AOL founder planning $800 million project in Guanacaste
By José Pablo Ramírez Vindas
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Another major project has been announced for northwest Costa Rica, and this one, at Punto Cacique, has some big names at the helm.
The first is Steve Case, the chairman, who was here Friday presenting the project before President Óscar Arias Sánchez. Vice chairman of the parent firm is Philippe Bourguignon, former president of Club Med and president and chief executive officer of Euro Disney.
The president of the parent firm, Revolution Places, is Donn Davis, who with Case helped build America Online, the Internet firm. The company has Philippe Cousteau, grandson of the famous undersea explorer, as an environmental adviser.
The project is being presented as an integrated luxury resort. The first phase, due to open in 2010, is on 263 hectares, about 650 acres. The estimated investment is $800 million, said the company. The project seeks to bring in One & Only Resorts, which will build 120 detached casitas. Also planned is an 18-hole golf course and a tennis center. Exclusive Reports was listed to build 30 residences. Miraval Cacique is contracted to build 60 villas and 120 luxury rooms.
The location is just north of Playas del Coco.
Although Case and his associates do not have extensive experience in real estate development here, the president of Revolution Places Costa Rica is Darren Linnartz, who worked for 15 years with Marriott/Ritz Carlton.
As expected Casa Presidencial praised the plan and said that the project would provide jobs for 2,500 direct and indirect employees.
The project also would generate $20 million in taxes.
A.M. Costa Rica/José Pablo Ramírez Vindas
Steve Case walks with Óscar Arias at Casa Presidencial.
The company promised to donate a million trees for a conservation group to plant nearby and $1 million for organizations that develop initiatives to protect the Costa Rican environment.
The Pacific coast of Guanacaste is facing serious infrastructure problems, not the least of which is the availability of good water. Another major project, involving an estimated $600 million investment, was announced for Esparza earlier this year.
The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo said that more than $2 billion in projects have been announced for Costa Rica this year. Those in the real estate industry estimate that only about 30 percent may actually be built.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Costa Rica - The Ultimate Guide
Costa Rica: The Ultimate Guide
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next >
With 4 percent of the earth's wildlife species, vast tropical rain forests, and live volcanoes, it's no wonder this former backpacker's haven in Central America has been discovered by the world.
By Heidi Sherman Mitchell, Travel + Leisure
Related Articles
• Brazil's Hidden Beaches
• The Next Wine Country: Chile
A dozen years ago, I spent a summer backpacking through South and Central America. Having lost my glasses somewhere along a four-day hike to Machu Picchu, I arrived in Costa Rica to find a wilderness where green landscapes blurred into turquoise horizons, red volcanic flames bled into the black night, and rainbow-tinted birds streaked across the sky. At that time, basic $20-a-night lodges were the only places to stay, and I moved around by public bus over bumpy roads in search of tiny surfing villages and cloud forests 6,000 feet up.
Nearly everyone I met was an American on a budget, there to catch the waves, study the turtles, and scope out the country's 10,000 species of plants and more than 230 kinds of mammals before the rest of the world discovered this Eden for themselves.
Even with my fuzzy perspective, I shared their urge to guard the fragile ecosystem of this "rich coast"--as Christopher Columbus named the country in 1502--from the onslaught of mass tourism. Once home, I complained about how developed it was (a lie) and how human intervention was destroying natural habitats (not an untruth: the golden toad, now believed to be extinct, was last seen in 1989). When I returned to Costa Rica a couple of years later--contact lenses, this time--the hues still blended like watercolors and the light breaking through the clouds above the Nicoya Peninsula was just as milky. What had changed was the country's newfound respect for its precious resources.
In the mid nineties, the government instituted the most progressive reforestation program in the Americas and began an international campaign to market the nation, wedged between Nicaragua and Panama, as an "ecologically friendly" destination. As a result, environmentally conscious backpackers like me were no longer the only ones heading to Costa Rica. Educated visitors with cash to burn flocked to see one of the most biologically varied places on the planet--the Switzerland-sized country is home to 4 percent of the earth's species of wildlife--and an ecotourism movement was born. Hotels built according to self-imposed conservationist standards couldn't be put up fast enough. Meanwhile, acres of clear-cut land began to grow back into secondary forests. Much of the guilt associated with being a tourist--contributing to erosion and over construction--was alleviated. Gradually, this secret natural world opened up.
This year, Costa Rica is expected to lure 1.2 million visitors, up 20 percent over last year. Following the opening of a Four Seasons resort in January, three major airlines increased direct service from Houston, Miami, and Atlanta into the country's second-largest airport, Liberia International (40 minutes from the hotel). Farther down the Pacific coast, dozens of equally luxurious boutique hotels have been built, and in the vast tropical reserves that cover 28 percent of the country, a handful of $500-a-night ecolodges have sprung up.
Though an affluent crowd has invaded this painted land, much of Costa Rica--its roads, its glacial pace--continues to try one's patience. A surfer I met on my first visit gave me some sage advice: Slow down, share the love. His voice has echoed in my head on return trips, and I've learned to adopt the mentality of the ticos (as locals are fondly called). I still want to protect the riches, but I no longer feel compelled to distort the facts about overdevelopment (there really isn't much) or to moan about the disappearing rain forests, which over the past 10 years have begun to reappear. I've even learned to laugh about the treacherous roads, which I now navigate with bilingual naturalist drivers in private vans rather than by public bus. There's just one aspect I take issue with: there's simply too much to do.
Lay of the Land
Choose your adventure wisely. Costa Rica isn't one of those places that you master on your first visit, or one that allows you to slip into a well-trodden circuit. The most developed country in Central America, Costa Rica has roads that are so poorly maintained, they would have been better left unpaved; pristine forests that are accessible only by lightplane, followed by taxi, then boat and, sometimes, foot; and a rainy season that can make moving from one place to the next unimaginable. Split down the middle by two mountain ranges, its 20,000 square miles include more than 750 miles of coastline along the Caribbean and the Pacific, with 12 tropical life zones in between. From west to east, Costa Rica is only 100 miles at its widest--but by car, that can mean a death-defying 12-hour journey. To make your trip easier, think of the country as five essential regions and pick two to visit (optimum time frames are provided below). Unless you've got a month, don't even attempt to hit all five.
Five Ways to Do Costa Rica
San Jose and the Central Valley
Time: One to two days. Home to almost one-third of the population, San José is surrounded by two volcanic mountain ranges. If the main airport weren't here, though, it would be tempting to skip the city and its suburbs altogether. Little more than a commercial hub, the area lacks the centuries-old cathedrals found in other Latin American cities. But it is an efficient place from which to begin an adventure.
From San José, you can visit a steaming volcano, Poás, or a fire-spewing one, Arenal; hike in a cloud forest; and tackle Class IV rapids--all in one day. Ticos argue over whether the Reventazón or the Pacuare is better for rafting, but the rivers have rapids ranging from Class II to Class IV and are the winter training grounds for a few Olympic kayaking teams. Costa Rica Sun Tours arranges expeditions down both of them.
