By Ivo Henfling

This is an introduction to Costa Rica's retirement advantages. Many foreigners and foreign companies have found Costa Rica to be the best place to retire, to live and work, and to do business.

Here are some reasons why:

• Best places to retire: Democracy and politic stability in Costa Rica. Costa Rica has a long history of stable, democratic government. During the troubles of the Cold War, many international organizations found Costa Rica to be a safe base of operations for their aid efforts in Latin America.

• Best places to retire: Geographic location of Costa Rica.

• Costa Rica is only 3 hours flying from many places in the southern U.S. Many non-stop flights are available to South America and Europe from Costa Rica. This makes business travel and vacation travel easy for those who work and retire in Costa Rica.

• Best places to retire: Qualified & Bilingual Personnel in Costa Rica. Costa Ricans place a very high value on education. There are many qualified professionals and technical personnel. Many young professionals have received a bilingual education from grade school and through high school in English, German or French. If you retire here, you will find many English speaking Costa Ricans to help you in many common situations.
• Best places to retire: Excellent communications and internet connections in Costa Rica. Costa Rica has all the options of communication and internet connections you were used to back home, even though much of it is still government owned. But it all works pretty good. Widely available telephones, fax, Internet.
• Best places to retire: Costa Rica is a low profile tax haven. Costa Rica is not a famous tax haven because the other benefits overshadow its favorable fiscal policies. Costa Rican legislation has all the requirements for being not only a tax haven, but also a international financial center, including: Bank Secret (except in case of money laundering and international terrorism, professional secrecy, no exchange controls for handling of foreign currency, foreigners have the same rights as Costa Ricans, honest and independent judicial system, complete anonymity on Costa Rica real estate through stock of a Costa Rican company.

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Over the years, we have guided hundreds of retirees in their relocation to Costa Rica. Here is a guideline for you, the retiree, to make life a lot easier on you:

• Do due diligence before you arrive. The internet makes it a lot easier nowadays. Our GoDutch Realty website is full of information about moving to Costa Rica and any imaginable topic if you plan to retire to Costa Rica.
•  Make a trip of a couple of weeks and get to know the country, the people, the culture and the language. Rent a car and stay in different locations during this trip. Absorb as much as you can.
• Concentrate on finding the right location for you, with the right amenities. Costa Rica offers so many different areas to live with different temperatures, rainfall, city, mountain, beach, but are they all for you? What are you expecting of your retirement?
• Try to pinpoint as well as you can what your needs are through email with your GoDutch Realty agents who answer your emails fast and punctually. Email is an incredible tool to make life so much easier once you arrive here.
• Many relocation tours are offered over the internet. Most don't have a clue what they're doing. Most are retirees like you and think that after living here for a year they know the right way and make some money on the side. The internet also offers many Costa Rica groups, Costa Rica forums and on-line Costa Rica newspapers for you to see who is good at this service and who is not. Do due diligence before you buy any home in Costa Rica.
• Look for a realtor who has offices in different locations, or belongs to a network of realtors, so you can be guided through the process of finding the right location for you.
• Of course it is great to live at the beach in Costa Rica. But if you don't surf every day, you'll become an alcoholic from sheer boredom. Did you have a stroke recently and need to be close to a hospital? The beach is not the place to be. Are you looking for wining and dining? But do you hate getting stuck in traffic? Your realtor should be able to point you in the right direction. But do you love the beach, the ocean, the lifestyle at the beach, we can guide you to the right beach area for your retirement before you buy a beach condo in the wrong place.
• Once you have located the area you'd like to live, you're realtor should be able to find you the right property. We also have a Multiple listing system at your service, check the MLS link on our website, click here.
• Do NOT contact 20 different realtors to look at property. If a realtor shows you he/she is knowledgeable and is willing to go with you all the way till the end, stick with this realtor. You'll be treated better and your realtor will do all he/she can to find you your property at the right price. Touring properties with different realtors might find you the right Costa Rica property, but each realtor will go the easy way, just show what readily available and would care only about getting a fat commission check and does not care about you and your wellbeing.
• Make an informed choice of real estate attorney for purchasing Costa Rica real estate as well as for your residency permits in Costa Rica.
• Bring some cash with you, it might be necessary to take a property off the market with a couple of thousand dollars. US checks in Costa Rica will take 3 – 4 weeks to clear, so are no good for that, click here to read up on that. Also ask your realtor how you can open a bank account when you are here. That will make the whole relocation process much easier for you.
• Bring a lot of patience and an open mind. Nothing here is like it is back home. Everything works differently as this is another country, different people, a different language and a different culture. You are a guest here, so try to speak their language. NEVER shout at the locals, it will not get you anywhere. NEVER say: back home we do this and we do that. Back home is back home. If you're not willing to adjust to their ways of doing things, stay back home. Once you understand that, it's going to be a lot of fun to find that because it's different than back home, it's why you want to live here.
• We have found that most ex-pats who leave again after a couple of years cannot adjust to living here because the first year was too hard with too many difficulties. That's the reason you want to use a GoDutch realtor, as 95% of our clients stay here. We help them through the difficult times.

By Ivo Henfling, your Escazu and Santa Ana real estate Specialist. Contact me now for a tour of my listings.

GoDutch Realty, Costa Rica