By Ivo Henfling

I am sitting next to Belize and I am in Cancun. Rudy Matthews and I are promoting Costa Rica living and Costa Rica real estate to future retirees, mostly from the US and Canada.

I think Obama will be doing us a favor by winning the next US elections, which will send lots of US citizens our way, just like it happened in the 2nd Bush administration.

So there are lots of people here in the Casa Magma Marriott in Cancun to check out Costa Rica because living in Costa Rica is the way to go.

By Ivo Henfling

It is not so important to have a licensed agent to sell Costa Rica real estate or not, you just need to find an agent who puts love and care in your property purchase and that is what today’s blog is all about. The day after a real estate closing, I received a call from the buyers agent, complaining the appliances weren’t there. I told the agent that the appliances were not included in the property purchase.

The property was not advertised with appliances nor is it customary in Costa Rica to include them. The agent said that in the US they are always included and since the buyer AND the sellers are North Americans, they should be.

Beside the fact that we are in Costa Rica and not in the US, which I chose to ignore, I asked the agent if she had included the appliances in the inventory attached to the offer and to the option to purchase – sale agreement. She said she didn’t check….

By Ivo Henfling

When you move to Costa Rica, you will be making new friends in Costa Rica and I can assure you’ll enjoy so many different people from different places, different backgrounds and different interests. Most of us leave the family back home and though communications through email, Skype and Facebook are easy now, you will be away from most friends and family. Most of the friends you have are those you grew you grew up with or from the baseball team or the parents of your kids friends. And now you have to start all over.

Making friends with the Ticos

Most of us come here with the idea of making friends with the Ticos. Let me tell you a secret: you’ll have a hell of a time to become buddies with the locals.  I am married to one, and another Tica before her and I still don’t have Tico friends, even after living here for 30 years. Oh, if you invite the locals to your house, they’ll all come, don’t worry about that. But they will hardly ever invite you back. Sorry, mistake, they DO invite you back but don’t tell you where they live. Most will not get any further than the acquaintance stage.

By Ivo Henfling

I have seen it happen over and over: buyers fall in love with a property in Costa Rica they have seen on their own, because of a sign on a property or through a FSBO website; they make a verbal offer to the seller and both parties think they have a deal as soon as they agree on the sales price. Falling in love and showing it to the seller is problem #1 and having to deal with an offer and all related to the real estate purchase is problem #2. Problem #3 is that a lot of those deals go down the drain because both buyer and seller make mistakes for lack of knowledge. And these 3 problems are only a few reasons why you should use a real estate agent when you purchase a home in Costa Rica. 

By Ivo Henfling

Ten things to remove before you have a showing

I have a request for all sellers of Costa Rica real estate. Clean up your mess before you put your property on the market and maintain it well after that. Quite a few homes for sale in Costa Rica are in terrible shape or look like they are and the sellers think it’s the bad salesmanship of the real estate agent that the house didn’t sell quickly enough. I got news for you. Those homes that look well painted, have a nice looking garden, have all the curtains open, a nicely painted front door, uncluttered rooms and no dog poop in the hallway sell relatively quickly. Building lots look overgrown and the grass gets never cut. What view? Where is that building pad where the house should go? How do you mean your real estate agent should take care of that….

Have you ever heard of bouldering? Well, they do it in Providencia de Dota. Where the heck is that? It’s a beautiful little town tucked away in the Los Santos mountains, near the National Park Los Quetzales. Most of you have never heard of El Valle de Los Santos. Well, we have a real good Costa Rica real estate agent there, Tony Warren, who has lived in the Los Santos area for some years now. He was the one who told me about bouldering.

I am writing the Spanish version of our American European Real Estate Group’s website in Spanish and in his description about the area of Los Santos, he mentioned something about bouldering. Last time I saw the word, I probably didn’t have time to call him but now I needed to ask him what the word in Spanish is. Well, today you’re going to add another word to your Spanish vocabulary as it is Escalada de Bloque.