Anyone wanting to stay in the heart of downtown books into Hotel Grano de Oro, a 100-year-old mansion whose 35 rooms are filled with antiques and contemporary furniture. The patio restaurant is always buzzing with local expense-account lunchers--the sea bass with macadamia nuts and orange glacé is deliciously sweet and salty. Hotel Alta, overlooking the central valley from Escazú, the expat neighborhood southwest of the city center, is close to San José's action (what there is of it, anyway). The 23-room hacienda-style inn has terra-cotta balconies and an Italian-tiled pool. Its tiered lobby doubles as a gallery, where, once every month, area artists host wine-and-cheese receptions.
Near the country's main airport, in Heredia, is the Gaudíesque Finca Rosa Blanca, surrounded by coffee plantations. The seven rooms and two villas of Teri and Glenn Jampol's bed-and-breakfast have arched windows, undulating wood-beamed ceilings, and access to a sunken lounge area that becomes a communal dining room at mealtimes. When I stayed there, Teri handed my infant son to the kitchen staff and joined my table for dinner. She'll also arrange any day trip you can cook up.
Traditionally, Costa Rica hasn't been a place known for fine cuisine. With the April opening of the Inn at Coyote Mountain, a 90-minute drive west of San José in San Ramón, the country's reputation as a food purgatory was transformed. On a remote hilltop, Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret, the chef-owners of Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia, have created an intimate retreat where aspiring chefs can join one- to three-day classes on "Caribbean-Creole" cooking (think tropical jambalaya). Built in the Mudejar style of architecture from Spain, the five-room inn has circular windows and glass-tile tubs, custom-made wrought-iron sconces and four-poster beds, and a spectacular Observatory Suite with its own spiral staircase.
Alajuela and Northern Guanacaste
Time: Four to five days. Inland from the white sands of the Pacific is one of the last intact dry tropical forests of Central America. These pristine stretches, alternating with clear-cut areas marked by lone umbrella-shaped conacaste trees shading humpbacked Brahman cows, rise up a volcanic mountain range to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve in Puntarenas, an essential stop on any nature-lover's itinerary. Getting there requires a four-hour drive from San José or Liberia.
When I first came to Monteverde in the early nineties, I took a standing-room-only bus and stayed in a cabin with a shared bath. Not much has changed: most of the drive is up a precipitous, unpaved track (the area is too jagged for planes, too windy for helicopters), and properties marketed as luxury lodges are often quite disappointing. But it's worth the bother to see mist-shrouded trees draped in epiphytes, 450 species of birds, and views all the way west to the Nicoya Peninsula.
Settled by Alabama Quakers looking for a utopian escape from the Korean War draft, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and its closest town, Santa Elena, retain the tranquil, anti-establishment aura conferred on them by these immigrants. Hippie kids run the butterfly farm in nearby Cerro Plano, and you can get great thin-crust pepperoni slices at nearby pizzeria Johnny. The reserve allows only 160 visitors at a time on its brick paths. A handful of decent hotels line the road to the park; two stand out from the pack. Monteverde Lodge & Gardens has 27 rooms in an Arts and Crafts-style building, with a 12-person Jacuzzi that is in an acrylic-domed room apparently inspired by I. M. Pei's Louvre entrance. Fonda Vela, owned by two brothers, is half the price and just as nice, and its eight bungalows are within walking distance of the cloud forest's entrance.
Once you've completed the tough stuff--long hikes in the cloud forest, hours spent searching for a quetzal's nest--schedule some R&R at the beachfront Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo. Before the resort opened its 153 rooms and suites in January, getting to the Pacific coast of northern Guanacaste required chartering a plane or navigating bone-rattling potholed roads. Now major airlines fly direct to the nearby airport from the United States. Local architect Ronald Zürcher drew inspiration from butterfly wings and the backs of armadillos in his design for the resort's buildings, which are set on a steep hillside between two beaches. Arnold Palmer created the sprawling golf course. At the restaurant, chef James Cassidy (poached from Hawaii's Four Seasons Hualalai) makes Latin fusion dishes, such as the teetering tower of crab-and-avocado salad with red pepper sauce. Six other resorts are planned for the once-remote Papagayo Peninsula. What a difference a Four Seasons makes.
Nicoya Peninsula and Quepos
Time: Three to six days. Populated by American pensioners, international surfers, and tico farmers, this coastal corridor claims some of the country's finest hotels, all of them built with a conservationist's eye. You'd be mad to spend all your time lazing by the Costa Rican shore, but the region's dozens of beaches do come in handy for convalescing after a week spent trekking, tracking birds, and, let's be honest, driving. A ferry that crosses the Gulf of Nicoya connects the peninsula to the mainland at Puntarenas, near Manuel Antonio National Park, home to the country's most popular beach, which attracts swarms of backpackers and locals on holiday.
The nicest places to stay on the Nicoya Peninsula are the beachfront hotels that run south from Guanacaste all the way to the tip of the peninsula, at Montezuma. Hotel Punta Islita, owned by Harold Zürcher and designed by his brother, Ronald (creator of the Four Seasons at Papagayo), has occupied its own crescent-shaped black-sand beach and hillside for 10 years. Today its 43 thatched-roof rooms, suites, and casitas make up one of the most sophisticated addresses in the country. Guest quarters come with hand-hewn teak beds and hammocks angled to view the sun as it drops into the Pacific. Chef Pablo de la Torre prepares fresh ceviche and native fish dishes at Borrancho Beach Club (or on the sand with a bonfire, at no extra cost). An art gallery showcases local artisans' handicrafts. And a European-style spa opened in December.
Punta Islita is an extravagant refuge, but getting out of the resort is a nightmare: there are tide tables posted in both of the hotel's restaurants so that guests can escape before water floods the driveway. On my first visit, tempting fate, I left with only 15 minutes to spare and barely managed to cross the two rivers filling up with seawater that separated me from the main road. Harold Zürcher had not been so lucky: he'd lost his ATV the day before. Braving the tides--and the potholes--is par for the course on the Nicoya, which is why most guests fly into one of the charter airstrips scattered across the peninsula.
Florblanca, the newest addition to the luxury accommodations in Costa Rica, is just down the road from Punta Islita--but don't let that fool you. The quickest way to this resort, with its outdoor bathrooms, stucco porches, and gorgeous canopy beds, is to drive along the beach, which is subject to flooding at high tide. Regardless, Florblanca's 10 villas and its open-air restaurant (built from clear-cut wood that American owners Susan Money and Greg Mullins bought from farmers and saved for some 15 years) are always crowded--with surfers, honeymooners, and the occasional society-page regular.
When both Punta Islita and Florblanca are full, the nearby Hotel Milarepa offers consolation: its four bungalows stand beside the beach and a French chef prepares classic dishes with Caribbean ingredients.
For millionaires, there's Hacienda Cabo Velas, a 1,700-acre working ranch that goes for $65,000 a week and sleeps up to 12 people--who generally bypass the roads of Guanacaste and instead arrive by private plane on the property's own airstrip. From there, it's a short walk to a Spanish-colonial hacienda surrounded by four smaller thatched-roof ranchos, or to any of the five beaches on-site. Guests get it all: an Italian cook, a naturalist guide, a boat captain for tours of the mangroves, even a cowboy to lead horseback rides in the jungle.
Across the Gulf of Nicoya on the mainland, near Manuel Antonio National Park, adventurers can kick in their endorphins in countless ways: Equus Stables takes riders galloping and cantering along the sprawling white sands; Iguana Tours leads kayakers through mangrove swamps and estuaries to some of the park's emerald islets; the experienced guides of Blue Fin Sport Fishing let anglers pose for snapshots with their prize marlin, tuna, or sailfish before detaching the hook and setting their catch free.
