In this episode, we start with a Q&A session and share a few tips for those retiring to the southern Pacific zone of Costa Rica. We also share specific ideas about property features that may not be on a buyer’s radar. Whether you are ready to relocate and retire or, like many of our Canadian clients, simply want a warm and sunny place to escape to when the weather turns cold, this Talk Show provides basic information and (hopefully) stimulates your desire to visit. Pura vida.

Does and early retirement to Costa Rica cut expenses in half?

Please see part 1 if you haven’t already.

My e-mail inbox, and Facebook, and LinkedIn messages, repeatedly urged me to go to the Wall Street Journal to read this article. It appears that my friends know my interests.

I spend much of my days talking with people who are interested in making Costa Rica their home. Real estate occupies a fundamental place in this decision hence, the referrals to this article, written by a couple of 60-some gals that relocated to Playa Naranjo on the Gulf of Nicoya, 5 hours north of where I live in Uvita Costa Rica.

Cost of Living in Costa Rica

In detailing out living expenses here, the author (Vicki) says that she has cut her living expenses in half:

We spend about $50 a week on food (for two people). Native fare is rice and beans (about $2 for about two pounds), potatoes, yucca, onions, red peppers and carrots (about 25 cents each). For $1 you can buy three cantaloupes, or two avocados, or four mangos, or three oranges (in season), a watermelon, or a whole pineapple and enough fish to feed two. Two pounds of ground beef (86% lean) or boneless chicken cost about $4. On occasion, I’ll splurge, paying about $6 for a bag of Cheetos or miniature chocolates.

I am one of those guys that doesn’t pay much attention to what stuff costs at the grocery store. This is not due to vast wealth, although I suspect that the wealthy are among the most vigilant of such things. That is likely one of the reasons why they are wealthy.

What I do pay attention to is when something is outrageously expensive, like walnuts, and cheese. Peanut butter is prohibitive and only the not-good-for-you-hydrogenated-oils-added type is available anyway. This is a bummer for those of us that thrive on peanut butter on bananas. Here we live where bananas grow like weeds, and there isn’t a decent source for quality peanut butter. Give me a break! Such are the ironies of life.

So, I’ll go with Vickie’s report on the costs of various staples.

Housing prices are off their highs of two or three years ago. You can buy a nice two-bedroom home on about an acre of land for between $100,000 and $300,000. My utility bill is $50 to $150 a month, depending on how much I use the air conditioning. My property tax last year was under $100.

You can get a good idea of housing prices in The Zone by looking around this blog. It would seem that houses are a bit less expensive in Playa Naranjo if Vicki has her numbers right. Although, maybe not. I understand that up north there are lots of small, 1/4 acre, piano key style housing developments. Since we don’t have this type of property here, we are not comparing mangoes with mangoes. Most lot sizes here are multi-acres and have ocean views.

Having said that, we do have one house that is actually quite nice starting out our housing options at $150,000.

This is a bit of an anomaly. I would typify our house options as starting at around the $250,000 – $300,000 range, and go up from there.

Expense: Electricity – Pools and Air Conditioning

So much depends on how you want to live. I don’t have air conditioning, but I find that a pool is nearly indispensable here in Costa Rica.

Electricity is expensive here. As with so many things here in Costa Rica, the powers that be are saddled with the challenge of two extremely different economic strata living together in one country. There is a graduated use scale for billing electricity consumption. They seem to have done a pretty good job of determining how to really nail the primary consumers and leave the simple, non-consuming farmers alone.

Unfortunately, the high cost of “luz” as electricity is called in Costa Rica, affects the price of food. The cost of running all those refrigeration boxes in a grocery store is the primary expense of running such a business and affects the price on the non-refrigerated peanut butter, which is the real tragedy of this story.

There are a number of different strategies for dealing with the high cost of electricity here in Costa Rica. One couple I know feel that there is a time of day, when the demand is low, when you get more kilowatt bang for the buck. So they set up to do their laundry in the wee hours of the morning. Others say that this is simply not true and that there is no timing involved with the billing of electricity.

