Anyone From Costa Rica
 

Anyone here live in costa rica?

do you like it, good place to live?

Rick has a office there, he said you have to be flient in spanish.

im wondering that also Is it a good place to visit for vacation?

YARGH! Me, and me Wife bein goin' down to look at properties in a short bit. That's why I'm goin' to miss the Miami show. Various lives down there, as does Webby.

I've been here almost two years now and just bought my first house here.

I can give you a few pros and cons,but keep in mind these are just MY personal opinions based on my tastes and personality :upsidedow

PROS

- Absolutely beautiful country, nature-wise. Tons of outdoor activities, jungle, volcanoes, mountains, beaches....you name it.

- Very cheap cost of living when compared with the quality of life offered

- Generally the women here are good-looking and 'friendly' (especially to foreigners!)

- Great tax reasons for individuals or companies

- Language. Many people here speak English, and its easy to pickup enough conversationalist Spanish too. I haven't really noticed much language problems here.

CONS

- Music. This is based on my personal taste, but I have never been so fed up of any type of music as I am here with reggaeton. The fact is, I never liked techno/house/dance too much in Montreal either, but most places mix it up. An hour of hip-hop here, some house there, etc...Here you literally here the same songs at every bar, played MORE than 5-6 times within 3-4 hours. No exaggeration. Rock/alternative and now even hip-hop bars/clubs are getting hard to find, as when one style of music is popular, everywhere follows suit. I heard the situation was identical to this before I moved here, only with hip-hop. Everyone follows one another basically.

- Food. Costa Rican produce is mostly local, so it tastes pretty good, but I don't like their 'national' menu consisting of mostly rice and beans. There isn't as much variety of food as I was used to in Montreal, but you can find most types of food if you look for it.

- People #1. While being very friendly and fun-loving, the people here are also very 'fake' and 'envious/jealous' of most foreigners. It's understandable, as money talks here and usually the foreigners have a lot more of it than the locals, but it becomes annoying after awhile.

- People #2. This is not a very individualistic society. Almost all people here are very religious (of course in very hypocritical ways, as usual), and most people only 'follow the crowd'. Montreal was a city with more 'independant thinkers' I would say...

- Service. If you go to restaurants/bars targeted to foreigners, you pay more but get good service usually. Any local places, the service is AWFUL (for foreigners and locals alike), largely I think because they don't work for tips. Tips are included on the bills and most waiters/waitresses/barmen never see their cut of it, the owner keeps it. However sometimes it's overly bad, for no other reason than the person working there doesn't give a damn since they are paid low or just too lazy.

yup, varius pretty much nailed it. i've been here 9 months now, and i knew 0 spanish before arriving, and while i still have a way to go, i can do basic conversation.

the MUSIC. omfg. i like rock, of all kinds, and the few bars that play that music, seem to be always dead. so, if you want to hook up with a tica, you have to deal with the reggaeton bullshit music.

I'll be moving there next month :thumbsup

I found a property I want, 1.5 acres, on the beach, gated community, 3000 sq ft home built to your specs... cant beat the price!!!

anyone happen to be in the Liberia area?

Me and Patty are planing moving there for our upcoming "retirement"... Varius gave me some good pointers while ago, but not as deteiled as the ones above..

But CR still attract me alot...

Varius : How is it for a canadian, moving there ? papers, immigration etc... ?

Varius,

Thank you so much for posting such a detailed post about Costa Rica. I was actually considering moving down there and was delighted to see your post. I have a few hesitations before I start looking for a place, and I'm hoping you can help me clarify some things.

#1) How is the real estate situation? Are real estate transactions via brokerages pretty well-regulated so that one doesn't have to worry about fraud and scams (as they are pretty common in some parts of the world). In fact, I've read that squatters have legal rights such that if after 3 months no effort is made by the rightful owners of the property to "shoo" them away, the property is theirs (the squatters'). I imagine this is an artifact of some sort of homesteading law from many years back, however, I can see how frauds can be cordinated to exploit this loophole and 'steal' real estate legally.

#2) How cheap are the apartment/house rentals? I know this is a pretty ambiguous question because it depends so much on neighborhood and the dwelling.

#3) Is high-speed internet easily available there? If so, what is the average monthly cost of that?

Thanks :)

Laws are currently in a changing process regarding immigration and residency status, so you best not wait too long.

Though you probably will never have any troubles here, as they are mostly targeting Nicaraguans and Colombians, it's best to apply for residency ASAP. Currently the only ways I know to get it though, are to invest enough cash (I think it's like 300K, but some of it must be invested in what they tell you, like reforestation projects or other government things), be a full-time student, full-time employee for a Costa Rican company (but they have to prove you're more qualified than a Costa Rican for your job), or marry a Costa Rican.