Dozens of hotels around Manuel Antonio cater to every type of traveler (European, gay, vegetarian) on every type of budget, but the top spots are those with secluded suites on the ridge above the beach. The adults-only Makanda by the Sea, a collection of 11 freestanding villas, is encircled by a rain forest. Apart from the private cove and Japanese-inspired accommodations--notice the rock garden?--Makanda has that other luxury rarely found in Costa Rica: good food (fresh-fish tacos, blackened shrimp). Breakfast is presented on your private veranda; during lunch at the Sunspot Restaurant, you can spy toucans, two- and three-toed sloths, and spider monkeys.
Nearby, the spare wood-and-stucco cabanas at Tulemar, also on the ridge, are furnished with teak armoires, fully equipped kitchens, and jungle or ocean views from all sides of the octagonal structures. The seven just-opened deluxe bungalows emphasize space--1,400 square feet inside, 400 outside--and each has two bedrooms, a rainfall shower, a private garden or balcony, and panoramic vistas.
Osa Peninsula
Time: Five days. In southern Costa Rica, the remote Osa Peninsula is one of the most biologically dense tropical regions on earth. Scarlet macaws do flybys past the lodges, howler monkeys swing from the forest canopy, and whales migrate along the coast. Basically, if it lives and breathes in Costa Rica--caiman, iguana, sloth, jaguar--it probably resides in the nature preserves, public and private, that blanket this peninsula. Some of the world's first ecolodges were built in the undeveloped jungles of Drake Bay, Golfito, and Corcovado National Park; they are still models of sustainable tourism today.
When they opened Lapa Rios in 1993, Americans Karen and John Lewis pioneered the practice of ecotourism in Costa Rica. The 16-room hardwood-and-thatch resort on 1,000 protected acres of jungle and Pacific oceanfront continues to win conservation awards. Visitors often plan their Costa Rican vacations around availability at Lapa Rios, whose friendly service and surprisingly creative meals--not to mention alfresco showers, private decks, and abundant wildlife right outside your screen door--make up for the rickety prop plane (and the airsickness) that gets you there. Just be sure to take a low-numbered room: the higher they get, the farther the trek up and down the steep incline on which the villas are built.
The nearby Bosque del Cabo gets less attention but deserves equally high praise. Set at the end of a mile-long drive in another 500-acre preserve, its 13 bungalows have rustic cane beds, garden showers, and private sunbathing decks with hammocks. The expert forest guides on staff can take groups hiking, horseback riding, or flying over the trees on the hotel's zip lines
The newest biosensitive resort on the peninsula is the Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge in 100,000-acre Corcovado National Park, across the Golfo Dulce from Golfito. Everything here is recycled: the four cabins and a four-bedroom house are made from farmed trees; covering the roofs are tiles made from bags that once used to protect banana stalks; and solar energy provides the electricity. Accessible only by boat, the hotel keeps guests busy with kayaking, fishing, snorkeling, windsurfing, and, of course, naturalist-guided hikes.
The only other place to stay inside the park is Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp. Guests fly into Drake Bay by prop plane, drive two hours to the shore, and then walk along the beach for 45 minutes to reach 20 steel-framed tents that guarantee utter privacy (from humans, anyway). A little pleading with the guides (and a lot of Valium for yourself) gets you and your partner harnessed into a bed built into a platform 100 feet above the jungle floor, where the two of you can spend a night under the stars.
Tortuguero
Time: Three to four days. If no one told you otherwise, you could easily mistake Tortuguero National Park, on Costa Rica's east coast, for the Amazon. This dense forest was carved out by a series of rivers and canals dug to ease the transport of timber before the area became protected in 1970. Easier to reach (and cheaper to stay in) than that other basin in South America, Tortuguero has turbulent Caribbean beaches that give safe haven to four turtle species, including the Atlantic green, during the summer nesting season. It's also the stamping ground of tapirs, caimans, anteaters, coatis, and the electric-blue morpho butterfly.
The hotels along Tortuguero's lagoon specialize in guided cruises down the area's waterways by canoe or small motorboat. You can get a free nature tour if you approach the hotels by water: your craft will be greeted with the squawks and screeches of countless species of birds and monkeys. Pachira Lodge, a rustic resort with almond-wood cabins and a pool shaped like a turtle, attracts a mostly European clientele, which gives it a relaxed, rather festive vibe. Tortuga Lodge, whose 24 rooms are distributed among five bungalows, has a lovely river-rock pool and excellent service: the general manager calls guests by name, and the chef can prepare basic dishes that aren't on the simple set menu. Both Pachira and Tortuga have plenty of kayaks and motorboats for canal cruising and are absolutely silent at night, save for the rhythmic rush of the Caribbean across the peninsula on the other side of the lagoon.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next >
With 4 percent of the earth's wildlife species, vast tropical rain forests, and live volcanoes, it's no wonder this former backpacker's haven in Central America has been discovered by the world.
By Heidi Sherman Mitchell, Travel + Leisure
Related Articles
• Brazil's Hidden Beaches
• The Next Wine Country: Chile
A dozen years ago, I spent a summer backpacking through South and Central America. Having lost my glasses somewhere along a four-day hike to Machu Picchu, I arrived in Costa Rica to find a wilderness where green landscapes blurred into turquoise horizons, red volcanic flames bled into the black night, and rainbow-tinted birds streaked across the sky. At that time, basic $20-a-night lodges were the only places to stay, and I moved around by public bus over bumpy roads in search of tiny surfing villages and cloud forests 6,000 feet up.
Nearly everyone I met was an American on a budget, there to catch the waves, study the turtles, and scope out the country's 10,000 species of plants and more than 230 kinds of mammals before the rest of the world discovered this Eden for themselves.
Even with my fuzzy perspective, I shared their urge to guard the fragile ecosystem of this "rich coast"--as Christopher Columbus named the country in 1502--from the onslaught of mass tourism. Once home, I complained about how developed it was (a lie) and how human intervention was destroying natural habitats (not an untruth: the golden toad, now believed to be extinct, was last seen in 1989). When I returned to Costa Rica a couple of years later--contact lenses, this time--the hues still blended like watercolors and the light breaking through the clouds above the Nicoya Peninsula was just as milky. What had changed was the country's newfound respect for its precious resources.
In the mid nineties, the government instituted the most progressive reforestation program in the Americas and began an international campaign to market the nation, wedged between Nicaragua and Panama, as an "ecologically friendly" destination. As a result, environmentally conscious backpackers like me were no longer the only ones heading to Costa Rica. Educated visitors with cash to burn flocked to see one of the most biologically varied places on the planet--the Switzerland-sized country is home to 4 percent of the earth's species of wildlife--and an ecotourism movement was born. Hotels built according to self-imposed conservationist standards couldn't be put up fast enough. Meanwhile, acres of clear-cut land began to grow back into secondary forests. Much of the guilt associated with being a tourist--contributing to erosion and over construction--was alleviated. Gradually, this secret natural world opened up.
This year, Costa Rica is expected to lure 1.2 million visitors, up 20 percent over last year. Following the opening of a Four Seasons resort in January, three major airlines increased direct service from Houston, Miami, and Atlanta into the country's second-largest airport, Liberia International (40 minutes from the hotel). Farther down the Pacific coast, dozens of equally luxurious boutique hotels have been built, and in the vast tropical reserves that cover 28 percent of the country, a handful of $500-a-night ecolodges have sprung up.