On properties where there is more than one structure, like a main house with a guest house, you can run two meters, one for each building. This helps economize on the scaled, consumption based billing of ICE (EE-say, not ice) the electric company.

Pools, refrigerators and air conditioning are the primary contenders for causing a shock with the monthly electric bill. One trick that I learned from a veteran expat pool owner, is to ignore the traditional pool care procedures and instead do this.

Run your filter for a couple hours a day only. This will obviously cut down on electrical consumption. However, the thought is that you need to filter all of your water, once a day. So, you calculate the amount of water you’ve got, with the amount of water that your filter filters per hour, and you’ll likely come up with the need to run your filter for 4 hours.

Well, ignore that.

Go with the two hours. Use your tester to make sure that you always have the right amount of chlorine in your pool. I switched from a salt pool over to chlorine for economic reasons, so I’m not talking here about salt. You’ve got to run the filter to get the salt/chlorine conversion, and that requires longer runs of the filter, which makes economizing on electricity difficult if not impossible.

When the 2 hour cycle starts, gradually pour a half cup to a cup of granulated chlorine into your pool’s skimmer. I have gone for months with this program with no problem. We do, on occasion have problems, but not any more than the normal amount for pool owners, and our electricity bills went down.

Disclaimer: I am no pool expert. We have had problems now that have required professional help to clear up, but I think that most people with pools have such concerns, even when they are doing the conventional, electricity-gobbling pool care system. Also, if you decide you want to try this program, really keep an eye on your pool. Learn how to use additives like “Shock” and “PH” powders. If you see any discoloration in your tile or grout, you’ve probably got algae. Get rid of it. I use a steel brush and swim around with a mask and snorkel prowling for any irregularities.

My but I do carry on. There is so much more to say on this topic of retiring to Costa Rica.

Gratuitous use of my primary search term for Google purposes: Costa Rica Real Estate

More Retire Early to Costa Rica coming soon.

The inspiration for this post came from a recent article fed from LinkedIn.  The title was “38% of Homes Purchased in 2011 Bought with Cash.”  I thought to myself, 38%?!  That number seemed high, so I did I little more research.  According to another article in USA Today, that number was as low as 12% just three years ago thus confirming a significant jump in cash purchases. According to the article, investors in the U.S. are keenly tuned into yield or ROI.  That return on investment is realized through improving and flipping properties or some variation of a rental/income strategy.  The latter has become increasingly popular for those foreign retirees and families who are looking to relocate here.

Got Financing?

All of that got me thinking about our Costa Rica real estate market.  Land purchases financed through a Costa Rican bank (at least in The Zone) was virtually unheard of when I started back in 2006. For a variety of reasons, most buyers had cash before the downturn.  Four+ years later, the picture is very clear.  Property values around the world decreased (dramatically in some areas), and buyers couldn’t use the equity in their homes, not to mention the banks tight grip in their purse strings.

Recently (think- the past two years), we’ve seen an increase in the number of buyers who only have a portion of the purchase price.  These new buyers, typically foreign investors, need the seller to carry paper.  For those new to real estate investing, carry paper means the seller is willing to finance part of the purchase price and receive payment (often with interest) over time.  This legal arrangement is completed by a lawyer in the form of a trust or a mortgage here in Costa Rica. If the buyer defaults on the terms of deal (e.g., misses payments), a legal process can be initiated by the seller… just like a bank in a foreclosure process, although quicker. For more information on this topic, check out our article on Seller Financing Opens The Door To Home Buyers.

I don’t have a number, but I’d bet the number of non-Tico bank-financed purchases in the area is less than 1%.  Interest rates on Costa Rican bank loans, when you can get them, are more than double what you currently find in the States.  There are various reasons for it, but I’ll leave that for another article.

