Often, sellers do not know how to calculate investment property asking price when they want to sell the property. Or they calculate it totally wrong and the property takes years to sell. A savvy investor will only buy a property with a great return on the investment, right? Just this week, we received the request…
You might not even know you have Costa Rican corporation problems, especially if your corporation owns property in Costa Rica. Or if you own a corporation and are not a citizen or resident. Above all, you don’t want to lose your assets in CostaRica because you are not up to date with your legal obligations, don’t…
Why not look for a fire sale property when you’re buying! If you don’t look for that fire sale property, you’ll be missing out on a good deal. How to go at it? Learn all about it here. Every buyer of property in Costa Rica wants to have a bargain. Since a fire sale property…
I started practicing law in Costa Rica in 2003. At the time, incorporating, or not incorporating a company in Costa Rica to hold real property and other assets, was a straight forward decision. Property buyers were Incorporating a Company for basically 3 reasons: 1. Limited liability aspect afforded by the corporate structure. 2. Anonymity afforded…
What is a real estate purchase option and when is it needed? Who writes up this purchase agreement? What should be in this contract? Is it legally binding? A real estate purchase option is a contract where the seller gives the buyer the exclusive right to purchase a specific piece of property. The contract stipulates…
Do you want to try renting a house as a tourist in Costa Rica? It’s often hard to figure out what’s legal and what not when renting a house as a tourist. There are so many wrong ideas about it. Nathan wasn’t sure about a lot of things, so he decided to email me: Hello,…
No one in the Costa Rica real estate market can take our place when it comes to sharing local knowledge and expertise. That’s why we publish our weekly blogs. It’s embarrassing to see so much wrong information published by many real estate websites because they lack local knowledge. Many years ago, I took on the…
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…
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…
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…
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…