Though an affluent crowd has invaded this painted land, much of Costa Rica--its roads, its glacial pace--continues to try one's patience. A surfer I met on my first visit gave me some sage advice: Slow down, share the love. His voice has echoed in my head on return trips, and I've learned to adopt the mentality of the ticos (as locals are fondly called). I still want to protect the riches, but I no longer feel compelled to distort the facts about overdevelopment (there really isn't much) or to moan about the disappearing rain forests, which over the past 10 years have begun to reappear. I've even learned to laugh about the treacherous roads, which I now navigate with bilingual naturalist drivers in private vans rather than by public bus. There's just one aspect I take issue with: there's simply too much to do.
Lay of the Land
Choose your adventure wisely. Costa Rica isn't one of those places that you master on your first visit, or one that allows you to slip into a well-trodden circuit. The most developed country in Central America, Costa Rica has roads that are so poorly maintained, they would have been better left unpaved; pristine forests that are accessible only by lightplane, followed by taxi, then boat and, sometimes, foot; and a rainy season that can make moving from one place to the next unimaginable. Split down the middle by two mountain ranges, its 20,000 square miles include more than 750 miles of coastline along the Caribbean and the Pacific, with 12 tropical life zones in between. From west to east, Costa Rica is only 100 miles at its widest--but by car, that can mean a death-defying 12-hour journey. To make your trip easier, think of the country as five essential regions and pick two to visit (optimum time frames are provided below). Unless you've got a month, don't even attempt to hit all five.
Five Ways to Do Costa Rica
San Jose and the Central Valley
Time: One to two days. Home to almost one-third of the population, San José is surrounded by two volcanic mountain ranges. If the main airport weren't here, though, it would be tempting to skip the city and its suburbs altogether. Little more than a commercial hub, the area lacks the centuries-old cathedrals found in other Latin American cities. But it is an efficient place from which to begin an adventure.
From San José, you can visit a steaming volcano, Poás, or a fire-spewing one, Arenal; hike in a cloud forest; and tackle Class IV rapids--all in one day. Ticos argue over whether the Reventazón or the Pacuare is better for rafting, but the rivers have rapids ranging from Class II to Class IV and are the winter training grounds for a few Olympic kayaking teams. Costa Rica Sun Tours arranges expeditions down both of them.
Anyone wanting to stay in the heart of downtown books into Hotel Grano de Oro, a 100-year-old mansion whose 35 rooms are filled with antiques and contemporary furniture. The patio restaurant is always buzzing with local expense-account lunchers--the sea bass with macadamia nuts and orange glacé is deliciously sweet and salty. Hotel Alta, overlooking the central valley from Escazú, the expat neighborhood southwest of the city center, is close to San José's action (what there is of it, anyway). The 23-room hacienda-style inn has terra-cotta balconies and an Italian-tiled pool. Its tiered lobby doubles as a gallery, where, once every month, area artists host wine-and-cheese receptions.
Near the country's main airport, in Heredia, is the Gaudíesque Finca Rosa Blanca, surrounded by coffee plantations. The seven rooms and two villas of Teri and Glenn Jampol's bed-and-breakfast have arched windows, undulating wood-beamed ceilings, and access to a sunken lounge area that becomes a communal dining room at mealtimes. When I stayed there, Teri handed my infant son to the kitchen staff and joined my table for dinner. She'll also arrange any day trip you can cook up.
Traditionally, Costa Rica hasn't been a place known for fine cuisine. With the April opening of the Inn at Coyote Mountain, a 90-minute drive west of San José in San Ramón, the country's reputation as a food purgatory was transformed. On a remote hilltop, Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret, the chef-owners of Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia, have created an intimate retreat where aspiring chefs can join one- to three-day classes on "Caribbean-Creole" cooking (think tropical jambalaya). Built in the Mudejar style of architecture from Spain, the five-room inn has circular windows and glass-tile tubs, custom-made wrought-iron sconces and four-poster beds, and a spectacular Observatory Suite with its own spiral staircase.
Alajuela and Northern Guanacaste
Time: Four to five days. Inland from the white sands of the Pacific is one of the last intact dry tropical forests of Central America. These pristine stretches, alternating with clear-cut areas marked by lone umbrella-shaped conacaste trees shading humpbacked Brahman cows, rise up a volcanic mountain range to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve in Puntarenas, an essential stop on any nature-lover's itinerary. Getting there requires a four-hour drive from San José or Liberia.
When I first came to Monteverde in the early nineties, I took a standing-room-only bus and stayed in a cabin with a shared bath. Not much has changed: most of the drive is up a precipitous, unpaved track (the area is too jagged for planes, too windy for helicopters), and properties marketed as luxury lodges are often quite disappointing. But it's worth the bother to see mist-shrouded trees draped in epiphytes, 450 species of birds, and views all the way west to the Nicoya Peninsula.
Settled by Alabama Quakers looking for a utopian escape from the Korean War draft, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and its closest town, Santa Elena, retain the tranquil, anti-establishment aura conferred on them by these immigrants. Hippie kids run the butterfly farm in nearby Cerro Plano, and you can get great thin-crust pepperoni slices at nearby pizzeria Johnny. The reserve allows only 160 visitors at a time on its brick paths. A handful of decent hotels line the road to the park; two stand out from the pack. Monteverde Lodge & Gardens has 27 rooms in an Arts and Crafts-style building, with a 12-person Jacuzzi that is in an acrylic-domed room apparently inspired by I. M. Pei's Louvre entrance. Fonda Vela, owned by two brothers, is half the price and just as nice, and its eight bungalows are within walking distance of the cloud forest's entrance.
Once you've completed the tough stuff--long hikes in the cloud forest, hours spent searching for a quetzal's nest--schedule some R&R at the beachfront Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo. Before the resort opened its 153 rooms and suites in January, getting to the Pacific coast of northern Guanacaste required chartering a plane or navigating bone-rattling potholed roads. Now major airlines fly direct to the nearby airport from the United States. Local architect Ronald Zürcher drew inspiration from butterfly wings and the backs of armadillos in his design for the resort's buildings, which are set on a steep hillside between two beaches. Arnold Palmer created the sprawling golf course. At the restaurant, chef James Cassidy (poached from Hawaii's Four Seasons Hualalai) makes Latin fusion dishes, such as the teetering tower of crab-and-avocado salad with red pepper sauce. Six other resorts are planned for the once-remote Papagayo Peninsula. What a difference a Four Seasons makes.
Nicoya Peninsula and Quepos
Time: Three to six days. Populated by American pensioners, international surfers, and tico farmers, this coastal corridor claims some of the country's finest hotels, all of them built with a conservationist's eye. You'd be mad to spend all your time lazing by the Costa Rican shore, but the region's dozens of beaches do come in handy for convalescing after a week spent trekking, tracking birds, and, let's be honest, driving. A ferry that crosses the Gulf of Nicoya connects the peninsula to the mainland at Puntarenas, near Manuel Antonio National Park, home to the country's most popular beach, which attracts swarms of backpackers and locals on holiday.