The good news is… buyers need financing and some sellers need to sell, so seller financing continues to increase in The Zone.  Some deals don’t even include interest, simple an extended term to complete the sale.  When there is interest and an extended term involved, the number of years almost always tops out at 5 years.  There are real estate transactions taking place in The Zone primarily because (1) land values are now around half of peak values and (2) both parties are getting creative, as described above.

There are a select few (and I mean few) who are flipping houses here in The Zone, however, many investors are looking for income generating properties, both hotels and vacation rentals.  The yield varies greatly, but there is opportunity to make a nice living in the hospitality here in The Zone.

But, What Does All Cash Mean For Buyers?

It means you need to think of Costa Rica, at least for the time being, as a place to land bank or move your cash. There are economies and currency (think- Europe and the Euro) with a cloudy future.  The current wave of concern is so real, we have recently seen an uptick in European investors and relocators contact our office.  Without getting metaphysical, I also wonder how much 2012 is playing into people’s decisions. We call this group “End Of The World Buyers.”  Good and abundant water sources, good environments for growing crops, and pleasant temperatures throughout the year draw these type of buyers to Costa Rica and our area in particular.

Whether this trend continues or declines remains to be seen.  Simple put, Costa Rica, especially the Costa Ballena, is a wonderful place to relocate for both economic and lifestyle reasons.  There are many, happy foreigners living either full time or part time in Costa Rica.  If you are interested in why so many expats are buying and relocating to The Zone, this article Why Buy Property In The Zone offers a few of the top reasons.

Comments and Criticisms of a Wall Street Journal Article

There is a rather interesting article over there on that good ole U. S. icon, The Wall Street Journal. From where I sit, living as an expat in Costa Rica since 1999, I found the article, written by Vicki Berrong, a good read, and the comments at the end quite enjoyable as well. However, as with all things human, the article presents lots of opportunity for criticism and opinion, which I more than happily engage in here.

Perfect Profile of a Costa Rica Real Estate Prospect

How I came to live on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica is a story about early retirement, tight budgets and lots of planning.

Because of being a long time expat, living in Uvita, and working in real estate, I talk almost on a daily basis with such people who want to know how to chart their course so that they can avoid as many rocks below the surface as possible.

I’ve copied some parts of the article here, and I’ll make comments on these points, but I encourage you give it a read in its entirety by clicking here. Even the title I find to be right on the mark: “Best Place to Retire Early” typifies so many folk that we talk with these days.  However, early retirement brings along with it the need to generate a bit of income in your new land of residence, which is a common aspect of our Costa Rica real estate consultations.

My best friend, Carol, and I began thinking seriously about retirement roughly 12 years ago. We knew we wanted to retire early, but we recognized that our small nest eggs (and the fact that Medicare doesn’t kick in until age 65) could make that difficult. Eventually, we concluded that living outside the U.S. would allow us to stretch our dollars and retire on (our) schedule. Thus was born a 10-year plan: five years to pay down as much debt as possible, and five years to find a home overseas.

What Vicki describes here is a perfect profile of visitors to our Uvita real estate office – I’d say realistically we talk with 3 – 5 of such individuals and couples a week. Please keep in mind that we are just now emerging out of rainy season here in Costa Rica which is typically a slower time of year as regards the number of visitors, so this number could easily go up now that we are in a busier time of year.

Besides enjoying reading Vicki’s experience in the article, I really enjoyed the comments that can be seen at the bottom of the article. I’ll address those at the bottom of this article.

How Big is Costa Rica Really?

After a total of seven trips to this small country (about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined, with a population of about 4.6 million), we found “home”

OK, so I’ve got a bit of egg on my face. As an authority on the matter of moving to Costa Rica, I have quoted this point VERY differently, and done so numerous times over the years, no doubt to many of the readers of this blog. I haven’t searched it, but I suspect that even in this blog there are examples of my erroneous comparisons of Costa Rica being the same size as Rhode Island or that you can fit six Costa Rica’s into Colorado.

