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I’ve traveled all along the Pacific part of CR a few times and saw some great places where I’d like to purchase a home, and maybe do some sort of vacation type rental program until I’m ready to move to CR. Can anyone give me some tips of where/what to buy in order to have the property consistently rented? Near the beach? Condo or free-standing house? How many bedrooms? Buy in a American or expatriate community? If there are any articles, please post the link. Thanks!
You might want to read ‘Renting Properties – Our experience with the good the bad and the ugly.’ Which you can find at: [ https://www.welovecostarica.com/members/893.cfm ]
Here are a few other tips for you to remember:
1. Try not to get emotionally attached to a home especially if you are thinking of buying it as an investment. Mixing emotions and investing together is a recipe for disaster and is definitely not a money making formula.
2. Try not to get emotionally attached to a home that is priced above the market because the “love” that you have right now for that home will not last as a long as the regret that you will have when you can’t sell the darned thing except at a loss.
3. Think very, very carefully before you agree to buy a $500K property when you had budgeted $300K. US$200,000 is a big difference and one of you will probably blame the other for going over your previously agreed upon budget!
4. Do not fall in love with unfounded “projections.” That is NOT “economics” – that’s guessing! Had a property been rented for a few years and management could prove that it has enjoyed an occupancy rate of 50% – fine! But few can! There were a lot of “projections” with DotCom stocks that didn’t work our quite as well as they had “projected.”
5. Times change! Just a short time ago, the real estate market was smoking hot in many areas of Costa Rica but nothing lasts forever. With all feedback I get from hundreds of buyers, sellers and dozens of developers each week, we had a large number of our American friends who had problems selling their properties back home in the USA. Because of this, some of them do not have the monies to close on the Costa Rica real estate they wanted to buy and this certainly helped to slow down the coastal real estate market.
Scott
Hi Scott, thanks for the link. Very informative article. I never thought it would be easy! 🙁
I guess I was looking for general tips as well: Would a condo in an expat complex rent easier than a free standing home? What’s an idea # of bedrooms for a rental? etc. Would love to hear some more personal experiences–especially from CR.
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