PriceSmart the giant supermarket chain of membership shopping is expanding more and more in Central America. Right now, PriceSmart has several branches in many countries of Central America and the Caribbean such as: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Aruba, Barbados, Dominican Republic and Jamaica just to mention a few. Just in Costa Rica the supermarket has 4 establishments. This Wednesday, October 1st, the company has made a press release announcing that PriceSmart has has entered into agreements to acquire properties in Costa Rica and Panama; these properties will be used for the construction of new PriceSmart Warehouse Clubs and the development of adjoining Commercial Centers.
In Costa Rica, property acquisition has already begun: the company acquired 21,576 square metres of real estate in Alajuela, Costa Ricawhere a new PriceSmart Warehouse Club will be built to be the fifth in Costa Rica. This new facility is expected to open in the spring of 2009.
This type of membership shopping started business more than 10 years ago and started growing more and more over the years. PriceSmart offers great quality products such as electronic, computers, health care, furniture, automotive items and sporting goods among others. Costa Rica families are usually big and purchasing items in big quantities is normal and necessary, PriceSmart offers this choice by providing great prices for big quantities. Also, Costa Rica properties in locations where the main target customers reside are still easy to acquire, therefore the decision was not hard to make.
I have no information in whether or not there is going to be a PriceSmart in Guanacaste so far, I will assume they may be discussing the possibility of acquiring also property in Guanacaste due to the huge development of the area. Guanacaste has grown so much in the past few years it will actually be a smart move to include the area on their list of property acquisition.
You might wonder what the main difference is between living an entire life in the big city where technology is everywhere and development is part of the day of everybody and what is like to leave all that behind and relocate to a completely different country, such as Costa Rica, the main difference is that actually there are a whole bunch of differences.
At the beginning all my friends thought I went senile: Relocating to Costa Rica? Moving the whole family? Yes, but not because I was senile, I just got tired of the stress and the insanity of the big city. Costa Rica offered me everything I secretly desired: peace, a normal life, less dependency to a whole bunch of gadgets that became expensive and unnecessary and most importantly: PEACE.
Finding my home in Costa Rica was not easy of course, but finding a home anywhere is hard nowadays. The first thing was learning about Costa Rica: people for example are very different than US people: They are happier, the care less about the stupid mundane things, yet they are proud and well educated. Women are the ones that impress me the most. Costa Rica women are very liberal, they don’t put up with anything at all and they don’t really need a man in their lives, they just happened to liked being married, but in many cases they even work harder or make more money than the husbands.
In the US people are not so close to their roots, properties in Costa Rica are not only investments but treasures: Soil is rich, the views are stunning and the entire ambiance is filled with a very peaceful feeling. Land in Costa Rica Is very well taken care of and it has many uses: cultivating and constructions are not the only two choices. If you take a chance to do some research in real estate, make sure you try and find everything there is about the place where you are moving in Costa Rica: mountain side, rain forest, beach side or event down town.
