By Shell Johanson

Being a Costa Rica realtor in Cariari is never an easy job. There are twists and turns in every deal. Patience and nerves are always on edge. It means putting up with a lot of things from the buyers as well as the sellers, without the other party finding out about it. It’s part of the job.  

But there’s one thing that I wish I could do something about, I’m going to call it the ‘Busy Bee’. We all know this person because we all have one near. It is usually a family member, a friend or a neighbor who thinks he/she is a fountain of knowledge and loves to share his/her opinions. Never short for words, that’s for sure. The ‘Busy Bee’ is very good at screwing up real estate deals.

By Ivo Henfling

I read this unbelievably interesting post on a forum from a US licensed builder in Costa Rica, trying to advertise his business of building container homes. I wanted to share this with you as it shows the totally wrong attitude, to my opinion, of someone who lives in Costa Rica and is advertising himself by saying the locals suck at doing construction.

This week, our preferred Costa Rica home inspector Tom Rosenberger, sent me a shocking post on the CostaRicaCentralValleyLiving Forum. This post gave me the idea of writing this blog because it might be educational for those who might have some construction plans in the near future or want to start a business in Costa Rica.

By Andres Henfling

Sometimes we need a break from the tedious day to day routine, so we decided to take a weekend trip to the beach. In this article, I would like to show you how you can take a full weekend vacation, enjoy a Costarican beach and spend no more than $300 for a weekend.

Saturday morning I went with my girlfriend Melissa to Jaco Beach by bus and arrived in 1 hour and 30 minutes from downtown San José. Fortunately, the bus took the new highway so it is not a tedious or uncomfortable trip. We arrived at 9:30 am and went to get a simple but centrally located hotel where we had all the facilities and places to relax the weekend.

The hotel, Villa Nazua, is located at 200 meters from the Jaco Beach main street and 300 from the beach. The hotel offers a pool and a nice terrace to have a great time. The condo of 3 bedrooms is only $60 a night, it is pretty nice, clean, air conditioned and there were only 2 more condos with families so we enjoyed the peace and tranquility.
 

By Ivo Henfling

It is all in a lifestyle. I was reading on Glozal, a social network for realtors worldwide, an article about active Adult (55+) communities, which reminded me of several clients who moved to Costa Rica in the past. After some years, they thought they would be better off retiring to a real retirement community in Florida, where thousands of people retire to every month. Some of them never come back to Costa Rica but the adventurous ones realize that they made a big mistake by moving to Florida to retire and eventually end up in Costa Rica again. Let me tell you why.

Most of us, during our lives and our career, have acquired a lifestyle. Some love to read a good book or enjoy a nice glass of wine, others cannot live without concerts and theater and other just like to read a good book or live a different adventure every day. And that is what my blog is all about today.

By Ivo Henfling

When we drove to Nativa Resort a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that on the new highway to Caldera, the Autopistas del Sol concessionary was doing landslide prevention different ways because in some places the rainfall is causing a lot of damage. They sprayed concrete on the hillside and drilled pipes into the mountains to take the water out and through the concrete, when they re-did part of the highway at the turnoff between Sabana and Escazu, This was the first time I saw it done in Costa Rica. A little past the beautiful town of Atenas, they are now making incredible use of the large rocks they took out before they put the pavement in.

As most of you know, Costa Rica's rainy season runs more or less from July from November but September and October generate the heaviest rains. Although in July this year 2011, we already had some incredible downpours. It looks like we're going to get more and more rain every year. While coming out of a real estate closing on the east side of San Jose with AE affiliate Barry Ashworth, I saw a car disappear in the water OVER a bridge. I don't know what happened to the driver or the car. That was VERY impressive.
 

By Ivo Henfling

I really enjoy my time off and my vacations. My wife Dany and I love to travel and get to know new destinations and when we like one very much we might repeat, once. This time, we went to Las Vegas and really enjoyed it. Impressive city, great shows, lots to do. We even went to see Rod Stewart, who still sings and dances. The food is fantastic, and while we’re not big eaters, Dany and I enjoy the Jumbo shrimp as big as two fingers, Oysters Rockefeller, New England Clam Chowder, Steamed Clams in White Wine & Garlic, King Crab Salad Sandwich, all under $15. Or the all you can eat dinner for $25 each, where you can eat yourself silly with crab legs, all kinds of sea food, Asian, Italian and a ridiculous amount of desserts. You're right, we are both seafood lovers. Meat we can eat in Costa Rica.

