Estimated Reading Time: 7 Minutes How far are you willing to go to buy a second home? Some people drive for days to get to their second home and don’t realize that it is quicker to fly to Costa Rica. How would it be to own a vacation house or a condo in Costa Rica?…
Every day, we receive emails from buyers asking for the property location. Coming from a foreign buyer, this is a pretty normal question. But in Costa Rica, real estate agents refuse to divulge the property location. They won’t until they have a chance to show you the property and register you as their client with…
Estimated Reading Time: 3 Minutes You won’t be able to prevent culture shock by learning how to use chaineado, but it is quite a good start. I have not been able to find proof that chainear comes from the English verb “to shine”. There are some references that in chainear is also used in Chicano,…
Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes Homes in Costa Rica do not sell in 72 hours, and you can count on not even getting showings during the first couple of days. I’ve written about the reasons a property doesn’t sell quite often. If nobody even shows your property, it will never sell. You’d like buyers to…
Estimated Reading Time: 8 Minutes Quite a large real estate vocabulary does not exist in Costa Rica. Ask a real estate agent in Costa Rica about A HUD loan, a Fannie Mae, a dual agency, or a spring cleaning and they won’t know what you’re talking about. As you probably know, real estate is not…
Selling your home and you don’t want to put up with buyer’s annoying behavior during the showing appointment? Then leave before the agent arrives with the client. Most sellers in Costa Rica have the bad habit to stay at their home during a showing appointment. I allow sellers to say hi at the door when…
Sellers sometimes think I own a crystal ball. When listing a home for sale, sellers always ask me to predict a sales price. When I give them a number, they don’t like it. Why do you think I get that reaction? If I’d own a crystal ball, I would be filthy rich and we would…
Do you want to know if you can afford to buy a home with a pool in Atenas? You really don’t need a lot more money to buy a home with a pool in Atenas than one without a pool, did you know? Before I started this article, I was researching online about why people…
Some way or other, Ticos are all family. Just like Smith is a very common last name in the U.K. and in the U.S., Rodriguez, and Vargas are the most common last names in Costa Rica. When you marry a Rodriguez, your first born might be number 102,498 of the Rodriguez clan. There is a…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes I call myself a 24-7 real estate agent. But am I really? It’s 9:30 pm and my phone rings. The phone number is from Miami, Fl., so I answer. The caller asks if it’s too late to call. Pretty nice of him. Almost nobody who calls after business hours asks…