I did some research based on Vicki’s declaration and here’s what I came up with, establishing that Vicki was spot on with her analogy and I was WAY off with my Rhode Island comparison, but somewhat vindicated with the nearness of my Colorado comparison.

• Size of Costa Rica: 19,730 sq. miles
• Size of Vermont: 9,622.8 sq. miles
• Size of New Hampshire: 9,350 sq. miles
• Size of Colorado: 104,185 sq. miles
• Size of Rhode Island: 1,213.9 sq. miles

Costa Rica Prices & Costa Rica Coffee

a cost of living at least 50% lower than in the U.S.—and good coffee

I’m not so sure about this cost of living comment. Maybe when all is said and done, it tallies up to this percentage of difference… maybe.

Us Guys talk all day long with folks who are wanting to relocate to our area. We have a certain amount of obligation to make sure that the old image of Costa Rica, which was certainly accurate at that time, needs to be re-adjusted in the current time that we are living in. Costa Rica is no longer an inexpensive place to live.

I got a kick out of Vicki’s $16.00 per gallon of gas statement – obviously a goof (unless that’s what gas costs in Playa Naranjo.  Frankly, I wouldn’t know). We are running at a little over $5.00, but some of the other costs are much higher here, namely vital staples like peanut butter and cheddar cheese – well any cheese for that matter.

About Costa Rican coffee – AWESOME! It is the best, and it’s cheap. You can pay buckets of cash for some of the marketed Jamaican Blue Mountain or Kona Gold, or whatever, or you can upgrade to a finer taste and gentler effect to the body by buying whatever, rot-gut, off-the-shelf, grocery store brand of Costa Rican coffee you like. When I visit the States, I bring coffee with me for the visit, or look for the Costa Rican blends in the health food stores there, where they charge a premium for the stuff.

I do tend to run on about things. So I guess what had started as an article commenting on a Wall Street Journal article abut buying land and living in Costa Rica is turning into a series.

In the next article I will comment on a few more points in Vicki’s article, but I’m REALLY looking forward to getting into the submitted comments on the article.

Stay tuned.

When we foreigners first hear about the amazingly high tax rate on cars, we are shocked and wonder at how can that be?  This is lunacy!  There must be some way around it.

First off: there is no way around it, and as for the lunacy part, perhaps.  But there is a rather twisted sort of logic that I’ll go into later that may help to explain this.

What kind of car to own?

In 1999, when I first moved to Costa Rica, the world was a very different place. Not many Ticos had cars and those that did were driving cars that were considered classics by Gringo standards.  I was a bit surprised to see a number of Datsuns on the road. Remember those?

I discovered that Costa Rica is extremely hard on cars.  So, whatever car you see a lot of here, that car is likely a very good, very well-built car. The hot tickets were the late ‘70s Toyota Land Cruisers and Land Rover Defenders. They were all over the place – and diesel no less!  These cars in the States go for a pretty penny.  Here, they are not so much fashionable, as reliable and affordable.

My first car in Costa Rica was a 1978 Diesel Toyota Land Cruiser. Every grown up boy’s dream.  I LOVED it.  My kids didn’t like it due to the rough ride and the sideways facing rear seats.   So we ended up getting rid of it and getting an early ‘90s Isuzu Trooper, another of the immortal cars at the time.

So, back then, at the beginning of my Costa Rica saga, the amazing cars were:

1. Toyota Land Cruisers old & new
2. Land Rover Defender (old)
3. Toyota 4Runners
4. Isuzu Trooper
5. Mitsubishi Montero
6. Suzuki Samurai
7. Niva

Niva Russian made 4 wheel drive car

The Niva was an interesting car. It is from Russia and was built like a little coupe, but it was/is 4 wheel drive. I had some Tico friends that had one and they loved it.  I looked it up on the Internet and saw that there was some serious fever around this little car. There were clubs and some very souped up examples of the little vehicle around the country.

