Costa Rica-Real Estate Condos for sale in Guanacaste

I know that sometimes I advertise Costa Rica like I am getting paid to do it but you need to understand that living here has been the best thing that happened to me and my family, yet because it was a good thing for me it doesn’t mean it will be a good thing for you. Costa Rica is wonderful and Guanacaste, where I live in is heaven to me, but I am not so sure this peaceful life is for everyone.

Living in Guanacaste I have learned that big hectic highways and shopping malls are a thing of my past and only if necessary they can be part of my future, it is better to go have a nice day put in the farmer’s market in Liberia and enjoy a nice agua dulce while at it. That fancy restaurants only make my family uncomfortable and over dressed and that my kids enjoy the Guanacaste beaches a lot more than long drives to expensive amusement parks.

I have also learned that I, a middle class retired man can afford living like a king because the real estate market in Costa Rica is way cheaper than it is in USA and that maintaining a nice luxury home is three times cheaper in Costa Rica. Having a packed fridge costs much less and because of these I can become a real estate developer in Costa Rica y not a boring retired middle aged man.

Guanacaste has brought back my excitement for life and that peaceful feeling I used to have when I graduated college years ago. My home in Guanacaste has become the home of my children I hope it also becomes the home of my grand children and so forth. Yes were used to the city life and running and going crazy everyday, but that was because we didn’t know better and here in Guanacaste my life has improved, my health has improved and the way I see things has improved.

Remember how in the 1980’s lots of people made incredible profits out of business tips given through out the world? One of those tips was given by International Living an international magazine specialized in providing tips and guidance to people who want to live overseas. The tip provided by the magazine in the 1980’s was to purchase cheap properties in the northern side of Costa Rica, specifically in Guanacaste since it was a raising paradisiacal area in one of the most impressive tropical locations in the world; those who followed the advice earn big profits over the years.

Now the time has come to make great real estate business in Costa Rica again, with the current financial crisis, properties in Guanacaste are now costing less than they did two years ago, but it is estimated that the prices will go back up in a year or two, meaning that the profit in real estate in Costa Rica is just waiting to become a huge deal.

Actually lots of housing projects in Guanacaste are for sale right now and there are also lots and ocean view properties available. Other good locations for real estate investments in Costa Rica are Puntarenas and San Jose, which, although has no ocean sighting nearby, the access to every other location in the country is a lot easier from San Jose. Costa Rica real estate is definitely one of the best investments in real estate because of the beauty, the variety and the low prices available.

 These are great news for Costa Rica, and off course for the many projects that are to be developed in the Guanacaste area; as a new reservoir could make a huge difference for the future investments in the province.

The project will be known as Rio Piedras Reservoir, and it is an initiative from the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (I.C.E) aided by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) It will take an approximated time of 4 years to see it completed; or more precisely, a year to evaluate the proposal and present the different reports on the subject, approve them and finally proceed to the building part that will more likely take 3 years for its completion.

The main purpose of this new reservoir initiative in Guanacaste will be to deal with the excedent water coming from the Hydro electrical reservoir Arenal (Corobici); whose currently operational procedure sends 30 cm of “unused water” per second to the sea.

And yes that is actually a lot of water

If you are wondering why is this happening? Let me give you a brief explanation, for currently when the Arenal Reservoir produces a lot of electric power, the water used in the process overflows the irrigation channels (Hence they throw it on the sea in order to protect them.) Never the less, when the reservoir’s electric production lowers, the irrigation channels suffer from lack of water; this new initiative however would change things quite a bit, as it will collect the water in order to be used for the different irrigation projects and the local community projects in Guanacaste.

Now let’s see some numbers.

The technical analysis alone will have a cost of $400.000, and once the construction company has been chosen the project will have a 3 year “deadline”

The Rio Piedras Reservoir will have a capacity of 85 cm million of water (In an area of 800 Hectares.) will give water to 200.000 people in Guanacaste, and will have an approximate cost of $20 million.