The nicest places to stay on the Nicoya Peninsula are the beachfront hotels that run south from Guanacaste all the way to the tip of the peninsula, at Montezuma. Hotel Punta Islita, owned by Harold Zürcher and designed by his brother, Ronald (creator of the Four Seasons at Papagayo), has occupied its own crescent-shaped black-sand beach and hillside for 10 years. Today its 43 thatched-roof rooms, suites, and casitas make up one of the most sophisticated addresses in the country. Guest quarters come with hand-hewn teak beds and hammocks angled to view the sun as it drops into the Pacific. Chef Pablo de la Torre prepares fresh ceviche and native fish dishes at Borrancho Beach Club (or on the sand with a bonfire, at no extra cost). An art gallery showcases local artisans' handicrafts. And a European-style spa opened in December.
Punta Islita is an extravagant refuge, but getting out of the resort is a nightmare: there are tide tables posted in both of the hotel's restaurants so that guests can escape before water floods the driveway. On my first visit, tempting fate, I left with only 15 minutes to spare and barely managed to cross the two rivers filling up with seawater that separated me from the main road. Harold Zürcher had not been so lucky: he'd lost his ATV the day before. Braving the tides--and the potholes--is par for the course on the Nicoya, which is why most guests fly into one of the charter airstrips scattered across the peninsula.
Florblanca, the newest addition to the luxury accommodations in Costa Rica, is just down the road from Punta Islita--but don't let that fool you. The quickest way to this resort, with its outdoor bathrooms, stucco porches, and gorgeous canopy beds, is to drive along the beach, which is subject to flooding at high tide. Regardless, Florblanca's 10 villas and its open-air restaurant (built from clear-cut wood that American owners Susan Money and Greg Mullins bought from farmers and saved for some 15 years) are always crowded--with surfers, honeymooners, and the occasional society-page regular.
When both Punta Islita and Florblanca are full, the nearby Hotel Milarepa offers consolation: its four bungalows stand beside the beach and a French chef prepares classic dishes with Caribbean ingredients.
For millionaires, there's Hacienda Cabo Velas, a 1,700-acre working ranch that goes for $65,000 a week and sleeps up to 12 people--who generally bypass the roads of Guanacaste and instead arrive by private plane on the property's own airstrip. From there, it's a short walk to a Spanish-colonial hacienda surrounded by four smaller thatched-roof ranchos, or to any of the five beaches on-site. Guests get it all: an Italian cook, a naturalist guide, a boat captain for tours of the mangroves, even a cowboy to lead horseback rides in the jungle.
Across the Gulf of Nicoya on the mainland, near Manuel Antonio National Park, adventurers can kick in their endorphins in countless ways: Equus Stables takes riders galloping and cantering along the sprawling white sands; Iguana Tours leads kayakers through mangrove swamps and estuaries to some of the park's emerald islets; the experienced guides of Blue Fin Sport Fishing let anglers pose for snapshots with their prize marlin, tuna, or sailfish before detaching the hook and setting their catch free.
Dozens of hotels around Manuel Antonio cater to every type of traveler (European, gay, vegetarian) on every type of budget, but the top spots are those with secluded suites on the ridge above the beach. The adults-only Makanda by the Sea, a collection of 11 freestanding villas, is encircled by a rain forest. Apart from the private cove and Japanese-inspired accommodations--notice the rock garden?--Makanda has that other luxury rarely found in Costa Rica: good food (fresh-fish tacos, blackened shrimp). Breakfast is presented on your private veranda; during lunch at the Sunspot Restaurant, you can spy toucans, two- and three-toed sloths, and spider monkeys.
Nearby, the spare wood-and-stucco cabanas at Tulemar, also on the ridge, are furnished with teak armoires, fully equipped kitchens, and jungle or ocean views from all sides of the octagonal structures. The seven just-opened deluxe bungalows emphasize space--1,400 square feet inside, 400 outside--and each has two bedrooms, a rainfall shower, a private garden or balcony, and panoramic vistas.
Osa Peninsula
Time: Five days. In southern Costa Rica, the remote Osa Peninsula is one of the most biologically dense tropical regions on earth. Scarlet macaws do flybys past the lodges, howler monkeys swing from the forest canopy, and whales migrate along the coast. Basically, if it lives and breathes in Costa Rica--caiman, iguana, sloth, jaguar--it probably resides in the nature preserves, public and private, that blanket this peninsula. Some of the world's first ecolodges were built in the undeveloped jungles of Drake Bay, Golfito, and Corcovado National Park; they are still models of sustainable tourism today.
When they opened Lapa Rios in 1993, Americans Karen and John Lewis pioneered the practice of ecotourism in Costa Rica. The 16-room hardwood-and-thatch resort on 1,000 protected acres of jungle and Pacific oceanfront continues to win conservation awards. Visitors often plan their Costa Rican vacations around availability at Lapa Rios, whose friendly service and surprisingly creative meals--not to mention alfresco showers, private decks, and abundant wildlife right outside your screen door--make up for the rickety prop plane (and the airsickness) that gets you there. Just be sure to take a low-numbered room: the higher they get, the farther the trek up and down the steep incline on which the villas are built.
The nearby Bosque del Cabo gets less attention but deserves equally high praise. Set at the end of a mile-long drive in another 500-acre preserve, its 13 bungalows have rustic cane beds, garden showers, and private sunbathing decks with hammocks. The expert forest guides on staff can take groups hiking, horseback riding, or flying over the trees on the hotel's zip lines
The newest biosensitive resort on the peninsula is the Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge in 100,000-acre Corcovado National Park, across the Golfo Dulce from Golfito. Everything here is recycled: the four cabins and a four-bedroom house are made from farmed trees; covering the roofs are tiles made from bags that once used to protect banana stalks; and solar energy provides the electricity. Accessible only by boat, the hotel keeps guests busy with kayaking, fishing, snorkeling, windsurfing, and, of course, naturalist-guided hikes.
The only other place to stay inside the park is Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp. Guests fly into Drake Bay by prop plane, drive two hours to the shore, and then walk along the beach for 45 minutes to reach 20 steel-framed tents that guarantee utter privacy (from humans, anyway). A little pleading with the guides (and a lot of Valium for yourself) gets you and your partner harnessed into a bed built into a platform 100 feet above the jungle floor, where the two of you can spend a night under the stars.
Tortuguero
Time: Three to four days. If no one told you otherwise, you could easily mistake Tortuguero National Park, on Costa Rica's east coast, for the Amazon. This dense forest was carved out by a series of rivers and canals dug to ease the transport of timber before the area became protected in 1970. Easier to reach (and cheaper to stay in) than that other basin in South America, Tortuguero has turbulent Caribbean beaches that give safe haven to four turtle species, including the Atlantic green, during the summer nesting season. It's also the stamping ground of tapirs, caimans, anteaters, coatis, and the electric-blue morpho butterfly.
The hotels along Tortuguero's lagoon specialize in guided cruises down the area's waterways by canoe or small motorboat. You can get a free nature tour if you approach the hotels by water: your craft will be greeted with the squawks and screeches of countless species of birds and monkeys. Pachira Lodge, a rustic resort with almond-wood cabins and a pool shaped like a turtle, attracts a mostly European clientele, which gives it a relaxed, rather festive vibe. Tortuga Lodge, whose 24 rooms are distributed among five bungalows, has a lovely river-rock pool and excellent service: the general manager calls guests by name, and the chef can prepare basic dishes that aren't on the simple set menu. Both Pachira and Tortuga have plenty of kayaks and motorboats for canal cruising and are absolutely silent at night, save for the rhythmic rush of the Caribbean across the peninsula on the other side of the lagoon.
