The Gathering XIII: Meet Ronan and the RETA Team in Panama

Registration opens Wednesday for this private RETA club meetup in Panama City

Registration opens Wednesday for this private RETA club meetup in Panama City.

DAILY POSTCARD  |  SUNDAY, JULY 26, 2026   Dear International Living Reader, Imagine sitting across the table from a world-class developer who’s telling you first about a stunning new beachfront community he’s about to launch in Panama… Or chatting over cocktails with a leading real estate attorney from Portugal who knows every trick to make buying there smooth and tax-efficient… Or hearing directly from Ronan McMahon about where he’s buying personally right now, and where he sees the biggest opportunities emerging next… This is what happens at The Gathering—the annual meetup for Lifetime members of Ronan’s Real Estate Trend Alert (RETA) group. The Gathering is not a conference. It’s a private club meetup where RETA members spend three days with Ronan, his team, and real estate insiders from around the world. And the next Gathering is locked in: • The Gathering XIII • Date: February 11–14, 2027 • Location: The 5-star Santa Maria Hotel & Resort, Panama City Registration opens this Wednesday, July 29, at exactly 1 p.m. ET. That’s when seats for The Gathering XIII will go live. Only 350 are available. Every year they go fast and a waitlist forms. If you want to avoid the waitlist, you’ll need to be ready at 1 p.m. ET on Wednesday. (Sign up here to get an SMS notification.) Today, here’s a brief snapshot of what you’ll learn at The Gathering XIII and why demand for seats is so intense… P.S. The Gathering is only open to RETA Lifetime members. If you're not a RETA Lifetime member, you will get an opportunity to become one and secure your seat on Wednesday. Click here to sign up for an SMS alert so you’re notified when registration opens.   Picture: 2009, a Battered Laptop and 8 Real Estate Insiders By Ronan McMahon Picture eight RETA members, huddled around a battered laptop in a little clubhouse by the Pacific. No cameras. No big dinners. Just a handful of us, splitting the lunch bill, shooting the breeze on opportunities the rest of the world couldn’t see. The year was 2009. The financial world was still in chaos—banks collapsing, markets buckling. But if you knew where to look, it was a different story. That was RETA’s DNA from the very beginning: while everyone else panicked, we were searching for opportunities... And those eight members, of whom I was one...we were at our first-ever RETA Gathering. The Gathering is the annual club meetup, where I bring the RETA Braintrust to hang out with members, have fun, and discuss the next wave of opportunities. Registration opens this Wednesday, July 29 at 1 p.m. ET. Sign up for an SMS alert so you’re notified. I had recently founded my RETA club in the depths of the financial crisis. While markets in the U.S. and Europe went no bid, I and a handful of others were on the beaches of northeast Brazil, realizing serious opportunities and making profitable real estate plays. I had long sought a club like this. One that gave ordinary investors like me the chance to pool our buying power and negotiate as a group, thereby getting off-market deals, exclusive pricing, and early access. That’s the core of RETA—we go to the right places and get the best deals, first. We know that when you look everywhere, there’s always opportunity somewhere. That first Gathering was simple—eight of us in Rancho Santana’s little clubhouse in Nicaragua. The internet was so primitive, one member, Randy, was trying to dial into his office network. Today there’s a luxury hotel where that clubhouse once stood. And Randy? He was with us again at the last Gathering, reminiscing with me about how it all began. Seventeen years later, RETA has grown stronger than ever. The ethos is unchanged—we still pool our buying power to unlock deals no one else can touch. But now the deals are bigger, better, and instead of us knocking on doors, developers come looking for us. Think of all those invited to the upcoming Gathering XIII in Panama…from Costa Rica, Portugal, Uruguay, Paraguay, Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama itself. Think of the experts flying in—not conference-circuit speakers, but the people who are actually out there building, scouting, closing deals. They’ll be talking to us about the next places, the opportunities just starting to open up, the paths of progress before the crowd sees them. That’s the Gathering today: the same spirit as those early days around a laptop, but in a world-class setting, with world-class insiders What began as a huddle around my laptop is now a relaxed, club-like event in luxury surroundings. It’s still chill. Still fun. Still inspiring. And it’s where you’ll see firsthand why RETA has thrived for years. To give you a taste, here’s a short video of members talking about their Gathering experiences—what they got out of it, how it changed their perspective, and why they keep coming back. “What’s the Gathering really like? Hear from members who were there.” As I say, for The Gathering XIII , we’re meeting in Panama City, February 11-14 in the 5-star Santa Maria Hotel & Golf Resort, for three days of opportunity, insight, and connections you can’t get anywhere else. Plus an optional scouting tour of Panama if you want to join. And February is a great time to do it... I expect tropical sunshine and blue skies. February is the peak of the dry season and Panama City basks in sunny, 85 F days and warm tropical nights—the perfect escape from cold weather and an ideal backdrop for three days of deal-making and relaxed networking. Santa Maria is ideally located just 15 minutes from the airport and a short Uber ride to everything Panama City offers... If you’re serious about being “out ahead,” about seeing the deals and places before the crowd, this is where you need to be. Seats are limited to 350, and recent Gatherings have sold out within hours. Here’s why seats disappear so quickly… Nothing beats sharing ideas with members face-to-face—it's what The Gathering is for. This is a club event: the price is simply the cost of hosting us, split among those in the room. And I keep the numbers small on purpose, so there's plenty of relaxed face time...and always time to talk. •  Chat with me, the RETA Team, and Global Real Estate Experts Meet face to face with me, my scouts, and key players from my “million-dollar Rolodex”—including developers, lawyers, and dealmakers from around the world. These are experts who can answer your questions. Think of it this way… At The Gathering XIII in Panama, you could sit