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Thanks lotus
This is one of the half-done articles that I have been trying to find the time to finish …
I will post this as an article and make sure we mention it in the next newsletter
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThe brokers that help our VIP Members to find suitable properties do indeed earn commissions and they deserve every penny.
But in helping my international investment clients to manage a fairly significant amount of money, I simply do not have the time (or the desire) to show properties to people.
Who knows what the future holds but for the time being, we are helping a lot of people find their new Costa Rica homes.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThe VIP Members of this website had been nagging me for YEARS to help them choose real estate in Costa Rica and not just try to warn, educate and protect people when they invest or buy property in Costa Rica. And for years, I simply did not have the time to do that…
As detailed at The big problem we had here was that a very big percentage of our VIP Members were looking for affordable homes and the majority of real estate agents were focusing much more on high-end homes. They did not want to help them and many didn’t even bother to reply to their emails.
Knowing that there are hundreds of reputable developers (many of whom were contacting me) building thousands of affordable Costa Rica homes that our VIP Members would never find because their advertising is focused locally and is all in Spanish – I did eventually decided it would be a good idea to bring those two groups – who needed each other – together.
So late last year, I started spending more time meeting with developers that I know and unless you are new to my site, you will know that I have made it crystal clear that I only recommend experienced developers that I know personally and trust with a proven track record of building quality real estate in Costa Rica.
If a developer does not fit into that category, I won’t even meet with them and certainly don’t write about them.
Should they wish to be featured on this website, meet our criteria and everything checks out legally, yes! They pay me for my time and for the videographer, I’m certainly not going to spend a week of my life researching and writing about a project for free.
What do our VIP Members get out of it? They get to see articles about a few real estate projects built by experienced developers that I know know personally and trust with a proven track record of building quality real estate in Costa Rica.
They know that the project has been thoroughly researched by me and checked on by an attorney so they are way ahead of the game in doing their homework before they even arrive in Costa Rica.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comPosted in wrong place and reposted here by Scott
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Posted Sep 12,2006 11:17 AM John H.
We actually were taken to this mountiantop construction site. We dubbed it the ‘Macchu Pichu of Costa Rica; becasue it resembles the famous archaelogical site high in the Andes Hemosa Highlands, is just that: high up in the mountains and very remote. It is about 1.9 miles ‘as the crow flys, above Jaco and Playa Herradura (near Los Suenos) but there is no road to get there yet, so you have to go about south of Jaco (near Esterillos) and cut back up into the mountains on a long and harrowing drive. We could only envision that the to-be-built ‘direct’ road from this development to Jaco would look like the very winding Lombard Street in San Francisco, steep and curvey! Perhaps, if they put in a tram to get up there and a canopy zip line to get down, it would have some appeal…at least to those who relish mountain seculsion to the max…or perhaps to Peruvian Incas!We bought at much more convenient condo development on the Coastline Hwy., between Los Suenos and Jaco, convenient to everything and without the nosebleeds!
J&K
Thank you dawntr
For the rest of our VIP Members:
An acre = 4,050M2 so half an acre = 2,205M2 and your price means you paid under $15 per square metre.
As long as you did your homework before purchasing the land, this sounds like a reasonable deal for land in that area which already has utilities in place.
I think the problem for most people is that they simply do not have the time to get out there and find the ‘deals’ so when an email pops into their inbox promising them their ‘dream home’ in a ‘tropical paradise’ – they look into it without doing the homework that they should definitely be doing.
The moral of this story? The deals are out there “if” you take the time to find them and, when you are investing tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy land, you should spend some serious time and do your homework properly.
Like most investments, if you do your research well, the probabilities of making a profitable decision are far greater than if you make a random decision and buy ‘whatever’ you come across next.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThanks Brad
I would love to hear what our VIP Members think too… Most of the feedback I receive are obviously from people in the real estate business but would like to know what the ‘neighbors’ are tralking about amongst themselves…
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comApart from your own travel documentation, you would need meet all the safety requirements of all the countries you pass through to take your dog with you.
If that’s not complicated enough, the documentation that you will have to complete to return to the USA with a live animal that has passed through all of those third world countries – with tropical diseases that you have never heard of – will be even more problematical.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThis posted in the wrong place and reposted here by Scott
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Posted Sep 06,2006 6:29 AM Wendy Strebe
Nope, we don’t any gated communities here and we are proud of that. People live in real communities where neighbors watch out for neighbors. Many have fences and gates, but no exclusive stuff happening. You can buy a condo lot at Samasati Yoga Retreat and be in a gated situation. But that’s about it. Hopefully that will not change!I was delighted with the new kitchen built for my home (using furniture magazine photographs) by the people featured in the article below:
‘Furniture in Costa Rica – Sarchi is a good place to go…’ which you can read at:
They are NOT in Dominical, they are in the furniture capital of Costa Rica – Sarchi – but they do deliver all over the country.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThey can under certain circumstances which are fairly easy to avoid “if” you do things correctly
You may wish to read ‘Costa Rica Land – Squatters have rights too’ which you can find at:
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThe Central valley area tends to have more professional, longer term rentals whereas the beach areas tend to have more short-term, higher-impact rentals.
For a home that you would buy for $80-$120K you would expect to rent for APPROXIMATELY US$500-$1,000 depending on the area and whether it’s furnished or not.
We are presently evaluating the viability of offering a property management service to our VIP Members who have been asking us for help in this area.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comIn looking at the demographics of the USA, I would suggest that prices are not going any lower…
1. Most gringo buyers here are not paying for their homes with mortgages, they are paying in full and require no financing. Buyers that need to sell their homes in the US before they buy here are suffering because their homes are not selling, the others will not.
2. As times get tougher in the US – and they will – I anticipate that MORE people will look at Costa Rica as an affordable and attractive place to live and the people that are ‘thinking’ about it will probably accelerate their plans so that they can do it sooner rather than later.
3. Demographically speaking, forty-six percent of the baby boomers are still in their 40s while one in six is between 42 and 44 years old so there are plenty of baby-boomers that haven’t really started to think about their retirement but will soon. The more negative the environment becomes in the USA, the more receptive they will be to the idea of retiring abroad.
4. The overall ‘public opinion’ in the US about US foreign and domestic policies appears to be changing dramatically and I know people leaving the USA to escape from what they believe is political persecution. This will probably continue.
5. I believe price points remain important. I do not wish to be in the market of selling million dollar homes. I prefer being in the ‘high-probability, low-risk’ market where we are marketing homes that will appeal to a larger number of foreigners rather than just a few. Would suggest that 90% of the homes sell for under $250K. They love ‘lush’ surroundings and yes! A luxurious swimming pool area is always a plus…
6. It’s not just Americans that are buying Costa Rica real estate and for most Europeans, our prices are ridiculously low.
Bottom line? We are in a wonderful place at a good time and I remain confident that unless there are catastrophic political events within Costa Rica – whcih I do NOT expect – we should see an attractive and profitable future ahead.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThere is only one insurance company in Costa Rica allowed to manage this kind of insurance – Instituto Nacional de Seguros or INS for short …
The main website (all in Spanish) is at
You can see more about their ‘comprehensive home’ insurance at ?
You can locate INS agents at
Best wishes
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.com