I think there are other ways, but I'm not familar with them..

People here are generally friendlier to Canadians than Americans I have noticed. Many places in Jaco beach are also owned by fellow Quebecers :)

#1 - I haven't heard much about real estate fraud happening here, but I suppose it is possible. The best thing to do is be here yourself, with a local lawyer who should have already investigated the property and the people selling it (all easily done through the Registro). There are problems with squatters, when foreigners buy property but never actually come down to Costa Rica nor have anyone in charge of taking care of it. However if you intend to move down and live in the place, this shouldn't be an issue.

#2 - Really does depend what area you live in. The apartment I'm in right now for another few days, costs $300/month. It's in a pretty nice area, university area, with lots of businesses and nightlife. It's 2 bedroom apartment (so has living room, kitchen, laundry room, bathroom and 2 bedrooms).

If you go for more expensive, "foreigner" areas like Escazu, I think you can pay $700-1500 for the same thing.

Buying a house is recommended right now, as property value here is rising steadily. I just bought mine at $120K in a developing region 5 mins from where I live now, and it's already worth $150K (appraised by three different banks). You get a lot more size/rooms for your money too than you would anywhere in the US/Canada.

#3 - It's available almost everywhere now. You have options from cable to isdn to adsl. You're looking at about $35 for 128 or 256K speeds, $70 for 512K , and newly offered is ADSL of 1-4 megs ($100-300) a month.

Hope those answers help :)

Varius,

Thanks a lot for your quick reply. That was very helpful. I am seriously considering moving down there after your posts. One more thing. There is a 3-month foreigner's visa issued, which you can renew simply by leaving the country and then coming back after 72 hours? I'd like to stay there for a bit, but I don't want to spend 300,000 in investments right now :)

Bob
the place I am wanting to go see is a new commmunity, they also offer as part of buying a home through them the following
----
To help make your life easier in Costa Rica, when you purchase a real estate in xxxx you also have the option to receive as part of your package:

Assistance with the residency process in Costa Rica
A Costa Rican Corporation (S.A.)
Help in opening a local bank account
Aid in obtaining a Costa Rican driver?s license
A cellular telephone line
Discounts for construction materials from Do It Center hardware store in Guanacaste

We do more than just make your purchase of Costa Rica real estate easy, we attempt to make adjusting to your new life here a breeze as well.

-----

so this sounds pretty good, hopefully I can go down next weekend to look at the area.

I've read a little about becoming resident. I don't remember the exact details, but I'm pretty sure there are 2 different "buy-in" brackets. The $300k one as mentioned, and I also think there's a $50k option, though I can't remember the exact specifications.

venus,

It sounds like a good idea and a decent service. When are you going down there?

I'd be interested in hearing about your experience with them, if you decide to use them. However, being skeptical and cynical by nature, I would be very cautious about receiving and exercising the purchasing advice from such companies. I've lived in many third-world countries and have fallen victim of real estate scams. Heck, it happened to me in the states too. The most common structure seems to be of a larger group owning the smaller companies, and one refers to another. They conceal problems with the real estate, overprice them, and give misinformation to the foreigners to facilitate the sale of real estate "duds" basically. I'm not saying that all of them are like that, but based on my experience I've found that foreigners are often taken advantage of and a referral system as they described leaves them open to operating a parent company with both legitimate and illegitimate subsidiaries which can baton the operation to each other.

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Yes you can live here doing that as well, leaving every few months to get your passport stamped by just driving to Nicaragua or Panama.

Being a resident though will make it a lot easier for getting things like phone lines, bank accounts, etc... in your name. Otherwise you have to register companies and do it all through their names, which isn't too bad either since it only costs $350-450 to incorporate one here.

The only problem that has, is when you leave the country (to canada or usa for example), when you try and return they may ask you to show them a ticket which proves you intend to leave the country within 3 months. I never had this problem myself, but know people who do everytime they fly, so they always have to blow 500-1000$ extra at the airport buying a useless ticket to get back in.

Hopefully going down there next weekend or the weekend after, waiting to hear back if my horses are allowed on the property. My horses are going with me so anywhere I go they have to be allowed also.