As I mentioned before, these are great news for Costa Rica and more specifically for the province of Guanacaste, with projects like this one it won’t be long to see another boom in the real estate industry in Costa Rica.

This week in San Jose, Costa Rica is hosting two of the most important events of the year: The International Book Fair and the Festival de la Luz.

The book is coordinated by the Costa Rica Book Chamber (Camara Nacional del Libro) and it is taking place in the heart of down town San Jose this week. All the different book distributors have stands set in the Boulevard that goes from La Plaza de las Garantias Sociales up to Parque Central by the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Dunia Solano, president of the Camara Nacional del Libro has worked hard and intensively to have as much to offer to the public and arrange different activities throughout the week to provide a little more culture to passers by and anyone who is interested in visit the Costa Rica book fair.

The Book fair in Costa Rica takes place usually twice a year and this one will be held until this next Saturday until 3:00pm to begin the Festival de la Luz activities. This wonderful parade has been celebrated in San Jose since 1996 and this year the Festival’s leader will be Latin American Idol finalist Maria Jose Castillo.

Another wonderful activity taking place in San Jose this week is a “Vacaciones en la Aduana” (Vacations at La Aduana) in the old Aduana’s building where concerts, poetry readings, shows a lot more of activities will be held during these cold Costa Rica afternoons for free and anybody who wants to participate.

The North American community in Costa Rica is so big that this year’s Thanksgiving dinner is going to be just like if I was in the US. In my neighborhood, there are even people who rented villas for their Costa Rica vacation buying all the ingredients and more for their thanksgiving dinner and a friend of mine who owns a catering service told me he was almost overbooked for today.

Here in Costa Rica thanksgiving is not celebrated, given the fact the Mayflower is only a North American tradition, yet the amazing increase in ex-pats has mixed the thanksgiving celebrations with the Costa Rica culture and more and more Ticos join their American friends into enjoying the wonderful feeling of thanking god for everything we receive. I think that is probably why Ticos receive this celebration with open arms, they feel that sitting and thanking for all the wonderful things we receive is worth to enjoy and celebrate.

In my case, I will thank this wonderful year I have spent in Costa Rica, a country that certainly feels like home and for the wonderful people I have met here. I will however pray for all the people who lost their homes at the terrible floods we had this year. To all the gringos around the world Happy thanksgiving and I hope you get to enjoy it with people you love and God bless every one of you.

Just like very useful and fun Tren Urbano in San Jose, Costa Rica will now implement the use of a new train, this time from the Costa Rica Capital to Heredia city the entire re-instatement project ended up costing near to $1 074 000. This awesome news was released this past October 25^th by Incofer.

After all the hard, long work of the first step to get the Heredia train up and running, the first trips will take place during the third week of December as recreational trips, so people can get used to the route, check the official stops and see how long it will take the potential regular travelers to get to their destinations. Costa Rica government did manage to go around a long series of issues before being able to get train route working. The new Costa Rica train to Heredia will begin normal operations in January.

It is amazing how Costa Rica, a country that has so many transportation problems has managed to find solutions in methods that were already taken as obsolete and forgotten. This new route will make the trip to Heredia a los faster and easier for many people in Costa Rica, given the fact that the work force in Heredia is one of the largest in the country due to the several Free Trade Zones. Costa Rica has also opened up for business to new world renowned companies such as Amazon and Experian this year.

The implementation of this train route is expected to help with the collapsed traffic during rush hours along the highway between Heredia and San Jose. Costa Rica traffic problems are worse and worse everyday; a regular trip on this highway during rush hour can hold one up to 2-3 hours, therefore extreme measures had to be taken.

If you have never been to Costa Rica, there are several survival rules to move here, one of them, and probably the most important one to know that the streets and highways are extremely dangerous due to several, and I mean several holes. For some reason in Costa Rica, the maintenance of the streets is very low or sometimes I even think non-existent, and driving has become a hassle, specially in the downtown area of San Jose. Costa Rica has an entity: Ministerio de Obras Publicas y Transportes (MOPT) who is supposed to take care of the roads all over the country and watch for careless drivers as they are also what we know as the highway patrol.

