Ready Made Autonomous Properties in Latin America: Mike Cobb

Mike Cobb, founder of ECI Development pioneered the way for real estate and community development in Latin America. Mike left a successful 12-year career in the computer industry to pursue opportunities in the Real Estate market, accurately predicting a growing need for high-quality residential housing for North American Baby Boomers. He discusses the plethora of living options in Central America such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Belize with a climate and lifestyle for anyone. We also talk about ECI's new acquisition at El Zonte also known as Bitcoin Beach with many amenities such as an exotic fruit orchard, farming land, vegetable gardens and living lots of all sizes equipped with solar technology. Dive into the podcast to hear more about your options for moving to Central America whether you're paying with crypto or fiat.

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Michael Cobb
https://michaelkcobb.com/

Transcript

George Papp  0:08  
Hi, welcome to the Conscious Renegade Podcast with me, George Papp, helping you to be the change you wish to see in the world.

Today, we're joined by Mike Cobb of ECI development. And we'll be discussing Alternative Living solutions to free people from the current system and coming Great reset updates from our side. I mean, we're currently doing a new membership for our crypto animus members. We've got some subscribers going now, and we're looking to really get the dashboard created. So keep a lookout for that in the coming weeks. So yeah, thanks, Mike, for coming on. And I guess how are you?

Mike Cobb  1:06  
Good, George, I'm nice. I'm really happy to be here and be able to cash and have a good conversation. Because the I think, I think we, we we share a lot of similar thoughts and, and, and concerns made, but to be able to talk about these and ideas that people can address those concerns and resolve some of them. It's, it's, I expect it to be a very hopeful and encouraging conversation.

George Papp  1:36  
Yeah, I think the the main aim is to give solutions, and the main aim at the end is to give hope, because there's always a way out. And there's always a way, I believe this is actually a choice anyway, in this potential game that we're living in life. I think we have that choice. I think it's just finding those solutions. And obviously people like yourselves who are offering that. You know, it's great to have you on and to discuss that with our audience here. And yeah, so it's a pleasure to have you want. So yeah, I guess the first thing is your story before we go into ECI. And what it is, and what it does, I guess your story on, on how you got to where you are now. And where you know, how well was the aha moment in regards to I need to do something in regards to sort of Alternative Living?

Mike Cobb  2:27  
Well, you know, it's interesting. So I grew up in Northwest Pennsylvania in the country. And so I've always been I was out. And so I've always really had this, this notion of, you know, preparedness resiliency, right? I mean, you know, if you're out in the country, you know, yeah, you have your neighbors and community is really important. And when we talk a lot about that, and we do a lot of that as a business, right. But you know, you're kind of on your own a little bit. And so this idea of being prepared and having resiliency, I guess I agree with it, right, so So I think, you know, I got it from a very, very early age. And, you know, as I grew up and went to college, and after college, got into the business world, I was in the computer business, in the Washington DC area for about 13 years, and, you know, really hit it hard, I was working for somebody else. And, and but I always knew that I wanted to kind of, you know, be an entrepreneur and, and so when I started traveling down to Belize, in 1994, and seeing opportunities to serve clients in a way that they weren't being served here in Belize early and then other countries of Central America, but what I found was, you know, there were ways to serve people who wanted to be in this part of the world, that would give them the comfort that they needed and expected, you know, from, let's say, a North American standard type of product, but within a greater framework of community, really, really important. But then obviously, you know, this, this idea of of resiliency brought into it as well and, and so over the years, we've been in business now 26 years, what we've really is an evolution of our ability as a company to provide this community first and foremost, because while we you know, I think a lot of us maybe like to believe that we're you know, rugged individualists. Right. I mean, and I think that's, that's a real term and, and many of us see ourselves that way. It's certainly been the culture of, you know, Northern Europe and North America for you know, a few 100 years right, this rugged individualist, pioneering and those kinds of things, but the notion of community is also very, very relevant and probably much more relevant, relevant than this, this individualism right. But but the to hang together very, very well because personal responsibility is a critical element of, of independence and freedom. And I would say that personal responsibility is actually The flip side of the Freedom coin, right? If we want freedom, we have to have personal responsibility. And that generally is individually driven. But when we're in communities, it gives us a lot more capacity. You know, it's the idea of plus three is six, but three times three is nine, or four plus four, I mean, the more you get, the bigger the multiplier, right? And so community lets us leverage our individual talents in ways that we can't. And so the company has really evolved and our mission, as an organization has changed over time, to really serve a consumer mostly out of North America, maybe, you know, 80%, say, of our clients come out of North America, who are looking for something very, very different, they're looking for, and in some ways, an escape from the nanny state right to be able to live free or be free or be more free. But these folks also tend to be very adventurous souls, right? People who are thinking about moving overseas are adventurous. So when you blend in this desire to, to, to have resiliency to have alternatives to maybe some concerns that we see as, as, as North Americans in this case, and then to be able to have options and alternatives. So that's really the evolution of our business. And in the last five years, what we've also seen as a technological revolution, that allows products like solar like battery, I mean, in the last five years, the solar and battery technology has just leaps and bounds over where it was, you know, 510 years ago. And so so now you're starting to blend in a technological evolution, or maybe even revolution on these elements. And when all three of them come together, you've got a very, very powerful synthesis for an alternative way of living an alternative location of living, and an alternative type of community living in and around other folks who are adventurous, want that resilient lifestyle? And so, so that's really been the evolution of me personally, but also the evolution of of our business, and how they integrate.

