Meant to come back to this thread to answer Rich's question, but Ron pretty much echoed what I was going to say with respect to foreign currencies.In my opinion, both the New Zealand dollar and the Aussie dollar are good diversification mechanisms, as their value is tied heavily to the natural resources coming out of those areas (as opposed to being tied to the US dollar).Plus, Australia and New Zealand have proven that they're not too keen on following the actions of the Federal Reserve; correlation to the US dollar is relatively low, and even interest rates are still relatively high in those countries.

Australia) we had a young woman buy an old run down building with us in the old market district.She opened an artsy 'healthy' low cal sandwich shop on the ground floor & we figured in a 'meat & potatoes, beer gut' place like Australia she would fold within the year.Believe it or not she paid off her share of the building in less than 2 years.

Each time I return to real estate I see the inexperience I exhibited the time before and this time I feel much more prepared and level-headed.As I mentioned, my wife and I are looking to stop renting and purchase our first property sometime soon (we've already been to a handful of properties with our agent).

And just like Australia the USA market has ups and downs.

I can't imaging trying to do this from Australia.

Maybe it will never happen, or maybe it will be like Australia, recession proof for a generation.

I also just got (days ago) approved for an Australian AMEX card using my established good credit history here (I live in Australia).Now I want to use American Express's service where they facilitate an application for credit in a new country (the US in my case) using one's established credit in one's home country (Australia for me).  

Originally posted by Account Closed:Don't read if you are Squirmy Wormy type.I don't know many employerS who would keep an employee with ZEROOOOOOOOOO productivity unless that person is a relative..............lol.Shotgunning in a hot market exhibits bad judgement. 

-Are you keeping your SF portfolio in Australia?

Since my husband is a piano bar entertainer for a major cruise line (since 2004) and I have relatives in Australia, we travel worldwide too.