Costa Rica Real Estate Information
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU BUY
1) Security of Property Ownership in Costa Rica
The Law
For most people looking to purchase property in a foreign country the first and foremost question to answer is “Can I as a foreigner own land in Costa Rica?” One of the great aspects of property ownership for foreigners in Costa Rica, and perhaps one of the most important of the mitigating factors for the attractiveness of Costa Rica to foreigners, is the security of land ownership.
Foreigners’ rights of land ownership are documented in the constitution of Costa Rica. The rights of a foreigner to land ownership are equal to that of a Costa Rican.
The National Registry
All legally transferable properties in Costa Rica are registered in the public National Registry. If the property can not be found in the public national registry then it is not a legally registered property. The National Registry can be accessed via the Internet. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can enter the public national registry and review a property. You can quickly find out whether there is a registered lien, encumbrance, mortgage or annotation on any specific property. If it is not noted in the National Registry then it does not exist.
Title Insurance
The security of land ownership and the transparency of the National Registry are further substantiated by the fact that a number of US based title insurance companies operate offices in Costa Rica and offer guarantees on title. The cost for title guarantee varies from 0.4% to 1.0% depending on the property and the package of services be offered by the Title Company.
Costa Rican Companies
Most purchasers of Costa Rican property take title of their property in the name of a Costa Rican S.A. (Sociedad Anonimo) that they have created with the sole purpose of owning the property. There are a few advantages to structuring your purchase this way. The primary advantage presently available is when one goes to re-sell the property you are selling a company and not a property and as such you avoid some significant taxes and government fees. The cost of a company ranges from $350 to $1,000 depending on the lawyer used to set up the company.
2) Property Types
Understanding Concessions in the Maritime Zone
Concession property in Costa Rica is approximately 85% of all the coastal or beachfront property, . It is owned by the government and is governed by the Maritime Zone Law and other regulations imposed by municipalities and the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism. A concession is defined as the right to use a property located in the maritime zone for a pre-determined period of time, typically 20 years. The first 200 meters measured horizontally from the median tide line defines the boundary of the maritime zone.
The first 50 meters from the median tide line is considered public area and is not available for any type of ownership. Because this area is public, all people have the right to use it. Basically, there are no privately owned beaches in Costa Rica.
The next 150 meters is available for concessions to be granted. A concession is essentially a lease on the property with a 20 year concession period. The concession owner may build on the concession only what is permitted as per the zoning plan. All Maritime Zone property will be governed by a “Plano Regulador”, a Zoning Plan. New 20 year concession terms are granted so long as the Zoning Plan and all of its requirements have been observed.
Unlike fee simple property, foreigners cannot be majority owners of a concession property. However, if a foreigner wishes to have a concession property this is easily and legally done through the establishment of a Costa Rican S.A. and the appropriate structuring of the ownership of shares of the company.
Understanding Fee Simple Ownership
Purchasing ‘non-concession’ property in Costa Rica is basically the same as buying property in the U.S., i.e., it is considered fee simple ownership. Fee simple ownership conveys the absolute right to own the property, and or sell the property, lease it, improve it, etc. Fee simple also means that if the owner is obstructed from his or her rights to the property, he or she has the right to be made whole, meaning to have the property restored in its original condition. Fee simple title owners enjoy the most rights under the law to use the property at their discretion.
Understanding Properties in Condominium
In the U.S. condominium refer to residences in multi-tenant buildings. In Costa Rica the Condominium Law benefits developers responsible for building many types of properties, including single-family
homes, finished lot projects and condos. The law allows developers to regulate the development with By-Laws that can be registered in the National Registry to the individual lot, home or condo. The By-Laws outline the restrictions and benefits placed on individuals who purchase these properties and as well possibly the property itself. This is still fee simple ownership, but properties ‘in condominium’ come with additional restrictions that are generally intended to protect the integrity of the development’s physical ambiance. If you are considering purchasing a property that is “En Condominium” read the by-laws before you buy or have a professional do so for you.
3) Steps to Purchasing Property in Costa Rica
Reputable Realtor
The first thing that you should consider is who you should work with to help assist you in finding and purchasing your property in Costa Rica. Like any other investment you make involving a significant sum of your money the first thing you would do is look to get the advice and assistance from an experienced professional in the chosen field with a proven track record. You look for an expert that you can trust to give you accurate information, as well as all the information good or bad so that you can make informed decisions. You should not approach purchasing property in Costa Rica in any other way. Get the results you want, work with proven professionals.
As we have been serving the local community since 1992, and having worked to assist more buyers in more transactions than any other real estate agency in our area, we feel Century 21 At The Beach has the expertise to assist you. Not only that, we have developed a strong reputation as buyers brokers. We are here to protect your interests.
Be aware that there is no licensing of realtors in Costa Rica. Anyone and almost everyone is a “realtor” in some way shape or form down here. This is where misinformation, as well as bad information or advice can cause serious problems to a purchaser. As you would anywhere else, look to work with an experienced professional with a proven track record.
Search in the National Registry
Most Costa Rica properties are registered in the National Registry with their own Folio Real (registration number) in a centralized database at the offices of the Public National Registry in San José. The Folio Real is a unique number to each property for identification. A title search in the National Registry with the property’s Folio Real should be performed for any property under consideration. A search will show you the property area, ownership, boundaries, location, mortgages, liens, encumbrances and any annotation. Some properties are not listed in the National Registry yet. These properties would be “possesorial” properties that are not yet registered. Proving ownership of or acquiring ownership of a “possessorial” property will be more difficult. It is best to avoid these properties if possible.
Escritura de Traspaso (Transfer of Deed)
The Escritura de Traspaso contains all important information regarding the real estate transfer, including information about the buyer and seller, the property and any terms of sale, including contingencies, easements or financing. A Public Notary (attorney) prepares this document and records it at the Public Registry of Property and in his/her Notary Book (Protocolo). After the deed is signed at the closing, the attorney immediately records the deed at the Public Registry for annotation, which protects the property against any third parties. Secondly, the property is recorded under the name of the new owner.
Plano Catastrato (Survey Plan)
The Cadastral Office holds all Costa Rica property surveys, and it operates separately from the Public Registry. Every property must show a survey recorded at the Public Registry for successful ownership transfer. Because the Cadastral Office often has outdated surveys on file, we recommend obtaining a new independent survey plan and registering it with the Cadastral Office before purchasing the property to eliminate potential disputes about property boundary lines at closing time.
4) Purchasing Options in Costa Rica
Purchasing a Property In Your Name
This process occurs when an individual or group of people acquire a property in their personal name(s). The property will be re-registered in the National Registry in the name(s) given.
Purchasing a Property In a Corporation
It is common practice to purchase property in Costa Rica through a newly formed corporation or by changing the ownership of an existing corporation. Establishing a corporation in Costa Rica is not complicated, but does require the advice of an experienced real estate agent and attorney who are knowledgeable of the protocols and requirements involved. The advantage of buying property in a corporation is that it can reduce the closing costs and it works to protect the buyer’s identity so that the ownership of the real estate asset is anonymous. There are some obligations such as annual tax declarations and other corporate responsibilities that can be explained by your real estate professional and or attorney.