By Ivo Henfling
 

In my first years of living in Costa Rica, I was always surprised that Costa Ricans have an amazing quality that most of us don’t have: patience. Over the years, I have learned there is more freedom of speech in Costa rica than in many other countries.

Costa Ricans have a huge quality that most of us foreigners don’t have. They can stand in line at the bank in Costa Rica for hours, no matter how long it takes or how bad the service is, they can stand stoically in line forever. I don’t know if it’s my Dutch up bring or that I am just an impatient person, but I generally cannot put up with it longer than 10 minutes. My wife does most such things that need standing in line. She is Costa Rican though she seems to starts complaining too. Even my 24 year old son is getting impatient. Impatience seems to be contagious. But if we get to change those things, everything would be just like we were back home again. It’s all about balance, and that is what we look for when relocating to another country.

By Ivo Henfling

Most Costa Rica realtors are afraid to write about topics like home invasions, robberies, squatters, expensive prices in the supermarkets and many other negative things you will read and hear about Costa Rica and most other places you might be researching to retire to. Most of you who follow my blogs, know by now that I am not. I just think people should be aware of what is going on around them and it will make them be a tad more careful.

The shooting neighbor

To start this blog, I want to call your attention to something that happened a couple of weeks ago: a good neighbor heard some noise ourside, found out his neighbors were being robbed and shot one home invaders dead, wounded another and saved his neighbors. Oh my God, I hear some of you say, how can anyone live there? Is it that dangerous to live over there? Where is this place?

By Ivo Henfling

Fantastic ideas and lots of dreams, they might all come true one day.

A very dear client, who years ago had planned an assisted living facility in Costa Rica, sent me a link that gave the recently released Cost of Care survey from Genworth Financial looked at the average prices of home care providers, adult day health care facilities, assisted living facilities and nursing homes across the USA, and unsurprisingly, found that there are staggering variations between states but all very expensive to Costa Rican standards.

Years ago, my client bought with his wife and several partners, a beautiful 300+ acre farm in the middle of nowhere from their preferred GoDutch Realty agent, with the fantastic idea of starting an assisted living facility on this land. Costa Rican governmental permitting and other circumstances slowed down their project and even before they got to completing it, their panorama changed completely.

By Rudy Matthews

My son plays on the Alajuela youth soccer program. He is 11 years old and really looks forward to Saturday practices and games on Sunday. There are eighteen players and he has two coaches.

I have never been around Costa Rican parents a lot and the team has given me a chance to observe and get to know the parents more. Most of the parents do not have cars and you will see them walking to practice with their son or getting off a bus and in some cases a taxi.

The point is they make it to practice with their son one way or the other.

By Ivo Henfling

As some of you know, I bought a condo in Jaco from a developer who did a good job in Escazu, Joshua ten Brink of Desarrollos Naturales. When the crisis hit, the bank thought that most of Joshua's buyers were not capable of closing, so they didn't give Joshua any more money to finish his project. Desarrollos Naturales and the bank are fighting each other, both forgetting that many people have all their savings tied up in this project and only thinking of their own interests. Joshua didn't want to tell me who all the other real estate buyers were, so I started my own private little war against him to try to get in touch with the rest of the people. I have done so online, just like I am writing this and many people have found me.

By Isabelle Jones

Last Thursday, our 20 year old son Taylor had a medical emergency in San Jose due to a seizure. That day, we found out that the medical emergency care in Costa Rica is very good and affordable, if you can get to the hospital in time.

A good friend needed help in getting his new ID number to reflect on his new drivers’ license, so even though we live in Atenas we were in San Jose for this diligence. Howard, my husband, Taylor and I were driving from the license office to a school in Heredia, an accident and protest on the highway to the airport made us go a different route than normal. Our son had complained of a severe headache that morning but he took a couple of Ibuprofen and wanting to make sure he ate well, we were just discussing stopping for lunch.

By Ivo Henfling

I’d like to share with you all an opinion by economist Vinzenz Smack, published in La Nacion on the 18th of July this year. I used to buy white pepper from Vinzenz Schmack 25 years ago and at the time, he was a pioneer in growing pepper in Costa Rica and a pioneer of Costarican Eco tourism.

He started the Laguna Lagarto Lodge  in the middle of nowhere in the 90’s, to attend the tourists who were just starting to come at the time, thanks to the promotion of Costa Rica by President Oscar Arias. 

