%%riskTolerance: which countries feel OK #LIR

This blogpost is a helicopter-level comparative

— Cambodia

  • 🙂 currency .. a hazard growing with holding period
  • 🙂 small quantum. Debt-free.
  • 🙂 availability of commercial property with GRR .. unheard of elsewhere.
  • 👎 country risk
  • geo-concentration risk? Actualy lower exposure than a single property in U.S., Aus, China or Sg

— US rEstate

  • 🙂 currency
  • 🙂 NRY after deducting legal costs, agency fees, maintenance etc
  • Quantum? With local knowledge, I can find mid-quantum like USD 300k

SgCP

  • 🙂 currency
  • 🙂 legwork, familiar system
  • 🙂 reasonable NRY
  • 👎 quantum

— Not comfortable with Philippines .. 👎 currency 👎 country risk
— not comfortable with China .. 👎 extremely high quantum 👎 very low NRY
— not comfortable with Aus/UK .. 👎 quantum
👎 tx costs [taxes, legal fees]
👎 currency .. see separate section

^^^^ end of country list ^^^^
— Q: How about one more country/region for diversification? Presumably, I’m more geo-diversified than 95% of my peers at the same income (not wealth) level. This is directly due to the small quantums of my overseas assets, so I can avoid cross-border expensive mortgages.
BGC is a diversification from my biggest “egg baskets” 1) SG 2) U.S. 3) China, 4) Cambodia. So I don’t necessarily need Aus or UK assets as diversification.

Note U.S. is a huge “egg basket” because I rely on it for essential livelihood reasons over the long horizon. I also have about half my assets denominated in USD. USD depends on U.S. economy. I have a vested interest in the economy of U.S.

— currency hazard, assuming no mortgage.
Even if you hit a realized profit in AUD, when you convert it back to SGD, the end-to-end PnL may be negative!

( That’s why my sister suggests we buy stuff from Ph given our rental income is in PHP. )

Am I confident about my long-term (barebones) ffree? See le2Sister. Think deep and hard…. If yes, then there’s no justification to take on a sizeable but unfamiliar risk (like ccy) until I become comfortable with it, perhaps through an experimental trial.

— taking mortgage in the asset’s currency:
Cross-currency LIR [loan IR] hazard is worse than currency hazard alone.
Cross-currency LIR [loan IR] hazard is worse than leverage-alone.

Too complex to discuss. In fact, I am not knowledgeable enough.