Costa Rica Residency
If a family or individual plans to live in Costa Rica, or spend significant time here, they will need to establish legal residency. Most North Americans seeking residency in Costa Rica will do so under the rentista (a foreigner who has a guaranteed income) designation or as an investor. If you wish to simply enjoy your property as a vacation property you should seek advice as to whether you need legal residency status in Costa Rica. The residency process must be started outside of Costa Rica. It is recommended to speak with an immigration lawyer that specializes in the residency process.
Rentista status has three requirements:
· The individual must have outside investments that guarantee $1,000 income per month for five years
· The individual must change at least $1,000 a month into colones
· The individual must live in Costa Rica for at least six months out of the year
Mortgage Financing
Mortgages are available to foreign buyers of property in Costa Rica. Not all banks offer mortgages to non-residents but a few do. The process is somewhat more cumbersome than that of the US. Additionally the cost of initially setting up a mortgage is high here in Costa Rica as are the annual rates if interest. Please contact one of our professional real estate agents to discuss current costs and rates.
Banks in the United States will not offer mortgage financing on properties in Costa Rica. The mortgage industry in Costa Rica is growing and more options are becoming available to Buyers.
5) The Process and Options To Close on a Property & Closing Costs
There are three standard procedures for closing on a property being purchased in Costa Rica.
Money
The most common means of getting the initial deposit and the balance of the money into Costa Rica to purchase a property is by wire transfer. Typically, the Buyer through the advice of their real estate professional will use the services of an Escrow Agent and Escrow Account.
Buyer and Seller Present
The most common procedure for closing on a property is that both the Buyer and Seller are in the country and have decided on an agreeable location to meet and close. Typically, the Buyer’s lawyer will have prepared the transfer deed and it will have been reviewed by the Seller’s lawyer. The deed will be read to and explained to the Buyer in their language of choice. Both Buyer and Seller will sign the deed. The Buyer will make payment via a “manager’s check” drawn against the funds held in the Escrow Account. A Managers Check is similar to a certified check. The notary will then register the changes to the property ownership in the National Registry.
Power of Attorney
If one or both the Buyer and Seller can not be in Costa Rica but have given a Power of Attorney to someone to legally represent them, then the same process noted above would take place by their legal representatives.
Out of Costa Rica
Though not a very common practice it is possible to close on a Costa Rican property outside of Costa Rica. If either the Buyer or Seller is unable to be in Costa Rica to close, and have not left a Power of Attorney, they can have a Costa Rican notary come to where they are and sign the transfer deed in the notary’s protocol book in the presence of the notary. The cost to have the notary perform this service is born 100% by the party that requires this service.
Closing Costs
As briefly mentioned above the closing costs to purchase a property in Costa Rica varies depending if you are purchasing a property by way of purchasing a Costa Rican S.A. with the property as an asset of the company, or a straight transfer of ownership from the Seller to the Buyer as an individual.
Standard closing cost for the transfer of ownership from the Seller to the Buyer as an individual will be 4.2% of the actual purchase price of the property. This fee is a combination of legal and notary service fees, as well as land transfer taxes and government stamp fees.
The cost to close on a property that is held by a Costa Rican S.A. with the property being the asset of the corporation is 1.25%. This is the legal fee to change the “junta directive” (the board) of the company and the ownership of the shares of the company and to register these changes in the National Registry. Working through one of the recommended lawyers of Century 21 At The Beach this fee can be reduced. This fee reduction is a result of the long standing relationships Century 21 At The Beach has with these lawyers.
6) After Purchase Concerns
Annual Land Taxes
Presently in Costa Rica annual land taxes are 0.25% of the registered land value of your property. Annual land taxes are paid to the local municipality.
Insurance
Insurance in Costa Rica is a government monopoly. All policies are offered by the Institute Nacional de Seguros (INS). There are a number of private entities that sell INS policies. A standard “All Risk” policy will cost 0.28% of the construction cost of the home. Additionally, both Liable Insurance and Home Owners Insurance are available and costs vary depending on the amount of coverage required.
Property Management
As you may not be here to enjoy your home full time you may wish to employ a property management company to pay your monthly bills; water, electricity, phone, Internet, cable or satellite TV. Additionally you may require the services of a property management company to clean your home, maintain your gardens, cut your grass, clean your pool, and fumigate. We can recommend proven professionals for this service.
As you may also wish to generate income from your home while you are not in residence, both long term and short term rentals can be obtained through the property management company.
1) Security of Property Ownership in Costa Rica
The Law
For most people looking to purchase property in a foreign country the first and foremost question to answer is “Can I as a foreigner own land in Costa Rica?” One of the great aspects of property ownership for foreigners in Costa Rica, and perhaps one of the most important of the mitigating factors for the attractiveness of Costa Rica to foreigners, is the security of land ownership.
Foreigners’ rights of land ownership are documented in the constitution of Costa Rica. The rights of a foreigner to land ownership are equal to that of a Costa Rican.
The National Registry
All legally transferable properties in Costa Rica are registered in the public National Registry. If the property can not be found in the public national registry then it is not a legally registered property. The National Registry can be accessed via the Internet. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can enter the public national registry and review a property. You can quickly find out whether there is a registered lien, encumbrance, mortgage or annotation on any specific property. If it is not noted in the National Registry then it does not exist.
Title Insurance
The security of land ownership and the transparency of the National Registry are further substantiated by the fact that a number of US based title insurance companies operate offices in Costa Rica and offer guarantees on title. The cost for title guarantee varies from 0.4% to 1.0% depending on the property and the package of services be offered by the Title Company.
Costa Rican Companies
Most purchasers of Costa Rican property take title of their property in the name of a Costa Rican S.A. (Sociedad Anonimo) that they have created with the sole purpose of owning the property. There are a few advantages to structuring your purchase this way. The primary advantage presently available is when one goes to re-sell the property you are selling a company and not a property and as such you avoid some significant taxes and government fees. The cost of a company ranges from $350 to $1,000 depending on the lawyer used to set up the company.
2) Property Types
Understanding Concessions in the Maritime Zone
Concession property in Costa Rica is approximately 85% of all the coastal or beachfront property, . It is owned by the government and is governed by the Maritime Zone Law and other regulations imposed by municipalities and the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism. A concession is defined as the right to use a property located in the maritime zone for a pre-determined period of time, typically 20 years. The first 200 meters measured horizontally from the median tide line defines the boundary of the maritime zone.
The first 50 meters from the median tide line is considered public area and is not available for any type of ownership. Because this area is public, all people have the right to use it. Basically, there are no privately owned beaches in Costa Rica.
The next 150 meters is available for concessions to be granted. A concession is essentially a lease on the property with a 20 year concession period. The concession owner may build on the concession only what is permitted as per the zoning plan. All Maritime Zone property will be governed by a “Plano Regulador”, a Zoning Plan. New 20 year concession terms are granted so long as the Zoning Plan and all of its requirements have been observed.
Unlike fee simple property, foreigners cannot be majority owners of a concession property. However, if a foreigner wishes to have a concession property this is easily and legally done through the establishment of a Costa Rican S.A. and the appropriate structuring of the ownership of shares of the company.
