Costa Rica-Real Estate Condos for sale in Guanacaste

For Google Innovation Community, Costa Rica was definitely an asset and has included as one of the participants and it was launched by the Ministry of Science of Costa Rica. The Google Innovation Group will be open to everyone in Costa Rica who wants to participate and will be used as an announcements board for free activities, training programs, scholarships and offers for financial support for scientific and economic research. The Ministry of Science of Costa Rica also plants to use other tools such as Youtube and Facebook to display any type of innovation developed in Costa Rica and document promoting the project has been sent to every school in the country as well.

In my opinion Costa Rica has proved to have extremely talent professionals and good resources for technology innovation, this addition of Costa Rica to the Google Innovation Community just proves that the potential in Costa Rica is above the parameters established by well known innovative companies around the world.

In Costa Rica, science and systems engineering are one of the top careers chosen by youngsters and many items we use today have been developed in Costa Rica lands, also many technological companies such as Intel, Hologic and Alienware have had their offices located here due to the fact that the professional labor in their areas is definitely strong and well prepared among professionals in Costa Rica

The famous actor Sylvester Stallone will be visiting Costa Rica soon to shoot part of his upcoming movie “The Expendables” which Stallone will produce and perform himself. The other two main characters will be performed by professional actors Jason Statham and Jet Li. Sylvester Stallone also wrote the screen play.

This is not the first Hollywood flick to be shoot in Costa Rica, in the past major films had locations in the Costa Rica territory: Jurassic Park and the story of Christopher Columbus “1492” with iconic actor Gérard Depardieu was also filmed in Costa Rica among other countries. Although the details of the plot are not out yet it appears that the story follows a team of mercenaries on a mission to overthrow a South American dictator.

The film will be made in Costa Rica and Louisiana starting on February, 2009. This is also a great step on the rise of Costa Rica films since not only the best movies entirely made by Ticos were shot and shown this year but also it puts the country in the map again. I am happy to look back and see that the main reasons Costa Rica has made news this years have been because of the great talent and artists that this country produces.

I am not sure about the location of the shooting will be in Costa Rica but if anything is done in Guanacaste I will see how to check it out or a least get a glance of Rambo himself.

Finally after months of unstopping rains, storms and terrible floods the weather in Costa Rica is changing and the Christmas winds are here for good. In Costa Rica they have what they call “vientos alicios” and their main function is to literally blow away all the rainy clouds and let the sun shine.

In Costa Rica, holidays have a special characteristic: during the month of December the best weather can enjoyed all over the place from Guanacaste to Puntarenas the sun shines brightly but the cool breeze of the “vientos alicios” makes a chilly ambience that everyone enjoys.

Also this is the time when Costa Rica travel becomes more and more fun: the weather and the holidays are the perfect excuse to get away from the awful traffic in San Jose. Costa Rica also has an awesome tradition: tamales! Families gather together to cook huge badges (or piñas like people in Costa Rica call them) which are usually just delicious.

This is a great time to visit Costa Rica; real estate listings are definitely bigger this time of year since people also want to start making changes and the weather in Costa Rica this time of the year is perfect for sightseeing and house hunting. Costa Rica expects to continue having these wonderful days until late April 2009, although the Christmas breeze is usually gone during the first weeks of January. So go ahead and start making plans to visit different properties and locations now that there will be no rain to delay your plans. Purchasing real estate in Costa Rica cannot be easier now that you can actually appreciate all the beauty of the surroundings in any Costa Rica property.

Formerly known as CCN Systems, Experian is a global credit information group, with operations in 36 countries. Their largest operation is Experian North America, a consumer credit reporting agency that is considered one of the three largest American credit agencies. Right now Experian has open up their Costa Rica branch with a total of 80 employees and plans to add at least 20 more by the end of the year and a total of 120 for the beginning of 2009. The main lines of business of Experian are credit services, marketing solutions, decision analytics and interactive services; in Costa Rica, Experian require data management and process specialists and software development engineers.

Along with Amazon Costa Rica, their offices will be located at Zona Franca Ultralag, in Lagunilla de Heredia. Costa Rica has been providing great work force to many different international companies over the years: IBM, HP, Alienware and Sykes are probably the biggest call centers right now providing jobs for thousands of young professionals in many different areas, not necessarily related to inbound and outbound calls.