George Papp  7:17  
Yeah, I mean, there must have been a lot more demand for your products. So we'll go into them shortly. But there must have been a lot more demand in the last couple of years. A lot of people obviously have noticed, much more, maybe not even nanny state anymore. It's more of a, like a Nazi state. But let's say, you know, I think there must be a lot more demand. And I think we'll need to go into how easy it is for people to to actually make this move, because it can be easier than you think, in my opinion. So I guess, I guess what is what is ECI? In a very basic nutshell, a lot of people may not have heard of you guys in regards to what you you actually provide. So yeah, just a very brief overview on what ACI development is, and and some of your products.

Mike Cobb  8:07  
Yeah, well, let me touch on something first, because I think your your point about a Nazi state or police state, whatever we want to call it, I mean, it the technological abilities of Big Brother, again, leaps and bounds 10 years ago, you know, we didn't really, you know, we didn't really see it, it wasn't so apparent, it was happening, right? I mean, they're building these giant supercomputer centers in Utah and other places. And I mean, and, you know, NSA has been, you know, figuring out how to crack every code there is and store information to monitor every phone call every email, you know, every everything, right? And so, artificial intelligence, on that side of things has become far more sophisticated. And then obviously, the storage capacity to do that, likewise. And, and even if we just look at things like the medical, right, the artificial intelligence overlaid on top of the metadata that's been collected by private companies, right, you know, all the different search engines and another, Facebook and Tik Tok and Twitter and all those search engines, but you know, the social media platforms, right? So there's an incredible amount of metadata that's been collected, overlaid with the sword official intelligence that's just getting incredibly sophisticated. And so this is all happening and we've known it's been happening or leaks about this and leaks about that, and we're listening to the Germans and they're upset and you know, right. I mean, there's all this stuff going on. But but it wasn't until people were really forced to you know, be locked down right, close their businesses and and get vaccinated or face significant penalties. cannot fly on an airplane. If you don't wear a mask. You cannot. Canada was much worse. I mean, I think if you don't get vaccinated, you can't get on public transportation or these kinds. of things right? And and so you had this incredible top down imposition of, of, of, of rules, laws, regulations, while at the same time people could very visibly see the hypocrisy of the leaders who are enforcing it without their masks, right. And so I think that that juxtaposition of this police state kind of imposition of many things, while the leadership because masks are easy, like you can't tell if somebody's been vaccinated or not right that you can't see that. But you can tell if Nancy Pelosi is not wearing a mask when she's getting your hair done for John Kerry sing on an airplane without a mask, right? Or, you know, Governor Newsom is out at the French Laundry in his fancy dinner with his friends and standing up and talking without a mask, but anyone else would get, you know, harassed or or, you know, they arrested some paddleboard or out in the Pacific Ocean out all by himself in the Pacific Ocean, because he was violating a stay at home mandate. You know, I mean, like, I'm sure the Coast Guard and police spent, you know, 10s of 1000s of dollars, if not $100,000 to send a boat into arrest this man, right? So, so so so you have this police state, but then you also have the hypocrisy of the leaders and with social media and the very visual nature of these impositions. Now, all of a sudden, people became aware of it in a big way. And so to answer the question, you ask George, yes, yes, our business grew five fold from 2019. We're at about three and a half million dollars in sales. Last year, we were just under 25,000,024. point something. So our business went from three and a half to 25, in a two year period. And it was largely driven by people who had that not a sense, let me just call it a cent or paying attention. But it didn't, didn't feel so urgent, right? Maybe there was smoke, I couldn't see the fire. But there was smoke blown and right over the over the over the ridge, right? All of a sudden, when the flames are burning across the ridge and coming down, like there's a sense of urgency. And so yes, we we we saw a tremendous amount of action, people taking action, on on concerns that they've been harboring for a long time. But kind of May at that low level, kind of this isn't great, I'm not liking it too. Holy crap, I gotta get out of here. Or at least I gotta get a plan B, some people were moving. Some people are making a plan B, and a plan B, probably probably a third of the people moving maybe a quarter of the people moving. And