Some of you might not know that former President Oscar Arias put Costa Rica on the map by receiving the start of International tourism coming to Costa Rica and later governments picked up on it by advertising Costa Rica as a green destination.

By Ivo Henfling

Yes, why keep money in your Costa Rica bank account if they don't even pay you 1% interest on your money. Invest in Costa Rica real estate through your preferred realtor Ivo Henfling and I can get you 6% at a bare minimum. You don't have your money in a Costarican bank account but sitting in some retirement fund like an IRA, a 401K or a Canadian RRSP? Why would you want to do this to yourself?

Why am I saying this? Because I just listed this perfect investment property that I sold the actual owner about 5 years ago and is waiting for this smart investor. I personally supervised the remodeling of this property and can assure you its well done. Meanwhile, the owner got sick and let it go a bit, so it needs some care and some more love. Its some hunidity problem here and there and check on the gutters, nothing like a big deal but the potential is incredible. And when I say its not a big deal, its not.

By Ivo Henfling

In last week’s blog I left you standing in line at the Orotina toll on the highway, so we’ll take it from there now. As soon as you get past the Orotina toll, you have to be careful not to miss the Jaco Beach turnoff on the right. If you do, you’ll end up in Puntarenas. From there, you’ll enjoy a one lane easy going drive for the next 20 minutes until you get to the Tarcoles bridge.

Once you drive down the hill toward the bridge, you can enjoy the view of the Carara National Park right in front of you. Slow down when you get to the bridge because many tourists park their car and walk on the bridge to see the crocodiles for which the Tarcoles area is so famous for. They do this awesome crocodile - birdwatching tour at the river, next time I'll go do it again and I'll tell you all about.

By Ivo Henfling

For several months, our friends Robert and Silvana Craig have been inviting us to visit them in Nativa, Tarcoles. Tarcoles is located in the Central Pacific, just before you get to Jaco Beach, for those who don't know the area. Robert and Silvana live part-time in Nativa Resort and I hadn’t been there in a long time. We have 4 dogs, just like having kids, are a problem to make more than just a daytrip. So yesterday we hit the road for a daytrip to Nativa and since Monday is some kind of a national holiday, the traffic was heavy though moving along. The Ticos love to complain about the highway and because it is so expensive but I paid like ¢1,500 ($3) toll to get to Tarcoles.

By Ivo Henfling

When you move to a new country or a new city, you tend to look for somebody or something that feels comfortable, feels safe and helpful in your new environment. Everything is new and even though you welcome the adventure, you like the security of what is known as the Human Thermal Environment.

by Ivo Henfling

When I started writing this article about the angry seller of Costa Rica real estate last week, I found out that there were more than only 5 points that made my life miserable on that last deal I did were I had an angry seller because the sellers decided to take the buyer’s offer.

Let me repeat point 1 again, so you don't have to go back to the other article all the time:

1. Yes, the Costa Rica realtor gets paid by the seller, but not until the real estate closing. The realtor does not get paid for advertising, gasoline, tires, phone bills lunches with clients and all efforts made unless he/she sells the property in Costa Rica. Just the fact that the sellers pay the real estate commission doesn’t give you the rights to abuse the realtor.

by Ivo Henfling

I have to let you all know about this totally rustic home in Escazu that I just listed because it is a very cozy home which has this incredible view of the Central Valley but because of the rains, I have not been able to take a decent picture yet.

Every morning I look out of my office window, where I can usually see the area of Bello Horizonte, but the rain hasn't allowed me to go take better pictures than I have on the listing.

What is living in Escazu about?

Most think that living in Escazu is all about highrises and traffic and shopping, but this area of town is totally the opposite. This is abotu quiet and green surroundings and views.

By Ivo Henfling

The famous Costa Rica rainy season, also called the wet season but baptized some years ago by tourism gurus "the green season" has just started. For most days, we have nice weather in the mornings and might have some rain in the afternoon. Some days might be a bit gloomy or fogged up and it doesn't rain all day long.

Yesterday, we had so much rain come out of the sky, I thought of Noah and his Ark, I was waiting for that Great Flood. As many of you know I am not very religious, but I almost started praying. Then I thought of the gutters and drains at my house and the damage rain can do to your property, which is when I though to write this blog. if you own Costa Rica real estate, you should read on....