Estimated Reading Time: 4 Minutes Residential real estate developers and builders in Costa Rica make promises quite easily. That’s because promises are easily made, as long as the sale is made, right! A buyer often cannot even start to imagine how difficult those promises are to fulfill. Especially in a buyer’s market, when you will…
Looking for a survey map or plano catastrado of your property? Then you’ve arrived at the right place. I will show you how to get a survey map of your property online. You just need to follow the steps. In exchange for this FREE information, I have a great deal for you: do business with…
Estimated Reading Time: 8 Minutes Is Costa Rica your retirement goal? Are you fed up with the cold weather and the rat race, and can’t wait to get to warm Costa Rica, that tropical retirement paradise you’ve been dreaming about for many years. Or maybe you just moved here and you want to enjoy your…
I really enjoy reading discussions between expats if moving to Panama is a bad idea or not. I enjoyed Ivo’s blog about Bill who could not consider Costa Rica for retirement but prefers moving to Panama instead. I am not sure his neighbor in Vancouver has been to Panama recently, but I go quite often.…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes Future expats don’t know where to live in Costa Rica before they move here. So often they just send emails to realtors. “I want to live in Costa Rica, send me listings.” You might think otherwise, but it’s not so simple. Sometimes they don’t even realize that Costa Rica is…
Have you ever thought about buying a jungle home in Costa Rica? I bet you have. Where you can hear the howler monkeys calling and the surf breaking when everything is quiet? You will find the best and most incredible jungle homes in the Caribe Sur of Costa Rica. It’s that secret haven where the beach meets…
In this blog, I’d like to attend to a question we receive almost daily: what is the construction cost in Costa Rica? I wish the answer was simple but there are many details involved that will change the building cost of a home. Now, in 2019, construction cost in Costa Rica runs anywhere between $70…
If you are Costa Rican and left Costa Rica several decades ago, you will find adjusting difficult when you return. You probably think that returning home for your retirement is pretty easy. Well, let me assure you it’s not and adjusting is difficult, much more than you’ll expect. Costa Rica, like all other countries, has…
I’d like you to take advantage of the additional ROI you can receive when you buy an investment property before August. “How is that?” you might ask. Well, it has everything to do with the new capital gains tax that the Costa Rican government will start charging as of August 1st, 2019. You can read…
Estimated Reading Time: 10 Minutes Is it possible to retire on social security in Costa Rica and live comfortably? Retirees on U.S. Social Security, or Canadians on the Canada Pension Plan, seem to be attracted to moving to our beautiful country (I, too, hate cold winters!) I often receive emails from future retirees asking if…
Loan to value ratio or LTV is a ratio that reflects the relationship between how much you borrow and the appraised value of your property. For example, Joan wants to purchase a home for $100,000. She plans to make a down payment of 10 percent ($10,000) and finance the rest. This means her loan is…
You might not know it yet, but soon we’ll have capital gains tax in Costa Rica. How will this interfere with your home and your real estate investments in Costa Rica? Will this new tax law hurt future business in Costa Rica? One of our beach property affiliates told me this week that a seller…
Watch the new legal requirements on Anonymous corporations in Costa Rica. In the past, property in Costa Rica was almost customarily purchased into anonymous corporations by foreign buyers. One of the most important reasons was to protect the property for the personal liability of the owner. Another good reason was that several owners could possess a…
The internet allows us to work from home, so a comfortable home office is now more important than ever. Some 20 years ago, few people had a home office. Few professionals worked from home, like surveyors, real estate agents, insurance agents, and maybe civil engineers. Others, who sometimes took work home, had no more than…
A frequently asked question from clients is if the utility costs are included in rentals. It’s a great question because the utility costs can increase significantly. So the utility costs can cut into your budget tremendously. The correct answer to this question is that sometimes it is, and sometimes it is not. The inclusion of…
Quite often buyers from out of the country ask why real estate developments in Costa Rica are not listed on the MLS. If you are interested in buying a condo or a house in any of the real estate developments, they are really hard to find. You have to be on the ground (in Costa…