Costa Rica education does have enough professionals to comply with the work force requirements these companies need to hire and for over 10 years they have established themselves are part of the most reliable companies in Costa Rica. These companies provide a whole lot of benefits to their workers and since most of them still attend school they also give them scholarships or provide them with constant trainings in related matters. Business in Costa Rica is definitely getting bigger and the addition of Experian to the list of serious companies in Costa Rica is certainly good news.

The beautiful Costa Rica girls have again the opportunity to represent their country in one of the most important beauty pageants nowadays: Miss Hawaiian Tropic. The selection of the 12 finalists to represent Costa Rica will take place on November 15^th between 12 m. a 6 p. m. at Mall San Pedro, in down town San Jose, Costa Rica.

In Costa Rica, women are definitely beautiful and very educated, so far it has been really hard to find a woman in their 20’s without college education and most of them also work, don’t have children too young and don’t seem to be in any rush about getting married. Costa Rica high rates in education are definitely real, since I have to admit that most Costa Ricans: women and men are very well educated.

Regarding the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Pageant, the 12 finalists that will be chosen on November 15^th will compete against each other in Playa Flamingo in January and the winner will travel to Las Vegas, Nevada in May, 2009 to represent Costa Rica among the most gorgeous girls in the world. This year, during the Miss Hawaiian Tropic pageant 2008, the girl participating for Costa Rica, Kimberly Zúñiga actually won the pageant and hopefully this next year will be just as successful.

It is actually not uncommon that girls from Costa Rica are somehow recognize in the pageants they participate, most of the times they come back with recognitions and not empty handed. I certainly wish them all good luck and we can just sit and enjoy watching beautiful Costa Rica girls in the meantime.

To anyone interested the exact location for the casting at Mall San Pedro will be announced in the next few days, so just be patient and keep looking, so far the only confirmed info is the date (November 15^th). Good luck!

There is definitely something very colorful about Costa Rica buildings: some may be one of the most fashionable buildings with impressive taste and modern architecture while a small room built on cardboard and old pieces of wood will be standing right behind it. Unfortunately, like in many other countries this is the reality, Costa Rica is being bought by big companies and enterprises that built amazing structures without giving one moment of consideration about the surroundings. 

It is not uncommon to see old wooden houses almost falling apart in one block, and a huge luxury home in the next property. Costa Rica is still feeling the huge changes of crazy real estate all over the place and the local families can’t seem to be able to keep up with these building developments so their small homes become the awful side of an area full of luxury. Costa Rica is showing its two faces and given the fact the prices in the real estate listings in Costa Rica have gone way up high and are completely not affordable for a regular middle class Costa Rica family, foreigners with higher access to dollars and euros are buying the country in small pieces.

Huge examples are the apartment buildings that are being developed in the Sabana surroundings, these tall, luxury buildings were created to be sold for over $100 000 or rented for over $1500 a month. In Costa Rica, a middle class professional hardly makes $1000 in the best case scenario, meaning that all those apartments are just not accessible unless you are a foreigner. Real estate in Costa Rica needs to be regulated as soon as possible, maybe all these prices are low for us, but this country also has locals, who work hard and dream of owning a home. In my opinion is just not fair.

Every six months the Ticos receive a salary raised according to the Costa Rica law. The cost of life increased in 11% last September in Costa Rica, one of the highest increases in 10 years, so the Costa Rica people were expecting a big raise, unfortunately the salary raise approved was only a 7%, meaning that this so called raised won’t even cover transportation costs daily.

The Costa Rica government supports this claiming that a higher raise may cause the jobs of some people since they will have to be lay off to afford paying a higher salary raise. This news are very sad and a huge problem for Costa Rica workers. In this graphic, you will be able to see how low salaries already are in Costa Rica compared to what we Americans are used to see, most of the raises are only a few dollars:

Profession                   Actual Salary              Raised Salary

Construction worker     $11.73*                       $12.55*

Store Clerk                  $11.73*                       $12.55 *

Security Guard  $346.47                       $370.72

Superintendent  $321.64                       $344.15

* Daily wages

As you can see salaries in Costa Rica per month are not even close to what we are used to get weekly in the United States, yet these people are supposed to buy groceries, clothing, pay for school uniforms and supplies, services and rent with those salaries. Now this example you can see why the real estate market is just an impossible dream for Costa Ricans since the requirements banks have to give home loans in Costa Rica, are basically the same and as high as in the United Estates. It really doesn’t make any sense at all, if you think about it.

