Costa Rica Real Estate

I spent last week in Tamarindo Costa Rica at a Real Estate Conference on International Real Estate.    While there we visited several real estate developments in the Tamarindo area.   Tamarindo is a beautiful place.   It is on the Pacific coast of the country and the view of the Pacific is breath taking. 

It is a tropical environment on the coast, being about 11 degrees off of the equator.   But there are also the mountains and the rain forests which can be much cooler.   There is a dry season and a rainy season.   The rainy season starts in May and lasts through November.  October and November are normally the rainiest and I am told that many places close for the month of October.   

Costa Rica is a democracy with a stable government.   The official language is Spanish.   The literacy rate is about 97% and English is taught through the senior year in high school.  I would not claim that everyone is fluent in English but the majority of people understand enough English that getting around is almost never a problem.   In fact, everywhere I went the signs and menus were in both Spanish and English.   

Property rights are strong in Costa Rica.   The laws protect ownership rights of property owners and investors.   There is a national property registry that records all ownership.   They feel so strongly about the rights that the real estate attorneys in Costa Rica do not recommend title insurance.

Costa Rica has been actively encouraging foreign investment as well as retirement for many years and there is a large population of retired expats in the country.   There are people from Germany, Italy, and really all over although the majority immigrated from the US.   While retirement is one of the big draws, I met all kinds of people who moved there because they liked the climate and the country and the relaxed pace of life.   In fact, many of the people who moved to Tamarindo are surfers.

The economy struggled when the US economy had its downturn back in 2008.   Although unemployment presently is at nearly 11%, the country still has one of the stronger economies in Central America.   Nicaraguans come to the country looking for work and provide very inexpensive labor.  Many Nicaraguans will come and stay for the week, moving from house to house of Costa Ricans working as cooks, maids, landscapers and the like and then returning to their families in Nicaragua for the weekend.

With the efforts to attract retirees and foreign investment, Costa Rica has been developing its infrastructure.    Developments in Tamarindo have water, sewer (or septic systems), and electricity.   (Everywhere I went, the water was safe to drink.)    Cell phones work there and internet is available.  

A new airport in Liberia just came on line in 2012 and provides great access to the Pacific coast.   The trip from the airport to Tamarindo was a little less than an hour.   Still getting around can require a sense of adventure.   While there are some good roads in the country, probably the majority of the roads are still dirt.   Because of the mountains, some of the roads can be very steep.   Most of the roads are not named.    A lot of the people use 4 wheel drive vehicles to get around. 

It's a beautiful place with a perfect climate.  Property rights are strong.   There is good infrastructure.   You can see why Costa Rica has developed one of the best reputations for investment in Central America.   

If you are curious and would like to know more, I expect to have a link to the Costa Rica Global Association of Realtors available in the near future!  When I do, you can browse those listings and see for yourself.   AND if you need any help with real estate there, let me know.  I can definitely get you started. 

Thanks for reading.   Have a great day.

David

David W. McCoy
Associate Broker
Commonwealth Commercial Real Estate
10444 Bluegrass Pkwy
Louisville, KY  40299

ofc: (502) 379-6005
cel: (502) 905-5274
e-mail:  DMcCoy@ccre.biz

Costa Rica Real Estate Conference

I am in Tamarindo, Costa Rica this week taking the classes for the National Association of Realtors (R) designation for International Real Estate.    This consists of five 8 hours days of classes on International Real Estate.    Today was day 2.  

If you are a Realtor thinking about International Real Estate, I would strongly encourage you to take these courses.    There is so much information to learn and my instructor David Wyant is really awesome.  David is a retired IBM executive who lived in France and London for a while during his career at IBM.    David has literally been all over the world.    Also,  I was very pleased to find that most of the people attending this conference had similarly interesting stories.   One lady has lived in Athens for 12 years and now moved to the Boston area.  A gentleman from Scotland lived in Zambia working in copper mines but relocated to North Carolina.   A single mom of Cuban heritage from Miami is moving back to Costa Rica.   An English lady who lives in North Carolina once lived in Saudi Arabia.   Two or three Canadians are in the class.   People speak English, French, Greek, Spanish, and Russian.  The common factor seems to be that all are xenophiles.  

About 5 of those attending are Realtors (R) in Costa Rica.   (Yes, that is correct.  The Costa Rica Global Association of Realtors is associated with NAR.)    In addition to our class work, the local Realtors (r) have arranged for us to take several property tours.  We are getting a crash course in the Costa Rican real estate market, the economy here, the infrastructure and geography.    We are meeting developers and local property management professionals.    

Tamarindo is on the Pacific coast.  As I am here this week, the temperatures have been in the 90s.    No rain. (although this is the dry season)  A beautiful sunset every night.    This is truly a wonderful place that everyone should visit.  