Costa Rica roads are definitely not made for the amount of traffic found everyday on streets; just yesterday a 72 year old man went through hell when driving towards Mall San Pedro in San Jose and the street just disappeared below his car, apparently the issue began with the strong rains of the past few weeks that debilitated the sewer and caused the street to collapse. In Costa Rica, roads are definitely only safe for 4×4 cars and until the Government realizes that patches are not good enough and built proper streets drivers in Costa Rica are doomed to these dangerous situations.

Traveling throughout Costa Rica is actually a lot safer, since highways are a lot less neglected that main roads. Also it appears that sewer problems in that specific area in San Jose are very common: a few years ago there was a huge hole in the middle of a road in San Pedro, Costa Rica people even called it the “hellhole”, but it was fixed a few months ago. Hopefully this was just random accident and people from the Municipalidad de San Jose will push the MOPT into getting a real damage control plan for the area.

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.

Before I found out about the peace and quite of Costa Rica, Guanacaste, and started this very well deserved retirement, seven years ago, I was getting ready to go to work and the kids were running around the house and although the TV was on, I was not able to hear it, I was not paying attention to the screen anyways yet for some reason at look up at the TV: The World Trade Center buildings were on fire and I had only been there 7 seven days ago doing business.

The image on the TV just unbelievable, I though for a minute that it was maybe one of those TV movies when I realized the news logo was at the bottom of the screen. The 9/11 events marked us all very deep and it was only the beginning. Between 15 minutes both towers were hit:

8.46 - Flight 11 crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

9.03 - Flight 175 crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center.

By 9:30 am that morning people in desperation were throwing themselves out of the windows of what was left of the Twin Towers at that moment. The desperation in the voices of the families, the horror on the images on TV was just indescribable and it marked us all forever.

I had to make a stop and ponder about that moment today and pay respects to the families of the people who died in this terrible attack. Here in Costa Rica lands all those awful feelings don’t seem to be so close to me anymore, but I know that some people still feel it like it is happening right now.

Costa Rica newspapers did dedicated a few words on their issues today, nothing too particular, but I guess you had to live it to actually know how it feels, I don’t blame them. Life is much better now and we can sit and rest. The attacks of 9/11 will be part of our everyday life as North Americans and 9/11 itself will always mark a different way of living forever.

Stripper Cow and “Bistek Encebollado” : Cow Parade Costa Rica

(Pictures by GGC)

This year Costa Rica joined many other countries around with the very much expected Cow Parade, which is the world’s largest public art event: Artist from the selected country will create original designs on cow statues provided by the organization and for a few months all these original art pieces will be exposed to the public on the main cities of each country; at the end of the show, the cows are auction and the money collected will be donated to an specific cause. While the cow sculptures remain the same each artist is supposed to bring it to life with inspiration and creativity.

Costa Rica was picked to hold the Cow Parade this year and did and excellent job just like previous cities have such as France, United States, South Africa and England. During the first week of the exposition a lot of confused locals looked at the cows shocked and at the police had to intervene to make sure the pieces of art were not vandalized. Costa Rica is well known for having very talented artists and it was definitely shown during the Cow Parade: ecological themed cows, ordinary portrays of the life in Costa Rica, social themed and even some were made tributes to well known characters of San Jose.

The auction for the Costa Rica Cow Parade auction took place last Wednesday at the Museo de los Niños and although not all the cows were sold, they managed to raise a good $108 000, which will be all donated to charities in Costa Rica such as the Hospital the Niños, Hogares CREA (drug addiction rehab center) and the Fundacion Obras del Espiritu Santo which is a charity organization created and managed by just one priest and a whole bunch of volunteers that take care of underprivileged children of San Jose, Costa Rica. The rest of the cows will now go on a tour through rural cities in Costa Rica so they can also participate and enjoy the fun and beauty of the Cow Parade.