At this moment there are great changes happening in the Nicoya, Guanacaste area: two new bridges that pass by two of the main roads of Nicoya are being re-built. Although this is actually great news since both bridges were pretty much un-usable, the construction work over the Grande and Perico rivers, are causing terrible traffic congestion for drivers. The Perico river bridge has already been demolished and the construction is quite advanced, yet the old bridge has already been taken down, meaning that traffic in the area is hectic due to these constructions.

As I have stated on previous entries, Costa Rica properties have different values depending on the area, like anywhere else; yet, Guanacaste is experiencing a huge increase in the real estate market, Guanacaste and San Jose especially, given the fact that all these development projects are making the area a lot more fancy and services have become a lot easier to access from there.

The good thing is that now that the access to the Nicoya area is going to be renewed, all those development projects planned will move faster than expected. Real estate in Guanacaste was kind of in a stand by situation for a while, not only because of the governments concerns about threats to the environment, but also because the construction processes were a bit slow in some of the locations, such as Nicoya. Hopefully the construction of the thee bridges will be done soon, maybe the beginning of 2009, that way new properties in Guanacaste can be put on the market sooner than later, also the development projects will be able to begin operations and the Nicoya hotels and villas can take advantage of them a lot faster than they used to.

So far, I am happy with I am seeing and although the traffic issue is of concern, people will just have to be patient about it to enjoy the new upcoming bridges.

After months of expectation the Latin version of American Idol broadcast its final live last night. The show began with 12 finalists from different countries of Latin America: Chile, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Panama and Costa Rica and week after week one of them, the one with the fewest votes was sent home. At the end only Margarita Henriquez from Panama and Maria Jose Castillo from Costa Rica were left to battle against each other on stage.

Costa Rica went crazy: parties every where trying to collect money for votes, a lot of private companies such as Purdy Motor, ULACIT, ICE, Neutrogena, TCBY and more joined forces to support the Costa Rica girl that went beyond borders to make her dream come true. Although at the end of the show Margarita Henriquez was the one with more votes, Costa Rica has declared Maria Jose their own idol and both of the contestants ended up receiving the same prices: a new Toyota Yaris 2009, a signed contract with Sony BMG plus several other prices given by private entities, in the case of Maria Jose, she will be receiving a full scholarship at ULACIT, another full scholarship at Instituto Costarricense-Norteamericano to learn English, free voice therapy from Universidad Santa Paula (she ended up forcing her voice too much).

Maria Jose Castillo became a frenzy media star in Costa Rica, where celebrity status doesn’t really exist, also she managed to be a hero for all Costa Ricans who wanted her to become the next Latin American Idol and prove that there is talent in the country and all it needs is a break. Maria Jose will be coming back to a huge party and to a while different life compared to what she left behind 3 months ago. Hopefully she will continue to pursue her career in music, Latin America definitely wants more of her and after her recovery she should definitely continue.

The construction of the most expected new Caldera Dock in Puntarenas, Costa Rica will continue to be paralyzed; so far it has been for 19 months already due to issues with the Estate of Costa Rica itself and during all this time the costs of the construction have increased tremendously, so far it is estimated that the increase is for over $29 million dollars and the Sociedad Granelera de Caldera has already admitted that they cannot afford this huge increase.

The main legal issue that has delayed the construction of the bridge it’s a sue placed by the Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos (ANEP) claiming that the construction of the dock will compromise the right inhabitants of the are have to enjoy and healthy and ecologically balanced environment. The reason why this legal sue has taken so long to be taken care of is apparently an overload of work on the Sala IV which handles these types of issues. Costa Rica has a big trouble if the delay continues since money is being lost while the court can’t even look at the file itself. The Caldera dock needed to be not only rebuilt but remodeled since a huge percentage of exports in Costa Rica use this route.

So far, there are no resolutions and just the excuse of the overloaded Sala IV. Puntaremas will continue to use the old dock for every transaction, departure and arrival in the Pacific side of Costa Rica for the moment. The other main dock in Costa Rica is
Puerto Limon which receives visitors, works with exports and imports and handles most of the Caribbean side economic trades and apparently is handling everything perfectly for the moment. The Costa Rica government still has not made comments on the issue so far.