you know, two thirds, three quarters, making what I call as a Plan B, which is you get a residency overseas, which again, we'll talk about how easy that is very easy. And get residence, condo, a home, whatever overseas, so that you're prepared, right. And if you want to use it as a vacation property, use it as a vacation property, if you want to put it in a rental program, put it a rental program, right? Or if you actually want to move into it now or have it for an emergency. And in the future. You have it right. So so so this has dramatically risen in terms of the amount of people doing it. But but also it is fairly easy. And it's fairly affordable. It's a lot more affordable than most people think it is. And we can go anywhere on that particular element that you want to go. George, I just want to stop and make sure I answered your question. Because I did run a I did run a trail out there. So I hope I got back to I hope I got back to what you asked.

George Papp  13:33  
Yeah, you definitely did. I think the interesting thing is that we needed to have to be forced to Well, I will say a lot of people had to sort of be forced to make the change now. I guess if it wasn't affecting your life before, like all these sorts of mandates and stuff now obviously are affecting people's lives. But previously, you know, things were going on in the background, and it wasn't actually in the for, for everyone to see really. And now obviously is it's basically there for everyone to see all these sorts of these sort of technocratic, you know, communistic sort of things. And that's kind of made people make the change they needed to do in their lives. And it's in a sense, it's been a real positive for me. I mean, it's, it's, I guess, hard to say that when you see a lot of suffering elsewhere, but I know that there's a lot of people who have actually taken this as a positive and and actually changed their lives. It definitely happened for myself. So yeah, I guess moving on to BCIs properties because I know you've you've got communities in different sort of countries in Central America. What are the dynamics of the properties because I've seen some tiny homes. I guess how self sufficient are they and is there a sort of banding where you can have you know, as self sufficient as anything, so basically you are basically just fully self sufficient to some that are on grid or are they all fully self sufficient properties? What about the sizes of the properties? Are they all tiny homes? Or are there a lot of sort of other options as well? Yeah, just to sort of go over some of the properties and the areas that you're in as well.

Mike Cobb  15:22  
Sure. So, so let me let me start at the, at the big picture and work my way to, you know, specific products, right. You know, what we've learned over 26 years of being in business is that, you know, the different strokes for different folks, right? Some people are beach people, that's fine, that's good. But in Central America, you actually have three diff, totally different kinds of beach, you've got Caribbean, which is the under standard white sand 16 colors of blue water, blah, blah, blah, you've got Atlantic, which is, you know, again, the white sand for bigger waves, but it's Atlantic Ocean. And then you've got Pacific Ocean, which are the big waves. And each of them are very different. And each of them have a very different feel. So even if you said, Well, I'm a beach person, you still have to kind of decide what kind of beach Do you really want, right? Because you have choice. Some people say, Well, I'm not really a beach person, I'm more of a mountain person I want to live where it's springtime all the time, right? And so those climate types are very special, in fact that they've actually been probably the earliest biggest draws to places like Costa Rica, and Mexico with you know, waddle, ahora, San Miguel, Central Valley of San Jose, Costa Rica, the Central Valley. Again, these were places that people flocked to Cuenca, Ecuador, Medellin, Colombia, because it's springtime all the time. So it's not at the beach. It's in the highlands. But it's cool, cool weather. Right? And, and so, again, different climate types sort of drive different people's interest, right? What do you like? And then then there's the notion of, do I want to live in a city? Okay, fine. Do you want to live in a modern city? Or would you rather live in an old historic colonial city? Or do you want to live in a town? Right, because that's a choice to? Or do you wanna live at a resort setting? Right? A lot of people wanna live in a resort setting, they want a golf course they want tennis courts, right. Other people say, You know what, I just want to farm out the middle of nowhere, right? So again, we serve, we serve many of those one on sort of all of those, but I bring them up to this particular, you know, discussion, because it's really important for for folks to understand that, that that moving overseas, it really can be almost anything you can mix and match. You can have an old colonial city at the ocean, Cartagena, Colombia, you can have an old colonial city up in the mountains where it's springtime all the time, Quake Ecuador, you could say well, I like that it's always springtime, but I want to modern city, Medellin, Colombia. Well, I want to modernity at the beach. Oh, Panama City. Somebody says I love Phoenix. I love the desert. I really wish I could have desert at the beach. No problem, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, right? Or, oh my gosh, I love Key West or I love you know, I love you know, the Turks and Caicos or Cayman Islands, but my gosh, I can't afford $2 million. Great ambergris key Belize, it's the Caribbean, it's, it's, you know, it's Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands for for, you know, 25% the price, right? I mean, a quarter of the price. So, again, we can kind of mix and match as consumers what we want and we can largely find it in Central and South America. So what we've done is today, and we started in Belize, 26 years ago, we we bought our first property in Nicaragua in 2000. We have property in Costa Rica, we have two properties in Panama. But we have a third in acquisition in Panama right now. All very different. And we have a new acquisition in progress right now in El Salvador at at El Zonte Bitcoin Beach. And, and that one is a little bit different. I mean, it's it's a Pacific Ocean surfing destination, but the community there will be a community of Bitcoiners and it's being built specifically with our

