Building A New Log Styled Vacation Home in the Mountains – 1,775 square feet for under $100K

On the 22nd August 2008 I closed on a transaction to buy more land on which I will build another vacation home, maybe even my retirement home…

In case you ask, this is nowhere near the beach – where I am happy to visit but certainly do not want to live at the beach – but, we adored the home, we loved the fresh air, the peace and quiet but really didn’t have the time to enjoy it but, now that we’ve sold it – We really miss that place so much so… Here we go again!

As if we haven’t got enough on our plate, we will build another vacation home in the cooler mountains of Costa Rica and who knows? This may well be the place where we spend part of our retirement. My lady and I together in front of a roaring fireplace in the evening surrounded by thousands of old trees, quetzals and great views.

To show our VIP Members what’s possible when it comes to building your own vacation home in Costa Rica, we will track our progress, publish articles and videos so you can see what we’re doing and we will also make it crystal clear how much it all costs to build this new home in the mountains.

This new vacation home could be located in any one of a hundred, different, beautiful rural locations in Costa Rica. There are so many stunning places in this country where great deals can be had ‘if’ you have the time and energy to find them.

Any good and eventually profitable real estate investment requires time and energy to research correctly so you do have to find the time to discover the best place for you.

Building Your Own Home in Costa Rica:

This type of rustic, wood panel construction is not everyone’s cup of tea but, I love the cozy, earthy, natural energy of a home built from wood.

This style is perfect for the mountains and at about $200M2 for the wood panels (depending on the sawmill) the price is good too… Besides, I have a very modern apartment in the city so I don’t want the same thing out in the country.

So far we have only just finalized the purchase of the land, cleared the area with a tractor which looks like an antique – but is still very powerful – opened accounts with the local electricity cooperative and paid for the installation of the posts and cable to the plot of land. Our construction progress will depend on the weather which at the moment is wet – very wet.

Building Your Own Vacation or Retirement Home in Costa Rica. The cost so far:

• The initial deposit for the land was $5,000
• The balance of $35,000 was paid on 22.8.08
• The 22.8.08 payment to the local cooperative for posts, cable and meter for the electricity connection (c1,609,350) or $2,920.00
• Payments to our foreman Juan Carlos to oversee the clearing of the land c40,000 or $75.26
• Payment to the attorneys for legal services at closing c80,000 or $145.00 (This is much lower than normal as we negotiated a deal with the seller)
• Deposit to the local hardware store so the foreman could order some basic items to secure the construction materials c500,000 or $909.00

For a grand total of US$44,049.26 for 5,000.90 square meters of land which is now ready to build on = US$8.80 per square meter.

We have whittled the architect choice down to two Costa Rica architects who specialize in this type of very simple rustic, country home, both have given us preliminary designs and I will decide on which one we’ll hire later this week so as long as we get the necessary approvals and the weather conditions are OK, we would hope to start construction by the end of November.

But this has been a very wet year so far so I may have to be patient.

The preliminary home design and the size may change slightly in the next week or so but it is simple.

This mountain home will be a total of about 165M2 (1,775 square feet) with two bedrooms, one huge bathroom, an open plan living room and dining room area with a large terrace at the front with awesome, panoramic views to the valley below, a good sized kitchen, a study upstairs with a small balcony and lots of windows, a magnificent fireplace, the bodega where I’ll be chopping and then storing the firewood and a garage area.

Based on my calculations for this type of construction, with a healthy margin for error I estimate that we should be able build this new home for about $95,000 which will include all architect fees, insurance, permits, top quality appliances (cooking good food is very important to me), curtains, light fixtures, beds and all other furniture, plus the cost of the land which was US$44,049.26

We would hope that the home will be completed before the end of June 2009 at the very latest and that also includes additional time factored into the equation for any weather delays.

The electricity should hopefully be installed within the next ten days which is when we will install a gate at the front of the property and bring you another update.

You can see the sort of style home we will be building with three online videos when you read about my previous vacation home here.

You can see photographs of the raw land as we first discovered it at: Building A New Log Styled Vacation Home in the Mountains – The raw land.

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Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.