Guys In The Zone: Costa Rica Real Estate

So we wanted to remodel. Full scale, plumbing, electrical, tile, roof and so on. One of the big motivations for the remodel was the bat problem we had. We had lots of bats living up in the attic. I know, as you read this you are thinking of at least one solution that you know would work. Well, we’ve tried it, whatever it may be. I have put garlic all around, hung sharp blades of jungle grass up, lights, noise, killed lots of them (I know, this is a no no, but it was that bad.)

So now we were going to try and rebuild the house in such a way that the little blighters wouldn’t call our home “home” anymore. We had heard that they hate fiberglass insulation, so we were going to put on a new roof and insulate it with fiberglass. I’ll go ahead and tell you how it ended up since this isn’t really the point of this article. It didn’t work. We now have a guy enshrouding the whole house with screen. I’m not sure how we’re going to get in and out of the house, but it might just work with respect to finally getting the bats to go away.

Remodeling is an interesting endeavor no matter where you live. But I have become convinced that it is super complex here, due to what I wrote in my previous article. Click here to view.

Europeans, North Americans, Icelanders, even other Latin American countries such as Mexico and Guatemala, all have a certain sense of style. Costa Rica doesn’t. Well it does in that the lack of style is universal. There is little to no attention given to the aesthetic of the living space. Look below the surface of the unimaginative décor and design of most Tico homes, offices, stores, whatever and you will find a poorly put together mechanical structure.
For instance:
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Headnote: at the bottom of this article you’ll see the word “Labels” and then “construction”. If you click “construction”, you’ll get the articles that are written on the blog about that topic.

About Construction in Costa Rica

I think that most of my clients come to me intending, or wanting, to buy an existing house.
The vast majority of my clients end up buying raw land with the view of building on it.

How does this happen?

Well, I think that it helps to understand that we are EARLY in the cycle of development and growth here in Costa Rica’s southern zone.

Looking back over the last few years here in real estate, I think that it is notable that I have personally been involved in very few sales of developed land, this is to say, land that has a building on it. Nearly all of my business has been on raw land. Large farms to later be subdivided, or lots in an existing development, these are what has been the stock and trade of my business here.

This is a key point in understanding investments in real estate in the southern zone of Costa Rica. It seems that in real estate we (“we” being us land buyers) feel like we’re late and that we’ve missed the deals and so we’ve got to settle for less. We’re early here people! How long ago were we at this stage of the cycle in say, Boston, or Manhattan? Do you expect to be shown some raw, never been built on land when you walk into a real estate office in those or other cosmopolitan areas? I think not. Well not only is it common here, but its essentially the nature of the business here. So, a quick study of history and how these cycles work would indicate that we are heading into the part of the cycle that, for the purpose of this article, we will call the “construction” phase. This leads us nicely into the question:

How does one go about building a house in Costa Rica?
Well, if you have a real estate agent that is worth his salt, he should be available to help with this sort of post-sale support. Yours truly is just such a real estate agent here in Costa Rica. I figure that if you want to go to the trouble to travel all the way down here, to this foreign land, and buy a piece of property from me, I’ll be there for you with some of the follow up concerns that go along with this sort of an acquisition.

The First Step:
Your real estate agent should have a line on some general contractors in the area. Since here in Costa Rica we are going into this part of the development phase, there is an awful lot of movement: new companies popping up, reputations on the part of some individual contractors being established, (and dashed in some cases). There aren’t too many builders that have a long history down here with a satisfied following. So the first step is to get some recommended contractors that you can interview. The interview is an important step since you are going to be working closely with whomever you choose over the course of the project, which will likely take between 12 and 18 months. And there are going to be some trying times in the project. I don’t think this point is unique to Costa Rica. I think that building a house is a daunting task no matter where it is done. But I gotta say, it is particularly daunting here in Costa Rica for a number of factors that I may or may not mention later on in this article. In any case, your selection of your General Contractor is the single most important decision in the process. Interview three contractors, and if nothing clicks, interview another three. Talk to lots of people. Drive around the hills near your property and talk with the folks at any construction sites that you might find. Get some recommendations this way as well.

The handling of this first step is going to set the stage for how the project goes, all the way through. I am involved in a project now that is being stymied with the installation of windows due to the window holes, which were put in a long time ago by the first contractor who had to be fired and sued, the openings are not square. Had he been any good, we wouldn’t be having these, and various other problems now.

Should you be here for the whole project? Yes.
What if you can’t? Well, do the best you can. Lets talk.

This situation obviously comes up as often as not. Not everyone can take the time off from life to live in Costa Rica for the twelve to eighteen months that such a project requires, just so they can oversee their project. So, a number of the contractors are sensitive to the needs of the home owner and their desire to have a customized home that experiences some modifications along the way from the original plans. Since it may be that the owner decides to build in absentia, there are some unique needs that the contractor should seek to satisfy. Communication is foremost. You want to know how the project is going, really. This can be achieved through photos and videos and regular conversation.

The contract should be as specific as it can be. When there is a deviation from the contract, for instance with regards to time projections or costs, it will serve both the homeowner and the builder well to stop and talk, and document the changes necessary to accommodate the new situation. If the “stop, talk, and doc” (a little saying I just made up) procedure is followed from the start, a lot of problems can be avoided.