partner there Mike Peterson, the godfather of Bitcoin in El Salvador. He's the guy that got it all started there. He is our business partner, and we're going to build a community not so much for geography per se, but for the Bitcoiners who want to in our three 350 addresses between condos homes and tiny homes right to build a village for people who are true Bitcoin maximalist, right I want to be around other people who love Bitcoin. I want to be around my tribe, so to speak. So sometimes you're talking about a weather or or if diving in ambergris key Belize or surfing say at Gran, Pacifica, or climate type. That's something I use. Sometimes you have those poles, in this case in El Zonte, Bitcoin Beach. It's a tribe of Bitcoiners. And so being able to build communities for these various interests is important. Um, and so, you know, I'm gonna use our grand Pacific it just for a minute, because I think it's the broadest of property options. So we have everything from a large home site estate, home sites and acre on the Pacific Ocean, to these tiny homes. And so the tiny homes, by the way, are 100 150 yards from the Pacific Ocean, but they start about $135,000. So you can actually have a whole home 150 yards from the Pacific Ocean for $135,000. Right, that's a tiny home, we have I'm gonna call moderately sized homes, 12 1500 square feet, homes on the water, ocean front on the Pacific, for about $400,000. If you want one of these one acre estate lots and build them a million dollar house, you can do that. As well. But and then we have other homes that kind of range from say 150 to about 300,000 on, you know, whatever, between six, seven acre and quarter acre home sites. So it's the whole range of things. But we have 2500 acres, we've got, I'll make up a number, maybe 25 acres right now in various fruit producing species, whether it's mangoes, sour orange, Noni. And we have several other species as well, that we have already planted as orchard fruit producing, we have probably 100 acres of corn and sorghum in season, that's on the property, it's continually farmed. We have some cattle on the property as well. And we just at the behest of some of our residents who have moved to grant but we have 100, we have about 100 homes under construction at this moment. And about 30 folks have moved and are renting homes in anticipation of their home being completed and then moving into their new home, we have about 30 folks that have done that. And at their behest, we've actually created to what I'm going to call a truck truck farm. I don't know what else to call it. But vegetable garden kind of plots large I mean, a couple acres total of a vegetable garden, in addition to all the other agricultural elements, the tiny homes are all solar, we do run freshwater to them. And and we have one neighborhood that's 100% solar, as well with with 1500 to about 3000 square foot homes. So it is very possible. And that's sort of been that leap in technology, right, five, eight years ago, probably would have been a lot harder to really do big homes with solar. And get your carrying capacity through the night, you'd have to have giant banks of batteries. And now that's shrinking of course. So. So again, we offer a very broad range of products, both from price, say, under 150,000. To a million. Right. And then the other thing what we're doing in Nicaragua is we're in acquisition of a couple farms close to grant Pacifica, maybe three, four miles away, where people could actually own between 10 and 15 acre farm parcels where you know that they would be you know, they could they could, you know, farm kind of pretty much anything on you know, 10 to 15 acres, whatever grows in Nicaragua, but corn, soybean, sorghum, other other crops, rice grows very well. So again, this would be these would be very, very resilient, agriculturally food resilient home sites that people could have. But even inside grand Pacific, we have a large degree of resiliency, with what we already have there. So did that answer their question, George? Again, I'm I run, I run long trails, and I think I'm covering stuff. But if I miss something, please bring it out. And let me know.

