Moving to Costa Rica in 1999 with my wife and my 3 kids, one of whom was married and was accompanied by her husband, we set up shop in an area of the country where there were very few North Americans, or “Gringos” as we are called here.
We bought in San Isidro de Perez Zeledon after living in Costa Rica for about a year. We had felt that we should purchase something down on the coast, but were taken with a little finca, or farm, in San Isidro, and so with that acquisition went our funds for buying on the coast.
How are we about the decision so many years later? Well… as real estate investments go, we have done well, but there is always that feeling of “would’a should’a could’a”.
I find myself consoling a lot of people that visited here some years ago. They say “would’a, should’a, could’a,”, and I say (having lived through this myself), “if you had it to do all over again, you would likely make the same decisions.
10 years ago, Dominical was pure jungle, there was not a paved road in sight, electricity was episodic, phones non-existent, mud was ever-present”. I say ‘power to those guys’ that bought in those conditions, and took what I feel was a huge risk.
We are in the process of looking into a coastal investment, but the huge profit deals are harder to find now than they were when we arrived. We are not complaining too much. We are happy here, have learned the language, and the culture.
I have been motivated to start this blog since I am a web developer. This has given me a unique perspective on the market in that, in the last year and a half I have seen a veritable explosion of real estate activity.
Between my search engine optimization services, and my Dominical web site Dominical.Biz the topic of real estate in Costa Rica has come to occupy a rather sizeable place in my family’s life.