Now

I drive a 1998 Toyota 4Runner and I love it.  I am VERY hard on it, and it just purrs right along. This body style and 3.0 turbo diesel motor are a genuine classic here in Costa Rica, and you see lots of these cars around. Toyota continued this particular model until 2002. So, if I were to upgrade my Toyota, it would be for a 2002, but the problem is, I am quite happy with it the one I have now. I spent $16,000 on it 3 years ago. I am told that it would fetch $16,000 now.  I have a hard time believing that, but a quick check of what they are getting for them at crautos.com confirms that it has held its value very well.

I’m also a fan of the Suzuki Gran Vitara.  I don’t know if this car exists in the States, but here it is a long lived car, and so its presence is felt on the roads of Costa Rica. Concerns are: gas only, a little low on ground clearance.

The Mitsubishi Montero is a great SUV. There are 2 models, a Sport model and a larger, more deluxe model.  Both are good, but my preference still leans towards the 4Runner, mainly due to the larger 3.0 motor.  Although, you can get a 3.5 in the larger Mistubishi, but then you are in another price bracket.  Good clearance, stout, diesel.

Other popular makes & models are: Toyota Prado – very popular, most Nissan SUVs, Daihatsu BeGo is a small 4 wheel drive that is immensely popular.  Jury is still out on durability. I know that the back door starts to rattle almost immediately, but with their short wheel base, they seem to go anywhere. The smaller 4 wheel drive cars feel every bump in the road.

Samurai’s and Sidekicks hold a strong place in the mix.

You still see some of the older Landcruisers and Defenders around, but they are getting so old, and so beat up here in the Costa Rican life style that they are now starting to suffer from material fatigue. They seem to want to keep running, but even the raw material of the chassis is getting tired out. Still, there are some good examples around and you can have a lot of fun fixing one of these up.  I know of one right now for sale by my neighbor for $4,000, which I think is a decent example of their street value. Its in good condition and runs well.

Cars are the largest single expense in the Costa Rican lifestyle. Gas is running over $5.00 per gallon, and those taxes make just the buying of them painful, if not prohibitive.

Ridiculous Taxes Justified

So how is it that the high tax isn’t absolute lunacy?  The government of Costa Rica is saddled by an interesting challenge.  The land in the country has just recently, say in the last 15 years, started to have a value.  Up until then, all Ticos had land, land they didn’t have to pay for. For the most part, it was free!

Now people from all around the world are wanting some land in Costa Rica, so obviously the values on Costa Rica real estate have gone up. However, the government does not have the ability to raise the taxes on the land since this would impact a good sized majority of land owners in Costa Rica – subsistence farmers. So, I think without saying as much, and perhaps without even consciously recognizing that it’s what they do, they set out to tax the rich, and leave the poor alone.  This is done by high vehicle taxes, with exceptions being extended to common types of farm vehicles.

The government is now starting to look at other ways to tax the rich.  They are working on tax maps that will assign a tax value particular to certain areas ie. coastal areas would be taxed higher than inland farm territories and so on.

If you’d like to post your thoughts on cars in Costa Rica, please feel free to do so.

I just received some questions from a connection that I made in the Social Media site LinkedIn. I am reprinting these here due to the increase in these types of questions lately. I’m sure that these questions, and their answers, will be of help to a number of our readers.

One of many developments above Dominical.

Location In The Zone:

1. We don’t want to feel like we’re living in the middle of nowhere, but we’re not looking to live in a large city like Seattle!  What is The Zone like?

As a starting point, you picked a good one. The Zone, as we like to call it down here in the southern pacific zone of Costa Rica, is definitely a bit removed from things.  The developments are typically more spread out than North American developments, so in most cases your neighbor will not be right on top of you.  Access to The Zone is possible via two regional airports (both approx.40 minutes from Uvita) and the Costanera Highway.  Thanks to the new San Jose-Caldera Highway, the trip to San Jose is now 3 hours.  That said, it is difficult to say if this area would appeal to you with this point, and I would recommend a visit before making that determination.