George Papp  23:48  
No, you definitely since you've answered a few of the questions, actually, that I had. But I think, you know, I didn't actually I was actually unaware of the fact that you guys did agriculture as well, and farming, which I was, which is, which is great. Because really, this sounds like an all in one solution for someone. You know, basically, it's just almost like a ready made exit plan. And I think this is very important for people to know that there is this option out there. And there's obviously a growing need to sort of move away from potentially big cities. I know you can cater for that. But I guess there's a growing need, at least in the West to move out of those types of places to decentralize your food. decentralize your energy, especially now, as we continue moving forward. There are preconceptions in the West as well about the types of how central America is in regards to how the people are we, we know most of that is kind of propaganda. I guess any comments on like, I guess how these different nations are as places to live really. Obviously, the preconceptions of being dangerous is quite funny because I I used to live in London. and and you know, they used to say that, you know, isn't it dangerous in other No, just going to Athens or something, also Greece is dangerous. And I'm like, you can walk down the road here in London and probably get stabbed, because that's just how it is in London. And it's like, I don't know, where this kind of mentality came from, obviously, we know that they push that type of thing on the television and stuff. But I guess, yeah, just comment on on the countries that you facilitate your your properties, and just, yeah, just, I guess, put people at ease in a sense of how it is.

Mike Cobb  25:37  
Look, I think it's, it's kind of a human nature thing. And some of it may be intentional. And I think, you know, you know, the US State Department puts different countries on their warning list based on, you know, whether they're playing ball with the US, are they voting in line in the UN or not? Or, you know, whatever it is, right. So I think the US plays some, some political games with that. But, but I think the biggest part of this crime fear stuff actually is sort of who we are as a species, right, as human beings. And so the old notion in the media, if it bleeds, it leads, right. And so, you know, I think the news media that I mean, I don't know that they're trying to do anything other than sell advertising. I mean, they're trying to do something, they're trying to sell it, get ratings and sell advertising. That's what they're doing. Right? It's an economic interest. I mean, maybe there's some conspiratorial stuff where they're in League, and you know, they're pushing an agenda. And I think that happens too, of course, but but at the fundamental bottom line, they just want to sell it, they just want to sell advertising space, whether it's paper print, or or TV or whatever, you know, screen. So if it bleeds, it leads, and therefore, what we see on the news media are all the horrible, tragic, bloody things that happen anywhere in everywhere, right? Because that that works, right works from an economic perspective for them. The reality, as you know, London can be dangerous, London can be safe. Any, any city can be dangerous, any city can be safe to factor factors. One, crime is generally local, you know, lightning can strike anywhere. It can, but it doesn't write very often. Right? So So you know, it's, it's crime is local, there are certain neighborhoods in London that are far more violent than others, where your risk of being stabbed go way up versus way down, right. So there's, there's sort of that locality piece. And then there's also the behavioral piece, right? If I'm out at four in the morning, and I'm trying to buy some dope, chances are, I'm putting myself at a greater risk than if I'm at home in my bed at four in the morning asleep, right? What's the risk factor, right? One is no. One is me. So we have location, and we have behavior. And, and so so just to be very specific, you know, I moved to Nicaragua with my blonde wife, and my towheaded daughter, who was two, in 2002, I moved them to Nicaragua. And we thought we'd lived there for two, three years, we ended up staying 14 years, because my wife loved it. And we had another little daughter that came along. And George, I travel all the time, I literally was gone two to three weeks a month, leaving my wife and two daughters who don't look Nicaraguan at all in Nicaragua, you know, for for the better part of 14 years. And, and there was zero incidents, we had no incidents in 14 years, you know, but but again, we lived in a neighborhood that was relatively safe again, lightning can strike anywhere, but the neighborhood was safe. And my wife and daughters were home in bed at four in the morning, right. So so again, from a location and a behavioral standpoint, like we took the right approach, I believe the right approach, the safe approach, right or wrong, the safe approach. And so, you know, when you look at countries, you can't look at a country just like you can't even look at a city. Like you can't say, oh, London safe, London's dangerous. Yeah, both statements are true, right. And so so when we start to look at where crime happens, and how crime happens on the behavioral side, if we choose to be safe we can be. And so as a developer, right, we look at parts of the country, where we do our business, and we find the places that are generally safe. And we don't control people's behavior, that people are people that do whatever they want, right? But from a location standpoint, where we developed is safe. And you know, an unproved putting I mean, I again, I I left, I felt comfortable enough to leave my wife and daughters alone in Nicaragua two to three weeks a month for 14 years. And if I thought it was dangerous, a we probably wouldn't have lived there and be I surely would not have left them alone. You know, a couple three weeks a month so so I think that that that's the crime issue. But let me let me give the solution The solution to the crime issue is really a trip. Right? I always tell people, the single best investment you can make is in a plane ticket and three nights hotel fare, that's the best investment you'll ever make. Right? Because you have to judge something for yourself what I think is safe, you might not feel as safe, right? Or as safe. I mean, it's a spectrum, right? But the point is, is that if I get on an airplane, and I go somewhere for two or three days, four days, whatever, at the end of that 234 days, I'm gonna have a pretty good sense of whether it's right for me from a safety standpoint, let's call that first. But also from climate standpoint, from a friendship standpoint, from a community standpoint, from just simply, gosh, how did it feel to be there? Right? I mean, like, that's a big deal. How did it feel to be there?

