Costa Rica Blog

The Tortoise and the Hares - Costa Rica Real Estate and Property

Posted by Steve Linder on Mon, Dec, 26, 2011

About 3 hours south of San Jose Costa Rica, just above the coastal highway around Ojochal is the largest residential expat development in the entire county.   Without the aid of a real estate office, highway signs or office in San Jose, this project has been one of the best kept secrets while being the most successful.   While many other developers in Costa Rica have come and gone, this firm has grown slowly and steadily. The company is represented under the name Pacific Lots of Costa Rica and sales to North Americans from both the US and Canada have been brisk even as most other real estate projects in Costa Rica struggle to survive.  With 22 years developing land and building custom homes, a primary reason of the success of the company has been its conservative approach and the decision to build a residential community, not a tourist attraction. 

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Tags: Costa Rica real estate, Real estate in Costa Rica, Caldera Highway, international living, foreclosed homes costsa rica, Pacific Lots, Costa Rica retirement, Property in Costa Rica, Costa Rica development, baby boomers offshore, Costa Rica

Buying Real Estate and Moving to Costa Rica - Considerations

Posted by Steve Linder on Sat, Dec, 05, 2009

Strategy for Buying Real Estate in Costa Rica

When we'd settled on Costa Rica the destination we planned to retire to the first thing we did was set a strategy to find a piece of property that met our requirements in terms of size, location and budget.  We were pretty savvy shoppers having bought and sold close to a dozen properties in the states so we thought we knew what we were doing.  We first looked for foreclosed property in Costa Rica.  We quickly realized there wasn't much in the way of foreclosed homes in Costa Rica since most homes have no mortgage, with most being purchased in the past for cash.  The mortgage market in Costa Rica is still in it's infancy.  Typically you can't get a mortgage on land, only developer financing.  In this type of financing, the developer holds the note.  Mortgages for finished homes or construction mortgages typically require large down payments in Costa Rica.  Banks in Costa Rica want a minimum of 20% of the value of the mortgage as collateral.  Fortunately you can typically pledge land you own as collateral for a construction loan which is what many owners in our developments end up doing.

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Tags: developments, Real Estate Costa Rica, foreclosures, foreclosed homes costsa rica, MLS Costa Rica, moving to Costa Rica, buying real estate, Costa Rica