You can buy or build your dream home.

Buy or Build:

2. We are also trying to decide between building a home or buying existing… Do you have any suggestions?

This is one of the more common questions that we deal with. Here is an interesting data point: the majority of people that walk into our office want to buy an existing house. Yet, the majority of people that buy from us buy raw land & build.  Why is that?  Here in The Zone, we have been outside the main flow of tourism.  This was due to the bumpy, dirt road between Dominical and Quepos.  It is now paved, and we are more in the flow.  Historically, those visitors and relocators who found their way down here were a bit… well, let’s call it eccentric… might be the way to put it. These are truly individualistic individuals who built their house as an expression of that individuality. These houses are not easy to sell. Now, I should clarify that this building approach is ancient history.  There are very nice homes available in The Zone; however, there just aren’t that many of them.  The inventory continues to evolve, and home sales are up.  That said, I suspect that it’ll be a while before we hit the 50/50 mark of house/lots sales.  Our recommendation is to take your time and look at everything.  After you go through this process, you can compare those houses with what it would cost to buy & build on a similar piece of land, keeping in mind raw land is plentiful.  You might find that $450,000 house can be built for $350,000, and you’ll have it the way you want it.  Conversely, you might find a great house for less than what it would cost to buy and build.  In today’s market place, and with the economic crisis, you never know what you might find.  Building in Costa Rica can be a daunting and frustrating task.  For this reason alone, some people simply refuse to go through the process.  This question really is best served in a face to face consultation.

The ARCR is one of many sites with good info.

Groups and Associations:

3. I have heard to be very wary of some places being over priced for foreigners who don’t know any better. Any good groups or services to retain?

Hmmmm, well I am inclined to think that you’ve found all you need right here with me.  A not so self-serving answer would be, “yes.”  There are actually PLENTY of options for information, so many in fact that I wonder at how one can really know what the straight story is.  Residency, taxes, zoning, business and so on, in a foreign land, requires that one be on his toes. I like the Costa Rica Living news group at Yahoo groups. Also, the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR) have been a helpful residency and insurance resource for some of my clients.  Ultimately, I think that what you are doing is a good idea.  Talk with individuals who have done what you want to do.  When I get new clients in the Dominical and Uvita area, I set up lunches with my previous clients who have moved here, built, learned Spanish etc.  It seems that everyone is more than happy to share their experience, and from these tidbits you’ll get a very good idea of what to do and, often more importantly, not do.

Starting A Company:

4. Did you find it difficult to start a company there? I will be looking to work, but understand I will need to start my own business to get paid. At least until we were able to become residents.

Starting a business, or buying an income generating property, or both, used to be oh-so-easy in Costa Rica.  Business owners would only complete the necessary steps to get a business license if someone from the Municipality came and bugged them about it.  And, income generated by businesses or rental properties was reported even less.  In today’s Costa Rica it has become a bit more difficult, or maybe I should say involved, to operate without them.  For better or worse, Costa Rica is growing up and finding ways to enforce laws that they have had on the books for years, in some cases, decades.  The simple fact is, to do any kind of work in Costa Rica, you need to be a resident.  Otherwise, you run the risk of being deported.  We know people who can help with residency and setting up a business, among other services.

I hope these thoughts help to answer your questions, although it is my experience that they usually bring up new questions.  Safe to say, The Guys here to help.

I was excited to find the Poll functionality on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago. The question I came up with “What is the top reason to buy land in Costa Rica’s southern Pacific zone?” seemed like a good jumping off point for this regular feature on the blog. Although the sample size was small, the responses were revealing.

Low Property Tax
Costa Rica’s property tax rate is .25% on registered value. That means if you buy a $400,000 house in Uvita, you will pay $1,000 in property tax, plus another $1,000 (or .25%) for the new Luxury Tax passed in 2010. Your total annual property tax bill will be $2,000 which is a third of what you will pay in Houston, Texas.