So, you know, three, four days is enough to really get a sense of that, I don't know that that's enough. You know, it look for for somebody getting a plan B, A, plan B is a rational decision, I need a plan B, I need a place that I can leave and move to and stay for the rest of my life. If bad stuff ever really starts happening in my home country. That's a rational decision. Because it doesn't really matter how much you like it or don't like it safety's a factor. Of course, resiliency is a factor, right? But if but if you if you feel like okay, that's a safe area, and there's a level of resiliency that meets my desire, right? Those Those are rational decisions, whether you like the weather or not, is irrelevant, because you're not moving there for the weather, you're moving there, because something horrible is happening, Paul, right. And so And for most Plan B buyers, write a plan B owner is somebody who says this is a rational decision, I might vacation there if I happen to like it, right. But but even if I don't like it, it's a great plan B. But at the same time, here's the really cool thing, even if you don't like it. So for example, I like to use the example of Hawaiian pizza, I don't like Hawaiian pizza. But if I owned a pizza parlor, I would sell Hawaiian pizza. Why? Because it's not about what I like. It's about what other people like. And so the really cool thing about setting yourself up with a plan B is that you can own this home, you can get your permanent residency, and if, say you like it enough to vacation two, three weeks, four weeks a year, but the other 50 weeks a year, you can put it in a rental program, because there are lots of people who love surfing in Nicaragua who loves diving in Belize, who loves hiking in the coffee, and tea invitations in and around, you know boca de Panama islands, tropical islands, lots of people love those kinds of things, right. And so one of our businesses is to promote the rent of homes and condominiums when they're not there. Because it's a way for them to help offset their costs, right? Talk about making money. Because look at Plan B as a cost. Can we offset those costs? And to some degree or a little bit? A lot, all of them, maybe we make some money? e ha, that's great, too, right? And, but But the notion of a Plan B is sort of insurance, I don't want us to call it it's insurance, right? And so you put it in place. And if you can, if you can get some offset cost, that's tremendous. And if you can make a little money, that's even more tremendous. Right? And if you knew that the vacation property, awesome, right? But that's not why we do it, we do it because we want the plan B we want that ultimate in freedom insurance, right? And freedom insurance, by the way. You know, a lot of people look at insurance from a financial standpoint, or asset protection, protecting our assets, money, stocks, things, right. But but freedom insurances is ultimately the most important because, you know, while we we might have financial freedom if we're a prisoner in our country, because we we don't have a residency somewhere else, right? We don't have a home somewhere else to go to. And things really get tight, tough and ugly. What do we really have, we might have lots of money in the bank account, but if if our life is miserable, you know where we are, and it could be tremendous somewhere else, you know, that, that, that, that that that's why people are doing it. And, and so we've structured our business, in many ways to help facilitate that solution for people who want the plan B. And again, you know, it's it's insurance. It's it's, it's, it's a rational decision.