Enough for now.  I will try to do more later in the week.   Maybe even get some of my pictures up.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

David

David W. McCoy
Associate Broker
Commonwealth Commercial Real Estate
10444 Bluegrass Pkwy
Louisville, KY  40299

ofc: (502)379-6005
cel: (502) 905-5274
e-mail: DMcCoy@ccre.biz

KCREA goes International

If you are looking for Commercial Real Estate in Louisville and you are asking a residential realtor and looking at the MLS, I'm afraid that you are searching about 7 or 8 years too late.    Please don't misunderstand, I am not knocking residential realtors at all.  It is just that the MLS eliminated commercial properties from their data base about 7 years ago.   

There are several on-line listing services which provide information on Commercial Real Estate.  I use several and I think that most of the commercial real estate specialists do as well.   Locally, KCREA, the Kentucky Commercial Real Estate Association, has most of those listings.   

KCREA is constantly evolving.  It is not perfect but it does seem to be actively trying to improve.   So I was pleased when I recently discovered that KCREA now has an option to translate the listing into several different languages.   If you do a search for a property and click on one, on the right side of the page, down several lines is an option to translate the page.  If you click on that option, several icons of flags appear.   If you are not familiar with the flags, when you roll over the flags, a label appears displaying the language.  (Languages include: Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Hebrew)  Click on the flag and the page will translate.

Pretty cool.   Now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.   I speak a little Spanish and truth be told, the translation is not perfect.   Still, while the translation could be a little better, it certainly would be largely understandable to a Spanish speaker.  They might be somewhat amused at the translation but I suspect that they would be able to get the basic information and a decent understanding of what it being offered.  

I for one, think that this is a big step forward.   In our market, this is not yet a major issue although, in our office, we have worked with Cuban immigrants, who spoke almost no English, Russian business owners, who fortunately were bilingual, and Chinese business owners, who brought their kids to translate for them.   In some of our high schools, the students are speaking 30 or 40 different languages as their native language.  

Check it out.   You can go to www.KCREA.com and do some searching.   Then click on the Translate option and select a language.   If you find that you need some help, let me know. 

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

David

David W. McCoy
Associate Broker
Commonwealth Commercial Real Estate
10444 Bluegrass Parkway
Louisville, KY  40299

ofc: (502) 379-6005
cel: (502) 905-5274
e-mail: DMcCoy@ccre.biz

Let me know if you need help with Commercial Real Estate.  I am a licensed Real Estate Broker in Kentucky and Indiana and I specialize in Commercial Property.  I handle Office, Industrial, Commercial Land, Investment, and Retail properties.   I work with Landlords, Tenants, Sellers, Buyers, and Investors.     Heck, I can even set you up with some help from a residential realtor if you need it.  Give me a call.  I would love to help.

New Adventures

I have mentioned a couple of times that I am declaring 2013 to be the Year of Prosperity, which is all well and good but one might legitimately ask how I expect that to play out.   At the end of 2012, I sat down to think about how I wanted to direct my life and career.   

I thought about things that I really loved and things that I really wanted to accomplish then looked at the talents I had in my tool box to see how I might make that happen. 

• I love languages and cultures. 
• I love travel and exploring.  
• I love interacting with other people.  
• I have an extensive background in Commercial Real Estate. 
• I am conversant in Spanish.  
• I have traveled a lot through out the Americas.     

From that, I decided that I needed to explore some new areas.  The obvious first step is to look into International Real Estate.    To be honest, I am not really sure how people make a living practicing international real estate but I intend to find out.    My hope is that I will be able to incorporate a practice of International Real Estate into my practice of Commercial Real Estate.  

Step One - I am going to Costa Rica this year for a conference on International Real Estate where I will get to network with some practitioners and hopefully get some insights.   Also, I will complete the National Association of Realtors courses for a designation of Certified International Property Specialist.     After that, I will evaluate whether this is something that looks promising.  If so, I am considering going for a visit to Brazil later in the year.    

In any event, it is looking like 2013 is going to be an exciting year.   

When I get back, I will share some of my insights.     

Thanks so much for reading!  Hope you have a great day.

David

David W. McCoy
Associate Broker
Commonwealth Commercial Real Estate
10444 Bluegrass Pkwy
Louisville, KY  40299

ofc: (502) 379-6005
cel: (502) 905-5274
e-mail:  DMcCoy@ccre.biz

Let me know if you would like some help with Commercial Real Estate.  I am a licensed Real Estate Broker in Kentucky and Indiana and I specialize in Commercial Real Estate.  I handle Office, Industrial, Commercial Land, Investment and Retail properties.   I work with Sellers, Buyers, Landlords and Tenants.   Heck, I can even find you some help with Residential Real Estate if you need it.