I feel a lot of people in our age group tend to spend every dollar they make on status items rather than focusing on building wealth.In terms of considering buying yourself a house or totally investing it, I would say it is probably smarter to just invest the whole amount and then compound it like you said.

your HML is your last line of defense from making a bone head purchase because you don't really know what your doing .this Is why a LOCAL HML is and can be invaluable they will keep you out of trouble by rejecting your CMA values especially from RE brokers that just want to sell you the propertyIf that all make sense

Also remember that you're not exchanging the amount you brought into Colombia but the amount your taking back to the US thats compounded at 30% clip.   

A lot can happen in months and those things will be compounded over the years.

Be prepared for a further action required result and soil drilling/sampling.I have been involved with several contaminated properties over the years and the primary reason you want to get a thorough environmental review is to provide an "innocent landowner" defense.

I love compounding interest. : )

Note that the lower your personal expenses are, the easier this is to achieve, and this relationship compounds exponentially. 

Considering a refi sticks you back into the hole of compound interest, it's probably not going to be worth it because you'll be paying for that debt multiple times.

I was also an ex-Navy working in nuke reactor/engineering department aboard two flat tops carrier, did stints in the private sector as defense contractor, engineer, consultant.

Cash flow from the deal pays back your policy loan (same as saving up for another deal) and you end up with more cash in the end than you would have had otherwise, plus you never interrupted the compounded return of the cash value even though you were using it to make deals.That's the one paragraph version of the infinite banking concept.