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But look at the prices they must pay ….
My parents who live in Scotland, at least two hours away from a major city, bought a small new home a couple of years back for the equivalent of about US$300K
I’m buying one for about the same price but there’s a difference, our new home is about three times as large and built with far superior materials.
So when Brits and other Europeans see that their money can buy 2-3 times as much real estate in comparison with ‘back home’ PLUS far lower property taxes, PLUS minimal expenses on utilities, they tend to forget that it’s a long trip here…
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comGuarantees are respected more when it comes to buying condos in a gated community but other than that… You’re really on your own after the job is completed.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.co.Forgive me daveJ but Americans are not the only people that occupy this planet, there are others.
In February, our VIP Members bought about a dozen condos just in one project in Santa Ana and there’s probably more purchases that we don’t know of…
Out of those ten people (one person bought three) we had buyers from the USA, Canada, a lovely couple from the Czech Republic, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, Britain and Costa Rica.
You might also want to see ‘Costa Rica Real Estate Prices – Why Europeans are buying.’ at
Bottom line? Costa Rica is attractive to North Americans, Europeans and on a continent famous for political & financial instability – to most of Central and Latin America.
Scott Oliver – Founder
Founder – WeLoveCostaRica.comI do not know what car Trevor Chilton drives, where he got the money to buy it from or where he bought it and have never visited his project so can’t speak from experience about what he’s doing there.
However, since 4/5 of our VIP Members bought homes in the same project where he once rented in Santa Ana – I can verify that 5 & 6 are correct.
The Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission is clearly interested in speaking with Trevor about something serious but although I have spent time on that site, it is not clear what that problem is so I have no idea if “history is repeating itself.’
If anyone on this thread knows Trevor personally perhaps they could ask him to please address this issue here in this forum because it does not seem to want to go away and the more this question is left ‘up in the air’ the more people will wonder.
Our goal with this site is help educate and protect real estate investors however, we also do not wish to make any false accusations against anybody.
I have also been the target of slanderous and defamatory allegations in the past which we have proven in writing to be completely false and instead of us all guessing what the problem ‘might’ be, we would like to offer Trevor Chilton the same opportunity to explain what this problem with the Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission is all about.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comYou obviously know him…
Trevor is a very intelligent human being and I am perplexed that he can be quite so toxic at times. He does not realize this but last year I actually persuaded one of our developer clients not to seek legal counsel about suing him for defamation based on very insulting and defamatory comments that he made in his publicly available newsletter about one of our developer/friend’s project in Jaco.
He also does not realize that some of the prospective clients he has insulted in writing (believe it or not) have forwarded those emails to me… This is a very small country.
He would do well to focus on building his project and not being quite so venomous against his competition because if one his competitors does decide to sue him, he won’t have any time left on his hands to build anything and as we all know the wheels of ‘justice’ in Costa Rica often move very, very, very, very , very slowly.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThe Ministerio de Salud website is at but I can NOT see any list of ‘perros peligrosos” or “perros prohibidos.”
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comWould you please clarify if this is ‘new’ news or just a repeat of the old news?
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comOne of my favorites is remembering my mother telling my sister:
“Don’t just sit there – do something!” (If you know me, you’ll know that sitting still is not something I can do very easily…)
And then remembering Sogyyal Rimpoche, the author of the Tibetan Book of the Living & Dying (my bible) saying:
“Don’t just do something, sit there!”
I love that…
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThere are always upticks even in a down market and let’s remember that Lotus is NOT referring to the New York market, he is referring to the Manhattan market which has always been unique and certainly does not represent the market in the rest of the USA.
Some (including myself) might describe this as the calm in the eye of the hurricane and please bear in mind that I am referring to the US market and NOT the real estate market in Costa Rica.
The number of vacant homes and foreclosures in the US are at very high levels and we haven’t really begun to see the fallout from the sub-prime (high-risk) mortgages and did you see how many of those lenders have gone bankrupt recently?
“In a December report, the Center for Responsible Lending estimated that nearly 20 percent of those who took out risky mortgages will lose their homes nationwide. In California, more than 21 percent are likely to default, with a foreclosure rate as high as 25 percent in some areas.”
