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He Quit Europe to Invest in Emerging Markets: Where? · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: For the last two decades, I have personally been investing in over 11 different countries, more than 30 different times.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what I have learned is that essentially the best returns aren't where you think they are.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're in places that you probably wouldn't want to invest.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hence that's why people like myself make better returns because essentially there is less demand, which allows for better opportunities to be in the undiscovered places, places that you might not even know where they're on the map.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jeremy Savory.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the CEO and founder of Savory and Partners.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also the CEO of Millionaire Migrant, which is a YouTube channel that I recently started to be able to share 20 plus years of experience around citizenship, residency, tax, and also investing in emerging real estate.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: To start from a macro perspective, the most important thing is you need to understand what is your strategy, what are you looking to achieve?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is it something that you want to be able to use from time to time and Airbnb?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's and then it's essentially like a home away from home and you're spending three months in four different uh countries, for example, or is it a fact that you want to be able to get a long-term tenant, you want to get short-term uh tenants?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a commercial opportunity?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is it land?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a place that you want to use to leverage on getting a citizenship?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: In uh some of those countries, unfortunately, there's less than there are right now.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it if for a residency investment?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to understand what you are looking to do.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the mistakes a lot of investors make is they try and kill three birds with one stone.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not possible.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: You just won't get the ultimate objective.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the first thing is the strategy.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then you want to go to basically those parts of the world where you see that there is an upside to be had.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to invest in many established markets, mature markets, there isn't going to be the return that you might would have had maybe 10, 20 years ago.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something that is attractive if you wanted to have an EU residency, for example.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So invest in Greece if you want to get that.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: But are you going to get the returns that you would in, let's say, in the Caucus region or in Latin America?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially, you need to separate the objectives.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: When you want to look at from a macro perspective, you want to see what's happening in that country.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So things like infrastructure projects is usually a good one.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: If the airport is being expanded, there's going to be a new airport.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking at other examples, are oil refineries.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of times that people have bought in areas that have been selected for uh huge projects such as that.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: You also want to be reading the news uh articles from The Economist, you want to look at Financial Times, there are a lot of other paid sources that are out there that I follow as well.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: You want to look at FX uh hedges.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I got burnt on that on my second or third purchase when I was 23, 24 years old.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I got burnt on an FX hedge, so that is another risk.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Some countries have capital controls, that is another challenge.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I bought in one property.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It took me, I think, about six months just to get the money from the sale out of the country.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: You want to also understand the due diligence aspect because you're going to emerging markets is cowboy uh country, so you need to be able to do a lot of on-the-ground uh reporting.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: You want to get access to paid statistical data, you want to ask around people, you want to be able to find a good partner, such as a lawyer, good broker that is incentivized for you and not for the seller.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So these are a few of the different things I could go on at Infinitum explaining all the different uh parts that you need to put together.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe one day I'll put together a guide, you know, just so it's all in one place.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: But let me go through now a few of the countries that I have invested in and countries that I am looking to invest in.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: In the past, as my career evolved, and I'm obviously from the UK, I would I invested in a lot of European and North American uh countries.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: But my long-term view is I feel that those type of assets in jurisdictions which are facing a lot of constraints, fiscal pressures, I am seeing that those assets being immobile are going to be increasingly under pressure.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, this is actually taking place right now, where essentially once you're investing in that country, any law will change and it will not be in the favor of the one that is trying to make some kind of capital gain or some kind of uh income from the property.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So gradually I've offloaded all of my portfolio and exposure to the northern countries and I've started to look at more emerging markets.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I've taken a lot of that experience with me, and that has really helped me achieve exceptional returns in in some countries, and I've been quite fortunate that I've kind of avoided a lot of pitfalls.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get it always right, and anyone who tells you they have a hundred percent success rate of making 100% every year, unfortunately, is just lying.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, if we break it down into different regions, I would say that being based in the UA for 18 years and gave me a significant advantage when everything started taking off in 2021.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, any idiot could have made money if you bought in 2021 in the UAE, but I actually offloaded a lot in 2025 and no, I didn't know what was going to happen in 2026.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially, you just got to be able to profit take, trim your position, and kind of see the writing on the wall.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell many anecdotes about how I looked at the quantitative data, but I also look at qualitative data as I was walking around talking to people.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I put the picture together.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: The UAE is going through a very interesting time.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's too much to talk about in this video, but essentially, I think that uh the days of the absolute mega returns are kind of gone.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'll leave that for the influencers to tell you uh that in their sales pitch.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think you might want to look at places like um Russell Kimer and Abu Dhabi, uh, but again, everything needs to be based on the entry point.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is very important.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I tend to look in the less discovered areas, places that people think about, which is kind of uh renovating properties or warehouses or land or commercial.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I stay away from retail uh personally, but I look at the things that people don't normally think about because if they're already thinking about it, then there isn't any money to be making about it.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially that's kind of the UAE.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: I did recently start to do uh a lot of business in the Caucasus region.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at Kazakhstan um and Georgia, which interesting enough, uh IMI has created an index.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized that the top five countries I'm already there.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was a nice little uh pat on my back.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I have got it wrong many times.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, sometimes uh Africa, I got burnt.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of that was because I was in the right place at the right time.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, I had the wrong partners.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is something that has become increasingly important, and the more you get burnt, the more that you become experienced.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Africa is um unfortunately a place that you have to have, it's more about who you know rather than what the actual asset is, because you want to make sure that you get in and get out rather than what the actual asset itself.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is my personal experience.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, Africa, I'm gonna look at some countries, and if I told you their name, you would say, nah, 100% I'm not gonna invest in there.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that's great because I don't want you to invest there, so I can invest in there.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the type of mentality that you need to take.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is that if everyone else is scared, what is it, you know, be brave when others are fearful and be fearful when others are brave, it applies for real estate as well.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's important to look at also diversification as well.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of these mantras, they're there for a reason.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about Europe, I'd say Europe is attractive, uh, but only for a residency play.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just take it for what it is.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't live there, don't pay taxes there, um, don't invest there unless you find that the residual benefit of the residency, the education, the healthcare, the lifestyle as well could be of interest.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, let's look at South America.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: South America, everyone's really excited about this in the industry, but I would caveat this.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people in the industry are immigration professionals.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have the uh advantage of being someone who has been in real estate pre prior to this.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, real estate does overlap with immigration, but you need to be very careful because you need to know both.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think some people are getting very carried away with countries like Paraguay, and I think that's something which I don't agree with.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can do Paraguay, you can make money, you can get exposure in there, and I do see a lot of fundamentally strong reasons why a country like Paraguay would be very attractive because of this incredibly uncertain future.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: However, I would not follow the masses.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I would think outside of the box.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is my personal feeling, and I had been to Paraguay, I'm a resident of uh uh Paraguay, so I do know a little bit about the country, and I do actually have a team that is dedicated just to real estate.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have an immigration team, I have a real estate team, and this is really important.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: You need experts in both fields because if you're gonna overlay them, you don't want to get it wrong.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of options there.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's residency by investment, you've got potentially uh censorship by investment options.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't really consider that because there isn't any proof of concept there.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would also look at countries which is a bolt hole to put money in countries that are not highly leveraged or reliant on debt.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that this is another reason we should look at emerging markets.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: You go to those parts of the world that are not exposed to hysteria, um, to AI, to debt.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's really good to be part of an overall portfolio strategy.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's in summary what my general thesis is around investing in markets for 23 years.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, I've invested in almost a dozen countries right now.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've had my my losses, and I'm more than happy to share the losses because I think that you share the losses, you educate people, you educate yourself, and the world is not perfect, everybody loses money, and it's important to be transparent about that.