets paid to put heads on beds, right? That’s what they get paid to do. They get paid on gross revenues.
49:15
Mike Cobb
And what that means is they want the Highest possible occupancy for the highest possible average daily rate. It’s called ADR Average Daily rate. So they put more people in the hotel for a higher room rate. They make more money because they make 5% of the gross. They don’t care if the hotel makes money or not. They don’t care at all. They make money when they drive business. The more business they do at the higher prices, the more money they make. That’s great alignment to put heads on beds. We’ve contracted a company called Highgate. They operate about 800, somewhere between eight and 900 hotels around the US and the Caribbean. They’re professional hotel operators. They will manage this hotel and they get paid on a percentage of the profit. So Marriott puts heads on beds, highest gross numbers possible.
50:07
Mike Cobb
Highgate gets 6.5% of the profit that they generate. So their incentive is to operate the hotel as efficiently as possible to generate the most profit as possible so that all of us as owners make the most money too. This is alignment. This is incredible alignment, right? And that’s what you should always look for in an investment, clear alignment between all of the parties so that everybody wins together. Marriott wins, putting the most people for the highest price. Highgate makes the most money when they drive the most profitability. And we the owners, we benefit from that alignment. It is full ownership, you own it. It’s fee simple. Title asset appreciation is not figured into any of these numbers. These are absolute cash on cash numbers. There is a business plan. You must complete a non disclosure agreement.
51:00
Mike Cobb
If you want to see it, send an email to infocidevelopment.com ask to see the business plan. You’ll get a copy of the non disclosure agreement, complete that, send it back and we will send you the business plan with all of the third party projections that were done, the analysis to come up with what these returns would be. These are cash on cash returns. Incredibly strong. And again, two reasons they’re strong because the price of real estate in Belize is low compared to these other countries. And the amount of business that’s generated by these overnight travelers with the shortage of hotel rooms means there’s scarcity, right? This is, this is really the perfect storm in a great way. And that’s why today, right now, Ambergris Cay, Belize this Marriott in very specific terms is the best investment in Central America.
51:58
Mike Cobb
Beautiful, beautiful everything to Marriott standards. It is a Marriott hotel. It is absolutely an investment that you want to pay attention to and I hope that many of you will. We’re going to Wrap up with just the real basics of quality of life. I know people really sometimes can kind of glance over this, right? Investors are looking for return. But quality of life is about three elements. And for many of us, owning something like a Marriott or something in the Best Western Gardens or something in a farmstead, right, all of these things are part of quality of life, and they can also be great investments. But when we’re talking about residency, we’re talking about a place to live. What we’re really talking about is the elements of quality of life. Comfort, is it comfortable? Is.
52:50
Mike Cobb
Am I finding my neighbors to be really interesting people? Is there a grocery store down the street that I really like? Is there a bar around the corner that I enjoy going to? The comfort, the amenities, what am I going to do when I’m there? Are they in place? Swimming pools, clubhouses, gymnasiums? Is there a water aerobics? Is there a yoga instructor? Are there people that you can actually go to the gym? Is there a trainer at the gym? All of these things become important because the amenities are what give us something to do with the people we want to do them with, the community. And community is foundational for quality of life. One of the questions in that quiz early on was, are you the kind of person who can make new friends easily?
53:36
Mike Cobb
You know, presumably if you’re moving for any length of time, you know, several months to full time, when you move overseas, you’re going to leave your network, your friends, your peers, your social circles, back up home, wherever home was, you’re going to move someplace new. You know, how do you build new community, right? How do you make new friends? And so, you knowing that you can, because you have the places to do it, you have the activities, whether it’s the, you know, the gym or tennis or anything, right. You have the ability to be around other people, make new friends. One of the things I love about Ambergris Cay is this place. It’s called the Truck Stop. It is an incredible mix of expats and tourists. I think this is game show night, but there’s a bunch of food trucks set up.
54:24
Mike Cobb
This place rocks. And if you decide that you want to spend some time in Belize, this would be a place that I would certainly put on my list. Obviously, hanging out with friends at a beach bar or getting involved, right? Getting involved in doing beach cleanups, working to help schools with projects, going to another island nearby and hanging out with friends on a Sunday for Sunday fund day, whatever it is, right? These are all things that really create that quality of life, create that transition to a new life. If you’re thinking about this as a place to live and as a place to be. So anyway, just wrap this up now and say if you’d like to get a copy of my book, it’s just send an email to the infoci development.com just say, you know, copy of Mike’s book.
55:18
Mike Cobb
Dan will make sure you get a link to be able to go to Amazon and download your free Kindle copy of my book. If you want a hard copy. They’re for sale there as well. And then we also have the Belize Handbook. Katie mentioned that in the beginning. She refers to it often, as do I. It’s chock full of all kinds of information. You know, public holidays, banking hours, water taxis, air taxis, different hotels and restaurants all over the country. Just lots of things that you would want to know before you visit, for sure. But it’s a great reference guide if you’re living there as well. So both of these are for you. They’re free downloads. I hope that you guys will be in touch to request those. So, Katie, back to you here for the last couple minutes.
56:08
Mike Cobb
We’re right up against the top of the hour and if there are a couple quick questions, we can jump to those and then we’ll answer any and all questions via email as well. So, Katie, back to you.
56:20
Katie Ejikeme
Yeah, I think there was one real good one that we have time to answer. They were asking if they invested in Marriott for residency, the investor residency. Can they qualify a dependent under the same investment?
56:32
Mike Cobb
Boy, that’s a great question. I, I don’t know the answer, but I’m pretty sure, Katie, that you will find out and let them know.
56:39
Katie Ejikeme
Yeah, you can qualify dependents. So dependents would be a spouse or children under 18.
56:45
Mike Cobb
You say you can. Is that the answer?
56:47
Katie Ejikeme
Yes.
56:48
Mike Cobb
Fantastic.
56:49
Katie Ejikeme
Yeah, that’s a good one. And then a lot of folks were asking if this is being recorded. It is being recorded. If you had to leave early, if you’re still on and want to share it with somebody, we’ll be sending you a link of the copy of the recording after this. Takes a few hours to upload, but we’ll make sure we get that over to you by tomorrow morning.
57:06
Mike Cobb
Super.
57:07
Katie Ejikeme
All right.
57:09
Mike Cobb
All right. Well, Katie, thank you very much. Diego, you’re in the background there somewhere. But thank you for taking care of all the tech for us tonight. And, and I thank everybody for joining us. It was incredibly well attended. And and it’s always a pleasure to be able to share something that I’m obviously very passionate about. I love the country of Belize, both as a place to live, but also as an incredible investment right now. And there’s a lot of resources for you. We’ve got the paper resources that you can download, but the personal resources as well, Katie and others who are here to answer your questions and if you decide to move forward, you know, help you walk along the path to take ownership of a wonderful property and perhaps also get your residency in Belize.
57:56
Mike Cobb
And the team here is really well experienced, and it’s a well traveled road. They are great stewards of that process with you and for you and I. Thank you for joining us this evening. Katie, thank you again. Diego, thank you. And good night, everybody. By.