I will be on the watch for scams. This is a large community, so hopefully it wont be a scam, they have a website here
http://www.catalinacove.net

venus,

i think you couldn't have picked a better area, guanacaste, for the beach living. it's made up largely of foreigners, so the language barrier won't be difficult. the real estate prices there are sky-rocketing, because of the large number of foreigners there. the beaches there are beautiful. the pics on that site are pretty, but they don't it proper justice. the views are simply breathtaking. guanacaste is definitely one of my favorite areas on the pacific side.

the only thing I will say to any of you that are planning on movine out of the US or Canada to a place like Costa Rica, is this.

If tomorrow, you can not make another dime from your porn sites, how will you make you living????


Also. Before you just up and move, there are other things to consider. There is not a Sears or Walmart on every corner, and even if there is, they do not sell all of the things that you may want. Try getting books in English. Also, you may face higher prices for computers. Here in Mexico, a regular 600$ desktop, is close to 1k. A laptop is about 1800 to 2k here, and would only be 1100 to 1600 in the states.

Those are a few of the reasons that we chose to live within driving distance to the border.

Before you buy, rent for a month, and see how you do. Yo may hate it.

puravida
thanks for the update on the area, hopefully they will allow my horses, that and high speed internet would be the only thing keeping me from getting a place there I think.
I have been searching all over and it seems everything americans touch the prices skyrocket, any places that allot of americans frequent are priced way more then I want to pay, this place seems perfect price so hopefully it goes good.

yes I know, this business can come crashing down pretty quick, but I think quicker here in the US then other places. I have other things I can do, I can train horses, tech scuba diving, open a dive shop, open a bar .. lots of things I have looked into, lots of things are excessivly expensive to do here in the US. For the last 8 years I have been planning on what to do after my site turns to dust (if it does) and have taken this time to learn to do things I like and want to do. Next month I go to farrier school in tucson, az to learn to shoe horses :)

ya I looked into mexico also, god I hate mexico.. I have been to nuevo laredo, tiajuana and nogalos (sp), my sister in law in mexican/american and has been all over the interior of mexico. I looked at house prices in mexico and from a brief look was not happy in what I saw.

While we don't have Sears and Walmart, you can find just about any american product you need. We have Hipermas and Pricesmart. Hipermas is just like walking into a Walmart SuperCenter, with slightly higher prices. Pricesmart is owned by CostCo, and it's pretty much just like walking into CostCo in the states. Electronics are rather high. Some items are, at minimum, double the US cost. For instance, a 60" DLP TV that sells for 2500-3000 in the states will cost you around 5000-5500 here. If at all possible, do your shopping for electronics from the states. I bought my ipod here, and it cost $50 more than what it would've in the states, so that one wasn't that bad.

Getting books in English is rather easy. Costa Rica is becoming quite Americanized, in every possible way. Hooters and Wendy's are right around the corner from opening up. We have practically every single US fast-food restaurant, as well as several of the large US chain restuarants (tony romas, fridays, outback, etc). Unfortunately, the downside to this, is that prices are sky-rocketing, thanks largely in part to these foreign corporations wanting to charge american prices, to a relatively small american market.

The typical wage for an educated, english speaking costa rican is 500-600 a month. Doctors, lawyers, dentists, they can make 1500-2000 a month. Cops make around 350-400 a month, which is why it is incredibly easy to pay your way out of practically any traffic situation.

Traffic is horrible, and the majority of people drive rather defensively. You will quickly become used to 3-4 lanes of traffic crammed onto a 2 lane road with shoulders. Forget about road lines. If there's 3 inches of available space, the closest driver will strive to grab that extra 2 inches. They will scare you plenty, often times thinking they're going to nail your car. They come within mere inches. Reach out and write something in the dust on their car, that's how close it is. If they rolled down their window, you could reach out and slap em :)

The roads are equally horrible, except for a few. The highway (auto pista) has a decent road. The road to the closest beach (jaco) is good. Most of the roads in the heavily-trafficked foreigner cities are good (santa ana, escazu, etc)

as varius touched on earlier, high speed internet is widely available in the city areas. at the beach, different story. jaco beach has internet. the marriott los suenos resort near playa herradura has internet. im not sure if guanacaste has it or not. i would think so, due to the heavy american population, as well as the 4 seasons resort located close-by. however, even dialup at the beach is sufficient. you'll frequently login with a 26.4k connection, but its plenty for web browsing, email, etc. the compression level here on the dialup lines is rather nice. it would suck horribly for file tranfers. that being said, the costa rican government has advertised that they have the capability to light up anybody, anywhere, with highspeed internet in this country. the only deciding factor is, how much do you want to pay? if you're at a remote beach, chances are, forget about cable/dsl. satellite or wireless or a direct dedicated line are your options.

peace