Retire In Costa Rica or Nicaragua – Just the facts!
If you are seriously thinking of living or retiring abroad, you should take some serious time and make a real effort to look at the facts and the numbers to see if all those ‘claims’ are as accurate as people make them sound…
Glamorous websites and smooth talking newsletters that make ‘fluffy’ promises you will ‘make your fortune with Nicaraguan real estate‘ are all too common. Unfortunately, it’s the people that are selling you their real estate that are making the ‘fortune’ and not you!
So today we present you up to date and overwhelming evidence that when it comes to choosing which Central American country is the best for healthcare, which is most politically and financially stable – Costa Rica is #1!
Most people agree that the Costa Rica climate is better and the people, the ‘Ticos’ are friendlier too…
And you don’t have to take my word for it. We’ll show you where you can check it all out yourself with CIA country reports for Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, as well as IMF data and Fitch’s financial analysis on Costa Rica right here
Here’s the bottom line from the September 2004 Report from the IMF (International Monetary Fund). Now you’ll have to forgive me for assuming that you will be primarily interested in the comparison between Costa Rica and Nicaragua and it’s a 61 page report so we’ve picked out just a few ‘juicy’ facts for you…
According to the Nicaragua Poverty Assessment report from the World Bank Group, “… more than 25 percent of the population struggle to survive on less than one dollar per day.” Which may be why there are estimated to be about 500,000 ‘Nicas’ in Costa Rica ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’.
I don’t know of any Costa Ricans that have ‘fled’ to Nicaragua to improve the quality of their lives… The good news is that you can indeed buy cheap real estate in Nicaragua, just make sure you never get sick or need a doctor!
Let’s not confuse ‘quality of living’ with ‘cost of living’.
|
Costa Rica
|
Nicaragua
|
|
| Percentage of population below poverty line |
18.5%
|
47.9%
|
| Life expectancy at birth in 2001 |
77.9
|
69.1
|
| Infant Mortality at birth per 1,000 in 2001 |
9
|
36
|
| Population without access to safe water in 2000 |
5%
|
23%
|
| Per capita health expenditure in 2000 |
$474
|
$108
|
| Physicians per 1,000 people in 1990-2002 |
178
|
61
|
| Adult illiteracy in 2001 |
4.3%
|
33.2%
|
| GDP per capita in 2001 |
US$9,460
|
US$2,450
|