Investment Value
If we can agree that people want safe, beautiful, and affordable environments to live in, then the southern Pacific zone of Costa Rica has to make that list. Clearly, “affordable” is a relative term. Some clients have $50,000 for a house, some have $1.5 million; however, this market has dipped according to the simple dynamics of Supply and Demand. An ocean view property (only 8 minutes from Uvita) listed for $30,000 was unheard of five years ago, yet now we have it (Sunny Josecito). In fact, we have access to just about every type of investment in every property category.

Growth Potential
I can’t tell you how many times per week people ask me when the International Airport will be completed in Palmar. Given the fact that construction has not started, it is a difficult question to answer. Eventually, it will be constructed (for better or for worse), and the area and property values will grow as a result. I state this with a fair degree of conviction because I’ve seen what paving the Costanera (Coastal Highway) and re-paving the road between San Isidro and Dominical has done for the area. I believe if it weren’t for those two improvements, the downturn would have hit our area much harder.

Walking the dog on your favorite beach.

Weather and Beaches
Today (Sept. 29th, 2011) marks the middle of the rainy season, yet we had sun with its accompanying ocean breeze all day long. The evenings are typically cool, especially if your house is strategically located facing the Pacific Ocean and its beaches. Speaking of beaches, The Zone has something for every sun lover. You want to surf or watch surfing, go to Dominical. You want a good dog-walking beach, go to Playa Hermosa. You want to do some cave exploring, go to Playa Ventanas. I’ve spent more time on the ocean the past 4 years than in my entire life in California, because the water is warm, dare I say perfect, year round.

Relaxing Lifestyle
According to our voters, this is the top reason to buy land in Costa Rica. You don’t realize how stressful life is in the progressive Western world, until you move here. Both Ben and I came from Santa Cruz and Aspen, gorgeous towns in California and Colorado, respectively. We lived the typical cycle of working hard and playing hard, and then right back to working hard again. We were surrounded by friends, family and neighbors who were stressed by this same cycle and material pressures. It all added up to a simple yet consistent desire for change. Without question, Costa Rica presents an opportunity to slooooow down and simplify. Sometimes I surf in the morning, sometimes I walk a big farm. There’s no rushing to Starbucks on the way to pick up the dry cleaning. Here, we sit down and enjoy our coffee. We wear shorts and flip flops. If anything, life in The Zone is indeed relaxing.

So, yes there are many reasons to buy land in Costa Rica. Whether as an investment, as a relocation destination, or simply as a place to visit and unplug for a couple of weeks in the winter… The Zone will not disappoint.

“Houses that produce rental income” has become an increasingly popular Costa Rica real estate strategy in The Zone. In this video, The Guys explain WHY this investment strategy is smart and how it can be achieved in a fertile rental market.  We moved out of the office and shot the video “on location” at such a property above Dominical, Costa Rica.

Boredom... or relaxation?

“You can only walk the dog on the beach and read in the hammock so much.  I miss my work” – this from an expat who achieved “the dream”. He and his wife had retired from their successful business in the U. S. and had bought land and built a gorgeous ocean view home here in Costa Rica’s southern pacific zone.

Hearing this statement set my wheels to turning. I can’t remember the last time that I was bored. Natalie either, we both need to set time aside and make sure that we spend some time every week walking the dogs on the beach and reading in a hammock.  These activities are downright good for the soul. However, I can definitely see how there is a limit to how much one can do of these activities before they get to jonesing for some activity of a more productive nature.

I work with lots of people that are re-locating or who are looking to make a connection of some kind to the zone.  In the consultation phase, I focus on helping with understanding the various aspects of life here that are different from “back home”. How to buy property, how to open a bank account, a corporation, how to learn Spanish, how to get health insurance, where is there a decent dentist and so on. In my consultations, I try and touch on the various points that are a concern to all of us as we integrate with life here in The Zone.  Up till this point, I had never really thought about boredom-management being a line item on my consultation list.