I would suggest that the default rate will be far higher than 25% and in the New York Times a few weeks back I noted that “1 in 5 sub-prime loans will end in foreclosure”…
“About 2.2 million borrowers who took out sub-prime loans from 1998 to 2006 are likely to lose their homes”. In real terms, that translates into roughly 10 million people!
The US savings rate is in negative territory and when interest rates go higher (and they will) the people that have interest only mortgages – which is also a huge number of people – will also suffer.
Constructions starts are all at very low levels and construction is a huge employer in the USA and I stopped believing the ‘financial indicators’ coming out of the government a long time ago.
The housing “boom” is entirely due to Greenspan’s “cheap money” policy (low interest rates) and Business Week summarized it well saying:
“Today’s housing prices are predicated on an impossible combination: the strong growth in income and asset values of a strong economy, plus the ultra-low rates of a weak economy. Either the economy’s long-term prospects will get worse or rates will rise. In either scenario, housing will weaken.”
As Stephen Jen, the chief currency economist at Morgan Stanley, said recently in an article in the New York Times, “All the policy makers still believe in the possibility of a dollar crash. It’s still lingering out there.”
The US (people and country) are moving in a direction that is simply unsustainable. And we all know what happens when people go on a spending spree and continuously spend far, far more than they earn with their credit cards, at some stage, they are asked and then forced to pay their debts.
And the powers that be absolutely know this will happen which is one of the reasons why we saw the changes in the bankruptcy laws in 2005 that makes it harder for consumers to dodge their debts.
There’s a catastrophic financial storm on the horizon and if you saw the ‘Perfect Storm’ movie, you’ll know how that ends.
Should the US attack Iran, which many people unfortunately expect, this will probably be the straw the breaks the camel’s back but, no doubt the architects behind that will then blame the decimated US economy on the ‘war on terror.’
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comSo for a 1,000 square foot co-op apartment, someone would pay $1,000 -$1,750 per MONTH for their share of ‘maintenance’ and property taxes.
And in my brand new 3,228 square feet condo home, I’ll be paying about $230 for BOTH maintenance (swimming pool, security etc) as well as property taxes
God! I LOVE this place.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comI believe that http://www.acuarium.com/ builds pools all over the country but you should double-check with them
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comHolybeejabbers!
So the cheapest 1,000 square foot *co-*op* in Manhattan would go for about $1,000,000
And a new 1,000 square foot *condo* in Manhattan would be priced at around $1,300,000
Dare we ask two more questions?
1. What would be the monthly maintenance be and …
2. What would be the annual property taxes on those apartments?1 square foot = 0.093 square meters so at $1,300 per square foot, the condos work out to be about $13,978 per square meter
I am in the process of buying a new two storey luxury home myself, it’s 300M2 (3,228 square feet) with a nice little garden in a highly-secure gated condo community in a great location in Santa Ana, built by one of the best builders I have come across and it costs US$1,033 per square meter.
From what you are telling me, “if” I could find a condo home like this in Manhattan, it would cost over US$4 million dollars instead of $310,000 and I don’t even want to imagine how much the property taxes would be….
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comFebruary was a spectacular month here in our own area of Escazu & Santa Ana.
The Country Club project is just about sold out (they raised their prices again in March) and they have not finished building the first building yet …
Just for a laugh, can you give us a break down of the avferage cost per square meter/foot up there?
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comGreat feedback GringoTico – thank you.
I have been going through a frustrating process with three totally different companies during the last couple of months and trying really hard to use all the wisdom I have gained over the last seven years living with and loving Ticos. It’s not working…
Two packaging companies whom we met with promised to get back to me with design ideas for two new products and the person that is supposed to be printing our business cards. The printing card people printed them before so all they have to do is run the same job again but we can’t even get them on the telephone.
We are still waiting for the packaging companies to get back to us….
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThere are at least half a dozen “Title Guarantee” companies here now.
I believe Costa Rica law prevents them from using the word “insurance”
If you Google ‘Costa Rica Title companies’ you’ll find quite a few and yes! The attorneys typically earn a decent chunk of the premium.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.com