down with just one lawyer, developer, or real estate insider for a private conversation that might normally cost you hundreds—sometimes thousands—of dollars. Now multiply that by every speaker, expert, and RETA insider you’ll have access to...and you start to see why seats go so fast. •  Firsthand Scouting Report on the “Next Places” Hear directly from me and my RETA team about their latest scouting missions across Portugal, Italy, Slovenia, Uruguay, Japan, Morocco, Cartagena, Europe’s emerging Rivieras, and beyond…and learn about the next breakout destinations, before the world catches on. •  Exclusive Deals At its core, RETA membership is about clubbing together to secure off-market pricing on the best real estate in the world. Naturally, that makes deals the beating heart of The Gathering. And every year, members walk away from The Gathering with opportunities worth far more than the trip’s cost—sometimes by six figures. Every contact I invite is asked to come armed with a “bag full” of their latest finds—opportunities no one else has heard of yet, shared first with the people in the room. These are early, often exclusive deals that simply don’t make it to the open market. •  Meet Fellow RETA Members The Gathering format is so relaxed. We keep formal hall time to a minimum—focused sessions to serve us as talking points, not an endless slideshow. The real value happens in between: over lunch, on the terrace, in the gaps you leave open for the conversations you didn't know you needed to have. In fact, if you're just getting acquainted with RETA—the Gathering is the best place on earth to find out if all this is actually real. Come and ask the members who've already done it. Sit beside someone who's made six figures on a RETA deal. Ask them anything. Share meals with members who bought in deals in Costa Rica...Portugal...Panama...Cabo... Have a drink with my scouts. Get their insights. Bring a partner who's still on the fence—I've watched how skepticism melts away during The Gathering more times than I can count. •  Explore Vibrant Panama City Wander the cobbled streets of Panama’s Old Town, Casco Viejo, exploring plazas, galleries, and rooftop cocktail bars…stand at the Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal and watch a container ship rise and fall on its journey between oceans…enjoy a sunset drink as the city lights up, then dance the night away in a salsa club or relax to live jazz. There’s so much to see and explore in booming, cosmopolitan Panama City. •  Priced at Cost, Not for Profit Big real estate and investment conferences can run you $2,000 to $5,000 a ticket — and that's before you've paid for a single meal, a single night's stay, or the coffee you'll queue for between sessions. The Gathering XIII is $575. That's it. No hidden tiers. No "VIP upgrade" pitched at you halfway through registration. No surprise add-ons waiting in your inbox the week before you fly. Here's why the price is what it is. My company doesn't make a cent from The Gathering. Never has. This isn't a profit center—it's a club event, priced to cover exactly what it costs to put on: the meeting space, the welcome cocktail, coffee breaks, the Friday networking cocktail, your lunches, the farewell dinner, and the logistics that hold four days together. It covers these costs. Nothing more. •  A Launchpad for Your Overseas Real Estate Journey Every RETA member who's built a genuinely boundless life—someone dividing time between two or three countries, renting out a home in one place to fund a lifestyle in another, holding real assets in markets far from home—got there by doing something almost nobody teaches: they figured out their own version of it. Not mine. Not a template. Theirs. I've been talking about this idea informally for years—at dinners, in one-on-one conversations, in the odd session here and there. But I've never actually sat down and handed someone the tools to build it for themselves. At The Gathering XIII that changes. I’m introducing something new: a practical, working guide to help you map out your own Blueprint for a Boundless Life. Not a lecture. Not theory. A real, concrete tool you take with you and actually use. One of Europe’s new rivieras. The old ones are maxed out, eye wateringly expensive and get packed in peak season. At The Gathering XIII we’ll be talking about where the wealthy are going and how we can profit by buying ahead. When you leave The Gathering XIII, you're not just going home with a folder of notes and a few new contacts in your phone. You're going home with the full weight of the RETA club behind you. And that changes everything about how you invest from here. Now... Here's the hard reality... The Gathering XIII is capped at 350 seats. That's not a marketing number—it's the limit of what keeps this event what it is. Small enough that you can sit down with any developer, any attorney, any scout, any member in the room. Small enough that I can actually talk with you. The moment it gets bigger than that, it stops being The Gathering and starts being a conference. I won't let that happen. But this also means seats will go fast when registration opens next Wednesday, July 29 at 1 p.m. ET. If past Gatherings are to go by, all seats will be gone in less than an hour. So, you will need to secure your seat immediately to avoid finding yourself on the waitlist. Click here to sign up for an SMS alert so you’re notified when registration opens. This is a RETA Lifetime-only event. If you’re a RETA Lifetime member you’ll get your invitation and if you’re yet to become RETA Lifetime, you’ll have a chance to secure Lifetime membership and get your seat for The Gathering XIII when I open registration. Lifetime is the best-value RETA membership there is, and you get… • Lifetime access to all RETA member benefits—no renewals, no risk of missing a deal because your subscription lapsed at the wrong moment. • An invitation to The Gathering XIII and every future Gathering—our annual, closed-door meet-up with me, my scouts, top developers, and market insiders. • Recordings of everything from every Gathering, even the years you can't make it. • Our regular live insider Event, where a top contact from my personal network shares off-the-record intel and takes your questions, live. • The Legacy Advantage—gift complimentary RETA memberships to your family, so they can invest and build wealth alongside you. Get ready. Get your seat Wednesday, July 29, at 1 p.m. ET. Add it to your calendar and get an SMS alert here. 11 Affordable and Picturesque Small Towns to Live in Portugal Read More →   Inbox too crowded? 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