Bermuda?s strong real estate market can create great opportunities for property owners to live comfortably...overseas.

Rego Realtors Real Estate agent Becky Paris wrote a thought provoking article in the February issue of Island Property News when she urged home owners to consider the option of renting their Bermuda homes and living abroad off the income generated.

?We don?t expect to get a huge response, but that one article did generate a call from a gentleman I dealt with maybe five years ago,? revealed Mrs. Paris.

?He said to me ?I take it from this article that you are relocating people?. I said ?well, when I wrote the article that was not the intention?, but since writing it we have become members of an organisation called RELO which aims to assist people moving from here to other countries, primarily the US. It is run by independent realtors.?

Bermudians, when comparing the Island?s real estate prices with other countries, especially the United States, accept that their dollar would go a lot further in the overseas market. Still, Bermuda?s housing remains a good investment, an investment that can generate retirement funds for investors.

?I wrote the article based on my own perception of Bermuda,? said Mrs. Paris who hails from England and is the wife of round-the-world sailor Alan Paris.

?I see a lot of people who work very hard to pay off their mortgages and school fees. They might have a second job but generally speaking they work really hard at their one job, both parents work, and it gets back to what you consider quality time.

?If you have all the money in the world what would you do with it? You?d probably spend more time with your family. These people have the money staring them in the face. We have a great rental team that can manage your property and you can go and live anywhere and enjoy your family.?

Mrs. Paris believes the dream is within the reach of anybody prepared to make sacrifices. It is not something that only the wealthy can aspire to.

?Most people don?t stop until it is too late, when somebody gets sick and they take stock of their lives,? she stressed.

?This is only my view of it, it is not across the board. I?ve seen friends and my clients who work really hard and don?t stop until somebody is not well or a marriage has fallen apart.?

She said it would be beneficial to Bermudians to be able to live and experience another culture.

?Some of us would like to have our kids exposed to the fact that there is competition out there, new skills to be learned and our children will benefit from that exposure,? Mrs. Paris believes.

?They will then come back to Bermuda with hopefully a good work ethic, great skills and a balance in how we live our lives.

?I sit in a nice spot where I see a lot of people of all social and economic backgrounds, right from the young guy who I sold a condo to last year for $145,000 to the people who are looking at houses at three-and-a-half million to four million dollars.

?I would advise anybody to own a place if they comfortably can. I wrote that article to see if I might be able to interest anybody in doing that (renting and moving abroad). I don?t benefit from the rental side of things but we are a team here and they might decide that it is working so well to live in another country that they might consider selling their house.?

Added Mrs. Paris: ?I know of a couple who moved to New Zealand. They rent their house here and their child is young that they have time to travel and get settled somewhere.

?I know another woman who finds Bermuda so expensive ? I would consider her retirement age but she still needs to work ? she lives here half the year, works in the hotel industry, and lives in Florida the rest of the year.

?She has family there and is hoping to move there full time. She doesn?t have the benefit of owning something here but it is her intention to buy something for her family.?

For Bermudians the best scenario would be to earn the same salary in a place like the United States where the cost of living is so much cheaper.

Half a million dollars buys a lot of house in places like Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina as Bermudians have found out.

?When I started in real estate I would show people houses and they would say ?do you know what I could buy in Florida for this?,? the agent recalled.

?But where do you live and where is your income stream? It?s here. I realise that the housing situation is worse than tight here. Those who own their own homes are in a much, much better position.

?If you have the benefit of your own home, paid for or if you?ve got a mortgage, chances are you can make it work for you.

?Bermuda is a beautiful, beautiful place, has huge benefits and for many of us there is an opportunity to earn good money here. How long can we keep earning that money and how long do we want to be working at this pace? And have we laid the necessarily steps in place so that we can retire... at this comfort level?

?Personally, I like to travel and I get off the Island regularly. Can I do that if I have technically retired and don?t have that regular income coming in?

?I certainly want to have paid my house off and get my son through school, but I also want to enjoy the life I?m enjoying now.?

She added: ?There are a lot of people who are never going to own their own home here. But they are earning good money while they are here. Don?t squander it, decide what you want to do.

?Maybe your spouse is from overseas or family from somewhere else. Put a plan in place so that you can benefit. I?m not talking about expats, I?m talking about Bermudians.?

?Harry? and his wife are a Bermudian couple in their 40s who have their plan in place. They want to retire by 55 and move to Europe, making their home in Bermuda work for them, either by selling it or renting it.

?I have spent my whole life living abroad but this is home for us,? said Harry. ?It took us awhile to get money for a down payment as well as put our kids through private school, but I don?t plan to work in Bermuda and retire at 65.

?Our plan is, once we have the house paid off, to take early retirement at 55 when our kids will have finished school. Then we?ll have to make a decision whether we will rent the house or sell the house.

?Then we?ll go to Europe and open something like a bar. All we?re looking for is enough money to pay the insurance for ourselves and the money coming in from the house, whether we rent it or sell it and invest, will keep us going quite comfortably.?

He added: ?Then we can just enjoy life. With my job and my wife?s job, working for another 25 years under this pressure is going to have its toll on us. But I do believe you have to be active with the brain ticking over.?

As British citizens, the rest of Europe opens up to them also. ?I?ll be quite happy just to come back to Bermuda to visit but not to live,? said Harry.

?In Europe, we can build ourselves a nice three-bedroom house with a pool on a coast somewhere in Europe for $175,000 to $220,000 ? built to our specifications! That would be another investment.

?Real estate in Bermuda is the best investment I have seen anywhere in the world. Since we have bought our house the value has gone up 70 per cent in five years. Tell me where you are going to get a return like that in any other investment!?