I'm writing this from Houston, hunkered down in an ice storm.

Houston doesn't do ice. The city grinds to a halt. Roads become skating rinks. The power grid, well, we all remember what happened last time.

But here's the thing: I'm not stuck. This week, I'll be in Vail to live, work, play for a while. Different base. Different experience. Different grid.

That's optionality.

When you have one base, you wait out the storm. When you have multiple bases, you choose which weather, lifestyle, and experience you want to live.

STR Scout isn't changing. We'll keep scouting STR deals, delivering the market intelligence and property briefs you've come to expect.

But the world is shifting.

Gold and silver surging. Debt levels ballooning. Geopolitical risk escalating. The dollar's reserve status showing cracks. Empires don't fall overnight, but the signs precede the collapse by years, not decades.

We need to pay close attention.

How do we find peace, quality of life, and preserve our assets? How do we position our holdings for an AI-accelerated future?

You've built STR portfolios. You understand real estate fundamentals. You're comfortable with boots-on-ground research and contrarian plays.

So what if we applied that same framework to something bigger?

Not just where to buy your next high-yield STR abroad, but how to build a geographic portfolio, a network of pied-à-terre properties that serve as both lifestyle infrastructure and monetary hedges.

—Andy

Home Base Scout: The Case for a Distributed Property Portfolio

Or: Why the Next Five Years May Decide Your Geographic Future

The quietly wealthy don't wait for consensus. They move while others deliberate.

Right now, a specific class of investor—those with $250K to $1.5M in liquid capital—faces a peculiar window. Not to "get rich quick," but to lock in geographic optionality before the economic landscape hardens into something less forgiving.

The Thesis: Ownership vs. Efficiency

For two decades, upward mobility came from finding market inefficiencies. Start a business. Learn a rare skill. Arbitrage information gaps.

AI is systematically closing these gaps. While the labor market hasn't experienced widespread disruption in the 33 months since ChatGPT's launch, researchers tracking AI's impact note this mirrors past technological transitions that unfold over decades rather than months. But the direction is clear.

When intellectual and operational inefficiencies compress, what remains? Physical assets. Land. Structures you can inhabit.

The pied-à-terre portfolio isn't nostalgia for European aristocracy. It's a recognition that in an AI-accelerated economy, hard assets like real estate historically increase over time, generally outpacing annual inflation, while income mobility becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

What the Markets Are Telling Us

According to Sotheby's International Realty's 2026 Luxury Outlook, only 51% of luxury home purchases in 2025 were primary residences. The ultra-wealthy are building portfolios, not just buying homes. "Properties are less about singular decisions and more about the overall portfolio," notes the firm's chief marketing officer.

But the sophisticated play for the quietly wealthy isn't Miami or Paris. It's Lisbon. Panama City. Kuala Lumpur. Paraguay.

The pattern isn't random. In Q3 2025, the top 1% of U.S. households owned 31.7% of all American wealth—the highest concentration on record. The top 10% now account for nearly half of all consumer spending, up from 35% in the mid-1990s.

Translation: Those with capital are voting with their feet and their bank accounts for geographic diversification in secondary markets where the dollar still stretches, before institutional money closes the window.

The Debasement Trade Meets Real Estate

The debasement trade represents a strategic shift away from government-controlled, inflation-sensitive assets toward scarce, non-replicable assets resistant to arbitrary monetary expansion. Wall Street uses fancy terms, but the concept is simple: when dollars lose purchasing power, people buy things that hold value.

Real estate. Gold. Bitcoin, for some.

Unlike fiat currencies which can be devalued through inflationary policies, hard assets tend to maintain or even increase in value during times of economic instability, with real estate offering both tangible value and potential for long-term appreciation.

The pied-à-terre portfolio layers strategy on top of this instinct. Instead of one primary residence appreciating in one currency, you create a constellation of small, efficient bases across jurisdictions.

An oceanfront studio in Panama City. A colonial apartment in Asunción. A modern loft in Lisbon. A serviced condo in Kuala Lumpur. And perhaps a more modest home base in the U.S.

Each property serves dual purposes:

1. Lifestyle infrastructure – Places you actually want to be (value, safety, living cost)

2. Monetary hedges – Hard assets denominated in different currencies

The Nomadic Asset Advantage

Affluent nomads maintain multiple home bases not to cut costs but to define value on their own terms. Strategic decisions rooted in financial efficiency, asset protection, and quality of life. Tax residency optimization and geographic diversification of assets aren't afterthoughts: they're the foundation.

The traditional path: work somewhere, retire somewhere else.

The emerging path: buy three pied-à-terre bases internationally for what one U.S. second home costs. Maintain all three for 50-70% less in annual carry costs. Geographic diversification, asset protection, and lifestyle optionality that's mathematically impossible to replicate by concentrating capital in a single overpriced U.S. market.

Think smaller. Think scattered. Think strategic.

The AI Inflection Point - Why 5 Years Matters

Elon Musk said this week that in 3-5 years, work becomes optional. The direction is clear: AI is compressing the path from labor to wealth. When intellectual work gets commoditized, income mobility collapses. Asset ownership becomes the wealth engine.

This isn't about timing a real estate cycle. It's about positioning before the transition accelerates.

In five years, you either own a portfolio of appreciating, diversified assets, or you're dependent on income in a world where income no longer builds wealth. Right now, $250K-$1.5M in liquid capital can still acquire meaningful international property portfolios in overlooked markets.

Geographic diversification isn't optional either. Domestic surveillance expansion. Geopolitical fracturing in Venezuela. Standoffs over Greenland. The EU actively decoupling from dollar systems. Concentrating assets in a single jurisdiction—even a stable one—is that the bet you want to make?

