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Don't Expect Comps
The other thing that doesn't exist in most of the world is comparables. “Running comps,” as any would-be real estate buyer would do when shopping in the United States, depends on referencing a multiple listing service (MLS). No such organized, computerized, easily accessible database of properties on the market exists in most of the world. With limited exceptions, the MLS is a U.S. market phenomenon, an indispensable tool that, somehow, the rest of the world's real estate markets manage to survive without.
With an MLS, you can find out, within minutes, what every property of a certain type in a certain area has sold for within a certain period of time. Without an MLS, you can't. Take a minute to think through the implications. What should a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment of 2,000 square feet in a certain neighborhood in Panama City cost? Without an MLS to reference (and no MLS exists in Panama, although the local real estate industry is working to create one) to find out what every property fitting that description has sold for in the past year, say, you have no idea, and neither does anyone else. The owner of an apartment fitting that description can decide he'd like to sell it for whatever he'd like to sell it for, and who are you, or anyone, to tell him that his price isn't appropriate? You, he, and anyone else who might be interested have nothing to compare it to.
That's just the start of what it means to shop for real estate in a market without an MLS. ...