Costa Rica is a land of friendly people. Frankly, so is the US, but it’s a nice way to start this sentence to make this point. Costa Rica is a land of friendly people. We get enamored by the place. The scenery is paradisaical (that is to say, paradise-like), there is wildlife running, flying, and swimming all around us here, and the people here are more than happy to assist us in our efforts to share in it. In other words, to move here, or to visit regularly. So in this friendly setting, we can relax the need for good clear documentation because, hey, don’t you trust the guy? Yes you do, but you want to document it anyway. Good neighbors build tall fences, good buds document all business agreements.

Building a house in Costa Rica is a complicated endeavor. Take the necessary time to choose a good project overseer that you can communicate well with. Make sure to read the contract and take the time to get it right. Make it detailed. Put in time terms of when certain benchmarks can reasonably be reached. Have provisions for if those benchmarks aren’t hit.

Follow good business practices in your efforts to build a house here in Costa Rica, and one day you’ll really be able to call this amazing place home.

They’re awful. No, let me restate that: they are abhorrent.

When we made the decision to move to a foreign land some years ago, we were motivated by the desire to enrich our lives by exposing ourselves to a new and different culture. We were not disappointed. Joys and sorrows abound in such an endeavor. Generally when something is irritating and we think that “they” are doing it “wrong”, with a little time it would become clear that “wrong” wasn’t the case. It was a matter of “different”. Not so construction.

In Costa Rica, construction is done wrong.

My first experience was enlightening in this regard, and many subsequent experiences have confirmed it.

I was a certified card carrying, 4 year apprenticed journeyman plumber in my former life as a young man in Colorado. I had mentioned this to a new friend that I met way back when we first moved here, and he remembered it. Everybody loves the plumber. (In fact, I can’t believe that I’m publishing this information to the web. Eeeeks!) My phone rings one day. My old friend is involved in a construction project down on the Panama border and the wife of the “plumber” for the project had had a serious accident and they had to leave the project. Would I be able to go and finish it up for him? “Sure” I said. So Neil, my son, and I were off.

When we got there and took a look around, I immediately knew that I had never seen any plumbing like what I was looking at there on that project. The next 20 minutes were an interesting study in how the human mind works.

I guess that, since I’m from the States, I assume others know what the heck they are doing. So, as I checked out this plumbing system, I assumed that the “plumber” knew what he was doing. So I kinda prioritized that in my mind: “the guy knows what he’s doing” but I also had the thought, “this all makes no sense.” I figured that maybe the near-the-equator physics worked different and I just needed to figure it out. After all, if you cross the equator the water swirls the opposite direction going down the drain, right?. As I mentioned, this lasted about 20 minutes, after which time I concluded that physics were physics, and it was simply wrong.

“I’m happy to finish this project for you”, I told my friend, “but you have to promise that you’ll never mention my name in connection with this project.” “Why do you say that?” “Because the system will not work without constant maintenance. It’s a good thing that it’s a public building so there is a his and hers bathroom. That way at any given time maybe one will be working”

The other option of course was for me to tear the whole thing out and start again, which is the option that he chose.

I have, since then, asked a number of contractors here and just people in general “are you just accustomed to plumbing problems, to sinks not draining, and toilets not flushing and leaks all over the place?” To which they all reply: “yes”. I then proceed to tell them how it is in my country, which is something that I am remiss to do since I didn’t come down here to extol the virtues of where I came from. But again, with regards to construction, it’s an exception.

I tell people here that in the States we install systems that work, trouble free, until the o-rings wear out in the shower valve, or the washer needs replacing in the faucet. There is the occasional stopped drain, but this is usually in response to inappropriate articles being flushed down the toilet or put into the sink. The systems are, for the most part, trouble free for the term of our lives.

But its not just plumbing. All aspects of construction are poorly done here. The strong suit here is cement work and cement block work. Almost everything here is done with cement, but its still inferior to the methods that I came to take for granted in the good ole US of A.

There is a very common practice here called “rapello” (rah-pay-oh). I suspect that the practice comes from not having cement trucks that can dump the whole pour at one time, and the fact that most of the cement work is done in the hot sun. Things like cement floors and drive ways are done with guys standing by a whirling cement mixer mixing and pouring while the cement is setting up almost as they pour it. It is a challenge, no doubt. Its kinda funny to note that in the States, you get washed sand to mix with your cement. Here, I have seen them throwing shovels full of dirt into the mixer, as well as the paper bags that the cement came in, both of which have a weakening effect on the finished product.

I feel like such a bigot writing this.

Anyway, rapello is letting the initial pour harden with a rough finish, and then going back later with a smoother mix of cement and putting on a ½” to 1″ layer of smooth cement so that it looks nice, at least for awhile.

The next time that you are in Costa Rica, look down, and look around at the walls and various surfaces. You will, everywhere, see how that layer of rapello simply does not last and the cold joint between the original pour and the rapello layer does not knit together. The cement is broken all over the country.

And I could go on.

So what is the deal with this article? This website is all about Costa Rica real estate, and as we cycle through our rapid growth in this mecca for relocation and investment, construction is a VERY hot topic. I find myself consulting a lot with my clients about avoiding pitfalls and how best to proceed.

In future articles I will be documenting some of the methods that are being employed here to be able to build a great home and minimize the frustration.