The window is open. But it won't stay open forever.

A Different Philosophy: Max Lifestyle Meets Sound Wealth Building

This is where the pied-à-terre portfolio diverges fundamentally from traditional STR investing.

You've spent years chasing yield. Optimizing occupancy rates. Squeezing another percentage point out of cap rates. That game still works for cash flow. But we are working much harder for less today.

This is different. This is what happens when you've already built wealth and shift from accumulation to preservation with purpose.

The sophistication isn't in maximizing revenue. It's in maximizing lifestyle while your assets do exactly what hard assets should do: appreciate, hedge inflation, preserve purchasing power across currencies.

You still benefit from all the fundamentals—property appreciation, inflation hedging, currency diversification. But you're not a slave to occupancy calendars. You're not optimizing for strangers. You're building a network of places where you want to be, that pay for themselves with minimal effort.

The old game: Maximize yield. Chase the highest cap rate. Trade time for percentage points.

The New Game: Lock in high-quality living for a fraction of US costs. Let 2 months of MTR income cover your year. Live 10 months for free.

Trade your properties globally on home exchange platforms—unlock a world of live-work-play travel while your assets appreciate. You're not just investing. You're building lifestyle infrastructure that pays for itself.

This is what I coined the Net Zero Lifestyle, or The Net Zero Home Base philosophy.

What This Means for the Scout

Building a pied-à-terre portfolio requires inverting traditional real estate logic:

Don't optimize for:

• Maximum STR occupancy rates

• Highest possible cash-on-cash returns

• Guest turnover and operational complexity

Do optimize for:

• Monthly carry costs from $500 to $1,000 per property

• 2-4 months of MTR rental income = 12 months of total expenses covered

• High potential appreciation and progressive growth markets

• High quality of life relative to dollar spent

• Personal utility: places you genuinely want to spend time part of the year, or not

• Currency/geographic diversification

• Long-term appreciation potential in the land basis

The Math:

Panama City: Ocean view condo. $200K purchase, $400/month carry ($4,800 annually). Rent it furnished for 2 months at $2,500/month—$5,000 in revenue. Carry costs covered. The other 10 months? Yours. No STR hassles or remote management nightmares.

Lisbon: Modern apartment in Alfama district. $180K purchase, $600/month carry ($7,200 annually). Rent it two months at $3,600/month—your year is covered. Live in European culture, walkable urbanism, Mediterranean climate. For free.

Kuala Lumpur: Serviced condo. $90K purchase, $350/month carry ($4,200 annually). Rent it two months at $2,200/month—you're net positive. First-world infrastructure, tropical weather, English widely spoken. Easy second residency options.

The Real Comparison:

That $7,200 annual carry? It's what you're already spending without thinking twice:

• Property taxes and insurance on a single US home

• Healthcare premiums for a year

• Twelve dinners out

• One ER visit

You're not adding expense. You're redirecting it toward assets that appreciate, provide optionality, and give you a second base to live from.

The Returns:

Potential to beat US T-bills over 5 years—just from appreciation. Deploy dead equity sitting in overpriced US real estate. Hassle-free. No tenant calls. No vacancy stress. Just a place you actually want to be.

You still edge inflation. You still diversify currency exposure. But you're living in your portfolio, not just managing it.

The Uncomfortable Truth:

This isn't about guaranteed returns. It's about optionality.

In an AI abundance scenario, your pads become lifestyle infrastructure. You rotate between mountain, coast, and city while your income sources remain strong. You live dramatically better than income alone would suggest.

In an AI compression scenario, you own hard assets in markets insulated from US coastal pricing. While income mobility freezes and labor markets commoditize, you control your shelter costs. Your carry costs stay fixed while others scramble in inflating rental markets with declining income prospects.

Either way, you positioned before the divide became permanent.

The Next 60 Months

Here's the uncomfortable question: In five years, will property ownership in desirable secondary markets be accessible to someone with $250K-$1.5M liquid?

Or will that window have closed, with institutional capital, tokenization platforms, and subscription residence models capturing the upside?

The quietly wealthy don't wait for certainty. They accumulate optionality while it's still affordable—and before the AI transition makes income-dependent wealth building obsolete.

The nomadic home base isn't a lifestyle fantasy. It's recognition that in an age where work becomes optional for some and impossible for others, owning diversified hard assets in markets the crowd hasn't discovered might be the difference between thriving and surviving the transition.

The question isn't whether to build a pied-à-terre portfolio. The question is whether you'll cross the divide in the next five years, or watch it close from the wrong side.

Where STR Scout Expands in 2026

We still have our US home base properties. Houston, Florida, Colorado. But we're on a journey in 2026 to explore and share global pied-à-terre optionality.

Same boots-on-ground methodology. Same editorial independence. New geography.

Exploring overlooked pied-à-terre home base pads where 2 months of MTR income gives you 10 months of free living. Where annual carry costs run $4K-$8K instead of $36K-$48K for modest US properties. Where quality of life rivals overpriced US markets, but the math actually works.

Jurisdictions where you're not taxed on your US income. Where residency options make sense. Where the land basis holds real value and currency diversification ties to places you actually want to be.

Unbiased intel. Not sales pitches disguised as research. Just the truth about where the floor is, what the land is worth, and whether a property pencils out for people who've moved beyond accumulation to preservation with purpose.

The window is open. But it won't stay open forever.

Are you positioning for what's coming? Where do you want to explore internationally? Hit reply and let us know.

—Andy