Posted by Steve Linder on Sun, Aug 22, 2010
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Many of you may realize that last week International Living held an event at the San Jose Marriott "Live and Invest in Costa Rica". As the sponsor for the event, we provided the entire conference with an opening cocktail reception with open bar and appetizers. I also gave a presentation during the event about our project in Costa Rica and we had a booth in the exhibit room. The Marriott is a beautiful hotel and the conference center is equally as nice. The event was attended by over 200 people.
These shows take a lot out of you. You have to arrive in the exhibit room before 8:00 am and are typically there until well after 7:00 pm. Fortunately Patrick came and worked the event with me.
To further compound the challenge of the event, Kristina and I had booked four Discovery property tours to coincide with the event. The first scheduled for August 6-9 was booked with 21 people. For those of you who have been to the guest house, you realize we can't fit 21 people at the guest house. We booked the entire Buena Vista Hotel for the overflow, as well as the guest house. We had to use a 28 passenger Coaster Bus to move the group from San Jose and back. Even with the new Caldera and Costanera highway, this big bus would be much slower than our normal tourist vans. I also had to transport those clients at the Buena Vista to and from the guest house each day since all our meals would be served at the guest house. I have already received a great deal of praise from those on the tours, how great the time was, how wonderful the project is and how good that food was. The weather cooperated well except that on the third tour, we did have some early rain on the day we were visiting the properties. It is hard to appreciate a great ocean view when all you could see was clouds reflecting off the ocean.
The event at the Marriott ran August 11-13. On the morning of the 14th we headed south again with another 21 people for the tour. On the 16th, another group came down in the same bus that would take the group back to San Jose that was already there. On the 18th another group came down as the third group was leaving. All in all the tours went smoothly, Mayca (our chef) did a great job preparing meals for 25 people each day on the bigger tours. She prepared and plated 75 meals a day including her famous home made bread and french pastry desserts.
The highlight of these trips for me was that I sold the model home we have been using as a bathroom stop in phase 5. Many of you have visited this home, great ocean view, waterfall into the pool and fantastic landscape. We sold well over a million dollars in home sites over the 14 days and have a few more sales in negotiation. All in all I am glad it is over. Now only three more weeks until Kristina and I head to Las Vegas for the "Live and Invest Overseas" show that already had nearly 400 people signed up to attend. I am grateful that our project is so popular and things are only getting better each time I am there. Pacific Lots of Costa Rica was the most popular project at the event this time and continues to be the most successful single family real estate project in Costa Rica
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Posted by Steve Linder on Tue, Feb 23, 2010
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I arrived in Quito last night to set up my booth for International Living´s `'Ultimate Event'. The event runs all week at the Swissotel in Quito and we (Pacific Lots) are the major sponsor of the event. I have three speaking spots, one on Costa Rica in General, one on our developments and one on health tourism in Costa Rica. I managed to get our 10 foot display here in one piece, along with our pòsters, DVD´s, brochures, etc. Keep in mind that Quito is 8,000 feet elevation and remember that I live at sea level so I will likely feel like a guppy out of water for the next 6 days.
Quito is a big city but kind of gray. Ecuador has some economic issues, which makes it cheap to live here, but would not be a choice either I or Kristina could live with. I get unnerved by guards with automatic weapons, even if they are guarding important things, like the Kentucky Fried Chicken Store :-). It is a fascinating place to visit though the coast is much colder than I would have figured. The ocean offshore is very cold and keeps the coast quite cool.
I head back to Miami on the 1st of March, then on to Costa Rica on the 3rd, with 4 back to back tour groups. See you all mid March or so.....
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