Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes Are you a type-A personality or a type B personality? A move to Costa Rica is not for everyone. Maybe it is not for you? Moving to any other country is not for everyone, and certainly a Type A personality is one of those. It takes a lot of hard…
Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes Today’s story is about this Euro savings account that we needed to open. This should be an easy task. But it is not! Banking in Costa Rica is not as simple as it is in other countries. Please do not see this blog as a complaint about Costa Rica banks…
When buying a condo, you might not realize it, but the condominium might have an underfunded HOA, or it’s almost broke. The problem is that you won’t find out until the HOA sends out a notice about an upcoming extraordinary assessment. With 30 years of selling properties in Costa Rica under my belt, I’ve hardly…
IVO HENFLING | APRIL 17, 2014 This week, because its Easter week, I had a real hard time coming up with a topic for a blog. But I was saved by the bell. Thank God for emails, what would I do without them? I received a request on a property for sale in Tamarindo that…
When you are living in Costa Rica, you soon might miss your countrymen, your own customs and traditions. Sometimes, it’s also fun to be able to speak your own language again. Some nationalities are well presented in Costa Rica and some are not. And they all have their own traditions. There might be certain food…
Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes Here are some housewarming party ideas for when you purchase a house in Costa Rica. A couple of months ago, TicoNuevo was planning his housewarming party. He asked me where to find musicians to turn this into a real happening. Who else to ask than your Costa Rica real estate…
Estimated Reading Time: 8 Minutes I hate winter, don’t you? But, unfortunately, it seems never to stop being cold up north, even the realtors on Google+ complain about it almost every day, and we’re almost in May! It never rains in Southern California is a lie because it does. Although we get hail once every…
Estimated Reading Time: 4 Minutes Did you know there are two tennis outfits Grecia? When showing property with clients a while ago, I saw a couple of tennis rackets and a basket full of tennis balls in the garage of the Grecia home for sale. We were way up in the mountains of Grecia and…
Estimated Reading Time: 3 Minutes In the United States, Daylight Savings Time (DST) 2014 is on Sunday, March Nine and in most European countries on March 30. In Costa Rica, Daylight Savings Time was used for the first time in the summer of 1979, once in 1980 (from February until May), and in 1991 from…
Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes When I started selling properties in Costa Rica, nobody believed in getting home inspections done. Back then, real estate agents were afraid of recommending home inspections because they could lose the sale if the inspection would turn up a serious problem. I am talking about 25 years ago! This morning,…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes TicoNuevo starts practicing for his first tope, a whole new experience. One more neighborly communication came through our shared caña India fence. I was reminded of my first horseback riding “lesson”, I needed practicing for my first tope or horse parade. This was going to happen on the first Tuesday…
A Costa Rica real estate client asked me to write about medicinal herbs in Costa Rica. This, fortunately, comes pretty easy to me. That’s because my dad, together with his partner, Hendrik Stins, opened La Buena Hierba in 1986. This was the first real medicinal herb store in Costa Rica, although you could find medicinal…
Those used to the North American real estate market, always want to know if we can produce a CMA. For those who don’t know what that is, this is a Comparative Market Analysis. In Costa Rica real estate, it is impossible to produce a CMA for various reasons. At least for now, it is not…
Estimated Reading Time: 7 Minutes For some reason, new expats who don’t know where to rent, often ask an agent to give them a tour. I never understood why some assume that real estate agents want to drive them around for days, all over the Central Valley. So they can make a commission. I have…
Atenas expats always enjoy the Annual Atenas Charity Chili Cook Off. Are you a great cook? Do you like to eat? Do you have a great Chili recipe that’s been in your family for over a century? Are you ready to have some fun? Even if you don’t live in Atenas, you should join the…
Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes I had to paint my car red. That’s the color of the taxis in Costa Rica. But there was a reason. The business was dead. Picturesque Capitola, a seaside village in California, my hometown for twenty years, was abuzz with summer tourists. My seafoam green XJ8 Jaguar was parked outside…