George Papp  34:48  
It's interesting in regards to the what you were saying previously about, actually visiting the places you know, three days and a plane ticket. It's really true because you know, there's always these preconceptions, but unless you actually see it for your own eyes and actually spend some time in a place, I don't think you can actually even have the judgment. Obviously, other people will tell you probably most of the time negative things because most people unfortunately tell negative stories about most places. And most things it just drew is just what I guess humanity is drawn to in this stage. But I think it's very interesting to say, yeah, go and go and visit those places. Even if it's for a few days, just judge it for yourself, it might not be for you exactly. But there might be another place for you. If you're just stuck, and you're not seeing anywhere else than where you are. Then you can't open your eyes to what's potentially better for you and your family. And I think that was a really, yeah, great advice, to be honest. I know, I guess,

Mike Cobb  35:49  
by the way, we, we've been giving that advice. For 26 years, we've been given the same advice for 26 years. In fact, I was. I'm in Belize right now. It's why why I've got this white, beautiful white wall behind me. I'm in a borrowed conference room to get this quiet time. But, you know, I'm in Belize, and I was I was driving my golf cart, I parked my golf cart, ran upstairs to my condo, and there was a guy out on the front porch. And I had seen him three or four times, but I hadn't spoken to him. Ron is his name. And Ron's like, Yeah, I'm, I'm renting here. I'm getting my, my residency in Belize. And, you know, and, and he said, You know, I, I can't remember how to come up and say, I'm think I'm gonna go to Nicaragua and check out your place there. So are you are you, you know, what are your thoughts? Where do your attention is? Well, someday I want to buy but I just didn't want to do it. I wanted to rent. I wanted to rent and see if I liked it. And I said, Ron, that's exactly right. I said, we tell people it sounds crazy coming from a developer, right? But we tell people at conferences, I give presentations, I write about this stuff, rent before you buy, right rent before you buy, because, you know, again, whether something hits your heart, right is a very different experience. So a lifestyle purchase is very different from a Plan B purchase, right? I think three, four days. Okay. Yeah, this is I could I could live here if I had to. It's nice. It's beautiful. If I'm not here, oh, yeah, I can see we can rent this place out. There's a golf course there's surfers. I mean, so that's all rational stuff. Right. But if somebody and about a third, again, a third of the folks who have we're building homes for right now at Gran Pacifica are already there or plan to move when their home is done. And, and so for those people, right, it's a lifestyle decision, right? It's, it's going to be their home. And so those two evaluation processes are very different ones ahead, decision, right? Insurance, rational Plan B, the others more, I'm gonna live there, like, you know, it's a very different different evaluation process. So, but but but but both are extremely relevant, depending on why you're making this overseas. Ownership decision. Yeah.

George Papp  37:59  
Yeah. And then goes down to, I guess, very similar to my situation, really, myself being in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, I'm in a place where we're in the EU. However, I like the lifestyle general, generally, in a sense, we have the beach, that's for me, we've got the mountains, we've got a lot of the things that, you know, we like as we have community, we know people here which can help. In regards to a plan B solution for myself, as an example, I would probably look at Central America, because I know that the EU, in my opinion, as what I can see is Go is more technocratic and more controlled compared to a central America in in large numbers, right? We can see Central America is a vast land, they never really get involved in too much a war really, in records to external war anyway. So that's an example of what I, I would suggest as a plan B for myself would be in in Central America, compared to a plan B, being where I am now, this is more of a lifestyle that I that I sort of prefer myself. Right, I guess going into more of the nitty gritty stuff, which is an English term for like the small details. I guess it's like, more on the actual how, how easy it is for people to actually get into these properties. So what I guess is the minimum people need to put up front, is there a sort of loan opportunity? Or is there a minimum deposit that can be put on these properties? What are the price ranges? I know you already kind of mentioned that. But I guess let's say there's an average family in the US who they don't have too much savings. They're quite, you know, I guess new to this and their savings aren't as large compared to some guys who've got some wealth behind them. What options do they have in a sense if they wanted to leave the US or Canada or anywhere else? And they just wanted to make this Step and then also residency as well, for those types of people who want to move there permanently. How easy is it? And what I guess is the process?

