Where to retire?

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Another option is Grand Cayman - but it's pricey there. Not much in the way of taxes since the offshore banking takes care of that but I once read about the residency permit requirements - apparently you put 500K into property/a business venture and you get a 25 year permit renewable indefinitely. IDK how that works on a straight retirement basis.
One thing they've got happening now is there's this new state of the art Medical City complex - a large Indian medical group has a specialty clinc there now near the Breakers on the south side. And Cayman seems to be going after medical tourism - there was a movement recently to add jetways to the airport to handle the anticipated wheelchair traffic.

My sister was just there looking at property, they couldn't find much decent in a condo for under $400K. They bought a tourist condo (weekly rental) on the Brac for 1/2 that. 30 min. flight to GC for most things and the weekly barge brings everything else.

The Cayman Islands recently (either in 2015 or 2014) toughened up their already strict immigration requirements. In order to establish permanent residency you need to show an income of at least $120k CI annually (without being allowed to work there) and make an investment in $500k in the country ($250k in residential real estate).

Residency Certificate for Persons of Independent Means

If Grand Cayman is your ultimate destination you may have better luck establishing residency and earning citizenship in a Caricom country and then relocating.
 
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The Cayman Islands recently (either in 2015 or 2014) toughened up their already strict immigration requirements. In order to establish permanent residency you need to show an income of at least $120k CI annually (without being allowed to work there) and make an investment in $500k in the country ($250k in residential real estate).

Residency Certificate for Persons of Independent Means

If Grand Cayman is your ultimate destination you may have better luck establishing residency and earning citizenship in a Caricom country and then relocating.

I guess that rules out Cayman Islands for 98% of the people....

Jim....
 
Keep in mind CI$500k is approximately $609k US
The Cayman Islands recently (either in 2015 or 2014) toughened up their already strict immigration requirements. In order to establish permanent residency you need to show an income of at least $120k CI annually (without being allowed to work there) and make an investment in $500k in the country ($250k in residential real estate).

Residency Certificate for Persons of Independent Means

If Grand Cayman is your ultimate destination you may have better luck establishing residency and earning citizenship in a Caricom country and then relocating.
 
Retire near the apex location of the Coral Triangle:

Coral Triangle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coral Triangle | Places | WWF

Found this in an Aussie Yahoo Answers Forum (Pros/Cons Retiring in the Philippines):
pros: warm tropical climate, unbearably low labor costs means all services are amazingly cheap, ie: $1 haircut, $3 massage, $30/month for a live in maid; some local foods are unbelievably fresh and cheap, such as tuna and other fish, fresh farmer market vegies cost about one tenth as US prices; most filipinos, espeically filipinas, are about the friendliest, most polite, people on the planet. very nice beaches, reefs for scuba or snorkling; one can rent a modest beach house or hut in the philippines for the cost of a boarding room in a major US city; exotic foriegn island/asian culture. all of the above will satisfy the exotic adventure needs of avg bored or retired western men tired of sofa surfing the TV.

cons: like most asian or 3rd world countires, the cities are crowded & polluted, violent crime is high; the outlands or provinces are mostly lawless, rife with bandits, murderers, kidnappers and thieves hiding under thinly vieled rebel disguises; poverty, sickness, disease and other social ills are rampant; little or no government social services by western standards. low wages means no possiblity of employment for foriegners. convoluted land ownership, systemic graft and taxes prohibits foriegners from any small scale business activity, so there is not much for a foriegner to do but drink and enjoy the scenery, which is heaven to some, hell for others.

Retire In The Philippines With $200,000 Of Savings? | Investopedia

PADI scuba diving Puerto Galera. Dive Puerto Galera in the philippines.

Batangas Hyperbaric Medicine and Wound Healing Center - Philippines
 
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Keep in mind CI$500k is approximately $609k US

And CI$120k annual income is $150k USD.

As I said, if the ultimate goal is to retire to Grand Cayman, you may want to look into establishing residency and citizenship in another Caricom country first. http://www.caricom.org/

(not that I've been researching this, mind you...)
 
Curacao is worth checking, but I of course say that because I live there! Medical care is fairly good for the region, new laws just recently passed make obtaining citizenship a little easier. There is a fairly decent ex pat community, the shore diving is great. Inter island travel and travel back to the states is easy and fairly inexpensive, and the overall cost of living is, I think, pretty decent.

If you do come down for a visit, make sure to give a shout I'll carve out an afternoon for a shore dive or two and give you an ex pats perspective on living here.
 
Don't forget the 20,000 CI fee for becoming a resident of independent means on any of the Cayman Islands. You can stay up to 6 months at a time in Cayman and leave and return. I prefer to keep my USA residency, it's the best country in the world. Especially for medical reasons. I like the hospital in Grand, they send you to Miami if there is a problem. Cheers
 
The Caribbean is over rated. Too many biting insects. SE Asia. Cheaper cost of living and they welcome money coming in. Belize? Try to build a house there. I just did. They treat you like a criminal. I've lived there 16 years and all we did was withdraw money from my wife's account. Now they froze the account. "we've never seen this much activity with this account".
"We've never built a house before, you dumbass".

Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia..much cheaper. Better diving.
 
Ditto what Hank49 said. It's subjective, but I definitely would choose SE Asia. It's so damn cheap and the people are so nice. When I was in Thailand the first time, I was 24 and I almost bought a damn house. It was about $120,000 on Koh Tao, 2 minutes from the beach and just high enough on the hill that you could see over all the trees for a view of the bay.

My parents were looking into building a place in Costa Rica and they basically found it was way too big of a hassle.
 
The Caribbean is over rated. Too many biting insects. SE Asia. Cheaper cost of living and they welcome money coming in. Belize? Try to build a house there. I just did. They treat you like a criminal. I've lived there 16 years and all we did was withdraw money from my wife's account. Now they froze the account. "we've never seen this much activity with this account".
"We've never built a house before, you dumbass".

Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia..much cheaper. Better diving.

How is Belize if you don't build a house but rent or buy an existing house?
 

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