One of my dearest friends is, well how to say… along in years. Yeah, that’s it. His life has been one of extraordinary and high achievement.  He’s at the point now where they won’t sell him life insurance, (well, they will but at the price its more realistic to say they won’t.)  He tells me that a “long term” investment to him is measured in months, not years.

This dear old friend and I started doing business together some time back.  I’ll never forget when he said to me “Ben, you’re keeping me alive”.

Here again, a man who had achieved what so many set out to achieve, and now his life is being enhanced by being included in what I do on a daily basis.  I find this fascinating.  Is there something missing from “the dream”?

I’ve got to work. I have financial obligations and am not in a position to retire. So I look for ways to do this while living in this foreign land. I truly believe that working here in Costa Rica is an act of creativity. In fact, it was my efforts to be creative and to think outside of the box that initially drew my attention over to some of the potential business “assets” that I have available to me.  How about an older man that figured things out in his day back in the States?  Would he be interested in sharing his thoughts and perspectives on my business efforts? “Ben, you’re keeping me alive” he says. This is what I call a fit.

My dear old friend and my clients mentioned earlier differ in that Old Friend is happy and content here. The other is moving back to the States.  Granted, there are lots of reasons for moving back to the States. When our kids have kids we tend to lose our minds and feel that being with the grandkids is the thing that has to be done, regardless of what it takes. However, I’ve met a number of folks here that say that the kids can come here to see them, by golly.

I wonder if the difference really might be the activity/boredom balance.

Now in my real estate and relocation consulting service, I include this point about boredom in the schpiel.  Costa Rica isn’t like the States where so much of one’s time is spent shopping as a form of pastime or entertainment. You lose this habit here pronto.  Shopping here in the zone takes about 2 hours, tops, then you’re done.

You can make a day of it, and many do, if you want to go up to the San Isidro farmers market on Thursday and/or Friday. Travel time from Uvita is just under an hour each way.  It’s also quite the adventure to simply stroll the streets of San Isidro and window shop. This can be a lot of fun, but it won’t ever be more than the occasional thing that you do here.

Interesting Ideas

There are some interesting and creative efforts that have been made by folks who have chosen to make Costa Rica their home. In an upcoming article I’ll tell you about some of these efforts.  I’ve even got a favorite that I’ll share with you.

First, I’ll take the easy road and tell you what I do. I run the real estate company: Guys In The Zone.  My partner Rod Martin and I have forged one of the deepest working/friendship relationships on the planet.  Knowing that you’ve got a partner through thick and thin gives life a depth that it otherwise doesn’t have and I’ve got this in Rod.

So, we call it the business of real estate, but the funny thing is, we spend the majority of our time doing things that really aren’t “real estate” by definition.

All those points that I mentioned above, the points about bank accounts, learning Spanish and so on? We consider these topics regularly as we work with people on real estate.  Who would’a thunk that a discussion about how to learn Spanish or quieting the internal dialogue would be involved with the business of real estate?  Well, it’s all part of the package.  When you sell real estate in Costa Rica, you become the single point of contact for folks that are interested in The Zone either as a place to vacation, invest, migrate to for half the year, or full blown live here. I gotta say, this makes life interesting.

In addition to this I enjoy writing articles such as this one for our blog (www.thezoneblog.com), as well as publishing articles in the local Montañas al Mar magazine.  I’m involved with CAP (Crime Awareness and Prevention) and just try and find things that need doing. The Guys in the Zone also run a couple of the local web site portals  that serve as visitors guides to the area (www.dominical.biz and www.uvita.biz).

I say all that to demonstrate why the thought of boredom is a strange one in my world.

I’ll be posting some examples of the creative ways that expats not only fill time, but support their lives while living here in this sparsely populated area of the world.