Mike Cobb  40:12  
Sure. And George, I know we started a little bit late because of my internet, and I apologize, but I have got a board meeting that starts in 11 minutes. And so let me make some very specific quick answers, but also offer folks the ability to reach out to us, okay. And, and we can provide incredible specific detail the nitty gritty, as you say, on on any of the products on any of the information about loans, but very generally, what I would say is, we can offer financing on any of our products up to 80%. So they need people need to come to the table with 20%. So let's say it's $150,000, tiny home. Again, they're about 129,000. But let's call it 150. Because that's easy math for me, they need to put $30,000 down, they can borrow the rest. So 80% financing. You know, any investment, say in Nicaragua, Grandpa Sophia over $30,000 entitles you to a residency. So the legal paperwork on that maybe is five $7,000 government fees, I don't know, but call it seven to be safe, right? So So $150,000, home, tiny home or less. And then another, say 7000 for your lawyers and your legal fees, you actually get a home and a permanent residency in Nicaragua. So it's pretty easy to do, right. And a lot of folks are doing that, of course, because if you have a plan B, you want a residence and you want a residency a permanent visa, so you want both. One of the things that we've seen a lot of people do because we serve a lot of people coming out of the crypto space. There are organizations now that will let you pledge your crypto for as collateral for a Fiat loan. So we have a lot of people who pledge their crypto and then take that cash that they get from the from the collateral in the crypto use that to downpayment or purchase a home outright. We We also accept crypto for folks who want to pay any part of their of their home or condominium with crypto, we accept, I don't know 10 11 12 of them different ones. And again, the nitty gritty, we have all the information for folks on that. Belize flip gears just for a second British Honduras. So all the folks over in England, and the UK, who remembered is British Honduras, you know, a studio condominiums starting there about three blocks off the Caribbean. So short walks where I that's where my condo is, it's where I stay three blocks off the water starting at $129,000. So 134 for a beautiful studio condominium, it's actually in a Best Western branded hotel, hotel community. So you can use it as a vacation property you can put in a rental program, but you can also live in it. We have like Ron that's downstairs, okay, he's, he's a long term renter, he's been there almost a year. So again, lots of lots of lifestyle choices, we have a Marriott property in development, that's right on the water here in Belize, those properties start about 350 and go up. But again, a Marriott oceanfront residence on the Caribbean in the right, there's the Caribbean ocean for for 350. So, so kind of price points, again, that sort of under 150, up to kind of whatever you want to spend kind of numbers, but But realistically, 150 to about 300 with 20%, down 80% financing conventionally, and then, you know, the crypto side of things as well being alternatives for folks who are in that space.

George Papp  43:59  
Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Really, I really liked the fact that you accept crypto as well as an option. That's definitely, you know, growth, I think we have to use those types of tools as well. So actually putting them in to your to developments is great into the financing side. I usually get asked for advice to give to the audience. But to be honest, I actually think you've, you've really given a lot of different strategies, different advice here throughout the call, so no need for that. I think you've already given so many great points, then I just have to thank you. I know you have to leave now. But I just have to say thanks for joining me today and we look forward to having you on again in the future in regards to maybe other buildings that you're doing and other developments that will come in the future. I guess make sure you subscribe to the podcast as well guys on iTunes or Spotify. Plus, if you're interested in having one to one consulting to prepare your wealth for the great reset, check out the episode show notes for the link to crypto animus consulting.com. Also, we will put all the links to ECI development stuff in the description. So definitely check that out, you will definitely be able to see all of the properties and all the details as well. But yes, gone gone, like

Mike Cobb  45:12  
you asked for one piece of advice. And what I would like to offer folks is the ability to download our consumer resource guide. It's got 15 questions, it's got several articles. It's got some mini country handbooks. It is a it's about a, I don't know, 60 70 page book of advice. Okay, so my advice to everyone is to grab the consumer resource guide, you'll put the link there and OSHA a will reach out and provide that to you. But But the best advice is to be prepared to arm yourself with the right kinds of questions to to property ownership overseas. And this consumer resource guide is the best advice that we can ever give. It's a distillate of 26 years of experience, 26 years of mistakes, 26 years of successes really distilled down to this one book called The consumer resource guide and, and George, we'd love to make that available to folks listening as well. And I'll make sure Shinae sends that link so that your folks can can grab that. That's the one piece of advice I would give, please download the consumer resource guide. And it will be a very, very valuable resource for for everybody thinking about property ownership overseas.

George Papp  46:29  
Yeah, it's just an Overview Guide. And it's a very in depth look into to what you have options wise. So I think definitely check that out. We'll have the link in the description and show notes as well. So thanks again, Mike. Thanks again for coming on. It's been great and you've given so many sort of great key advice for for people out there. I'm sure a lot of people would definitely be interested in your in your stuff. I know I am personally as well. So Excellent. Well, good. Yes. Peace and love to you all and thanks for listening. 

Thanks, Mike again. 

Mike Cobb  47:01  
Thanks. 

George Papp  47:02  
Thank you