Though you can buy homes right now in the US (Las Vegas and Phoenix for example) for less than they cost to build, Costa Rica has not experienced that problem. There are a few “distressed” markets in Costa Rica, areas where during the boom too much inventory was built in some crappy areas.
Our area is just emerging, still a 3 + hour drive from San Jose but the most beautiful part of the entire country. Houses here cost $100 per square foot excluding land, that’s what we are building for though there are a lot of other builders for less but you get what you pay for. A house is an asset, not an expense. Good assets go up in value, bad assets lose value. Many assets in the US lost value in the past 5 years as we started to forget what really determines value and many got caught up in the hype of real estate speculation.
Supply and demand dictate value. The primary reasons why there’s so much demand for Costa Rica, stable government and economy, friendly people, full right to ownership and title, deeded fee simple ownership, no tax on income from outside Costa Rica and the cost once you own your home is ridiculously cheap. There’s also a bunch of baby boomers from around the world (not just the US and Canada) looking for a simpler, less complicated, less expensive, healthier way of life. Not to mention that Property taxes, healthcare costs and lower cost of living where you quickly make up savings in Costa Rica versus the US. Plus the quality of life is pretty nice.
There’s also plenty of food and water and when the #8&# hits the fan in the US as the dollar continues to decline in value, it’s a great strategy on how not to have all your assets and savings in dollars. The worst financial crisis is yet to come in the US. The value of the dollar will suffer immensely in the next 5 years. The dollar will no longer be the reserve currency of the world and the change is already taking place. As the dollar loses value, if all your savings and assets are in dollars, you will lose a large percentage of your net worth. Trust me this is going to happen.
The G20 and G8 are already looking to replace the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. With 12 trillion dollars in debt and the US printing presses churning out money faster than we can spend it, the world is quickly becoming disenfranchised with the dollar and it's value worldwide has already lost nearly 12% in the last year alone. The US government wants dollars to depreciate so our debt costs less to pay back. But what that means to your life savings, value of your assets and hard earned cash is not good. Visit our website at www.PacificLots.com for options on how to get some of your money out of dollars and into hard assets denominated in other currency.