Costa Rica Blog

Gallup, the provider of reliable and respected opinion polls in over 155 countries recently concluded its 5 year study called "Gallup Global Wellbeing".  Gallup's global wellbeing metrics are the first comprehensive measure of the behavioral economics of gross national wellbeing, which lays the foundation for all other measures of a country's economic strength.  Gallup asks ordinary individuals for their thoughts and opinions on several topics, including economics, religion, migration, and wellbeing. They then classified respondents as "thriving", "struggling" or "suffering" upon how they rated their current and future lives.

I predicted a while ago that the dollar would start to lose value versus other countries.  Many countries that many of think have fairly robust economies and stable currency have suffered in the past few years.  One country that has not suffered has been Costa Rica.  Unfortunately for us in the US, that is driving up prices in Costa Rica as the dollar slips against the colon.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing.  It is a good thing for anyone who'd taken their dollars and bought property in Costa Rica since as the dollar slips, the value of the land does not.  In fact those who own property there effectively make money when the dollar slips since the real estate market in Costa Rica is an international market and unless you are selling your property in dollars (most people don't) you are now getting more dollars than ever for your property.  I suspect you will quickly see developers in Costa Rica move away from pricing their properties in dollars since as the dollar drops, so does their revenue. 

The two towns most visited in the central Pacific region are Jaco and Manuel Antonio (actually it is Quepos but the nice part of Quepos is referred to as Manual Antonio, the name of the national park that sits there).

This past two weeks, I had the pleasure of taking the new Caldera toll road from San Jose to the coast.  This was my first time on the new road and I was really impressed.  The road, built by Autopista Del Sol (a consortium from Spain) is an engineering marvel.  Bridges now span vast valleys where switch back hair pin turns used to be the only way to traverse the terrain.  The highway is divided with plenty of room for cars and trucks alike. 

I guess yesterday was one of those lucky days you stumble upon without effort.  Here's the story.

This article was written by Wendy Dwight Foster, a Canadian living in our developments.

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. 

In order to work in Costa Rica, you must either be a citizen or have legal permanent residency.  With any other residency type (rentista, pensionado, etc), you are allowed to own a business but you cannot work in that business. You must hire Costa Rican labor and your role is limited to management of the business.  That is why many of our restaurants may have an expat owner but all they do is visit with customers, they don't work the kitchen or wait tables for example.

Here is a great Slide Show I made for risk analysis when considering moving abroad.  With 7 years of International Business at the college level, I present things to consider when choosing a country to relocate or invest in.  Risk and return are related and our threshold for risk varies from person to person.  Take a look at this slide show to get a better understanding of how to use risk analysis to help in the selection process of where to live, relocate, retire or invest.  Remember that every scenario has risk, even that of doing nothing.  Also remember that when looking back at life it is often not what we did that we regret, it is what we didn't do.

The Scarlet Macaw, one of the most beautiful Macaws, lives high in the trees of lowland deciduous or tropical evergreen forests gracing forest canopies from Mexico to central South America.  This brilliantly colored macaw is the only one found on the Pacific side of Costa Rica, and it rarely flies on the Caribbean side, where the Great Green Macaw lives.