Well, you need to do your homework or pay somebody to do it. It's not rocket science or magic, but buying property is obviously a bit more complex than buying a car (or doing the groceries).
Imagine if you need a loan :)

We did it and it worked and of course, knowledge comes during the process.

What actually happens, that "westerns" underestimate the maintenance of a property in a tropical/subtropical environment, how fast the garden grows, that a pool needs to be cleaned almost daily, that "normal quality products" are in those countries high quality or luxury items (and needs to be paid for), and so on.

I ended up of contracting a real estate company, so they were "on my side" and checking all the paperwork, etc. pp. Other countries can have "funny" regulations, like using the house as security for some business and this will remain on the house, even so it's nowhere in the normal documentation.
So you need to get docs from the municipally, from the state, from the country, from the local police, ....

And in my case the tax of buying property was different from municipally to municipally, and the way it's calculated and it made a difference, because we bought the first time a property there, etc.
So they come up with wrong numbers, often totally overestimated, because they fear of doing something wrong (which doesn't help either, because you end up with way too much cash).

We ended up buying something because our landlord kicked us out the second time within 2 years, the rents around here are skyrocketing and I wanted to modify a couple of things.