Understanding Fee Simple Ownership
Purchasing ‘non-concession’ property in Costa Rica is basically the same as buying property in the U.S., i.e., it is considered fee simple ownership. Fee simple ownership conveys the absolute right to own the property, and or sell the property, lease it, improve it, etc. Fee simple also means that if the owner is obstructed from his or her rights to the property, he or she has the right to be made whole, meaning to have the property restored in its original condition. Fee simple title owners enjoy the most rights under the law to use the property at their discretion.
Understanding Properties in Condominium
In the U.S. condominium refer to residences in multi-tenant buildings. In Costa Rica the Condominium Law benefits developers responsible for building many types of properties, including single-family
homes, finished lot projects and condos. The law allows developers to regulate the development with By-Laws that can be registered in the National Registry to the individual lot, home or condo. The By-Laws outline the restrictions and benefits placed on individuals who purchase these properties and as well possibly the property itself. This is still fee simple ownership, but properties ‘in condominium’ come with additional restrictions that are generally intended to protect the integrity of the development’s physical ambiance. If you are considering purchasing a property that is “En Condominium” read the by-laws before you buy or have a professional do so for you.
3) Steps to Purchasing Property in Costa Rica
Reputable Realtor
The first thing that you should consider is who you should work with to help assist you in finding and purchasing your property in Costa Rica. Like any other investment you make involving a significant sum of your money the first thing you would do is look to get the advice and assistance from an experienced professional in the chosen field with a proven track record. You look for an expert that you can trust to give you accurate information, as well as all the information good or bad so that you can make informed decisions. You should not approach purchasing property in Costa Rica in any other way. Get the results you want, work with proven professionals.
As we have been serving the local community since 1992, and having worked to assist more buyers in more transactions than any other real estate agency in our area, we feel Century 21 At The Beach has the expertise to assist you. Not only that, we have developed a strong reputation as buyers brokers. We are here to protect your interests.
Be aware that there is no licensing of realtors in Costa Rica. Anyone and almost everyone is a “realtor” in some way shape or form down here. This is where misinformation, as well as bad information or advice can cause serious problems to a purchaser. As you would anywhere else, look to work with an experienced professional with a proven track record.
Search in the National Registry
Most Costa Rica properties are registered in the National Registry with their own Folio Real (registration number) in a centralized database at the offices of the Public National Registry in San José. The Folio Real is a unique number to each property for identification. A title search in the National Registry with the property’s Folio Real should be performed for any property under consideration. A search will show you the property area, ownership, boundaries, location, mortgages, liens, encumbrances and any annotation. Some properties are not listed in the National Registry yet. These properties would be “possesorial” properties that are not yet registered. Proving ownership of or acquiring ownership of a “possessorial” property will be more difficult. It is best to avoid these properties if possible.
Escritura de Traspaso (Transfer of Deed)
The Escritura de Traspaso contains all important information regarding the real estate transfer, including information about the buyer and seller, the property and any terms of sale, including contingencies, easements or financing. A Public Notary (attorney) prepares this document and records it at the Public Registry of Property and in his/her Notary Book (Protocolo). After the deed is signed at the closing, the attorney immediately records the deed at the Public Registry for annotation, which protects the property against any third parties. Secondly, the property is recorded under the name of the new owner.
Plano Catastrato (Survey Plan)
The Cadastral Office holds all Costa Rica property surveys, and it operates separately from the Public Registry. Every property must show a survey recorded at the Public Registry for successful ownership transfer. Because the Cadastral Office often has outdated surveys on file, we recommend obtaining a new independent survey plan and registering it with the Cadastral Office before purchasing the property to eliminate potential disputes about property boundary lines at closing time.
4) Purchasing Options in Costa Rica
Purchasing a Property In Your Name
This process occurs when an individual or group of people acquire a property in their personal name(s). The property will be re-registered in the National Registry in the name(s) given.
Purchasing a Property In a Corporation
It is common practice to purchase property in Costa Rica through a newly formed corporation or by changing the ownership of an existing corporation. Establishing a corporation in Costa Rica is not complicated, but does require the advice of an experienced real estate agent and attorney who are knowledgeable of the protocols and requirements involved. The advantage of buying property in a corporation is that it can reduce the closing costs and it works to protect the buyer’s identity so that the ownership of the real estate asset is anonymous. There are some obligations such as annual tax declarations and other corporate responsibilities that can be explained by your real estate professional and or attorney.
Costa Rica Residency
If a family or individual plans to live in Costa Rica, or spend significant time here, they will need to establish legal residency. Most North Americans seeking residency in Costa Rica will do so under the rentista (a foreigner who has a guaranteed income) designation or as an investor. If you wish to simply enjoy your property as a vacation property you should seek advice as to whether you need legal residency status in Costa Rica. The residency process must be started outside of Costa Rica. It is recommended to speak with an immigration lawyer that specializes in the residency process.
Rentista status has three requirements:
· The individual must have outside investments that guarantee $1,000 income per month for five years
· The individual must change at least $1,000 a month into colones
· The individual must live in Costa Rica for at least six months out of the year
Mortgage Financing
Mortgages are available to foreign buyers of property in Costa Rica. Not all banks offer mortgages to non-residents but a few do. The process is somewhat more cumbersome than that of the US. Additionally the cost of initially setting up a mortgage is high here in Costa Rica as are the annual rates if interest. Please contact one of our professional real estate agents to discuss current costs and rates.
Banks in the United States will not offer mortgage financing on properties in Costa Rica. The mortgage industry in Costa Rica is growing and more options are becoming available to Buyers.
5) The Process and Options To Close on a Property & Closing Costs
There are three standard procedures for closing on a property being purchased in Costa Rica.
Money
The most common means of getting the initial deposit and the balance of the money into Costa Rica to purchase a property is by wire transfer. Typically, the Buyer through the advice of their real estate professional will use the services of an Escrow Agent and Escrow Account.
Buyer and Seller Present
The most common procedure for closing on a property is that both the Buyer and Seller are in the country and have decided on an agreeable location to meet and close. Typically, the Buyer’s lawyer will have prepared the transfer deed and it will have been reviewed by the Seller’s lawyer. The deed will be read to and explained to the Buyer in their language of choice. Both Buyer and Seller will sign the deed. The Buyer will make payment via a “manager’s check” drawn against the funds held in the Escrow Account. A Managers Check is similar to a certified check. The notary will then register the changes to the property ownership in the National Registry.
Power of Attorney
If one or both the Buyer and Seller can not be in Costa Rica but have given a Power of Attorney to someone to legally represent them, then the same process noted above would take place by their legal representatives.
Out of Costa Rica
Though not a very common practice it is possible to close on a Costa Rican property outside of Costa Rica. If either the Buyer or Seller is unable to be in Costa Rica to close, and have not left a Power of Attorney, they can have a Costa Rican notary come to where they are and sign the transfer deed in the notary’s protocol book in the presence of the notary. The cost to have the notary perform this service is born 100% by the party that requires this service.
Closing Costs
As briefly mentioned above the closing costs to purchase a property in Costa Rica varies depending if you are purchasing a property by way of purchasing a Costa Rican S.A. with the property as an asset of the company, or a straight transfer of ownership from the Seller to the Buyer as an individual.
Standard closing cost for the transfer of ownership from the Seller to the Buyer as an individual will be 4.2% of the actual purchase price of the property. This fee is a combination of legal and notary service fees, as well as land transfer taxes and government stamp fees.
The cost to close on a property that is held by a Costa Rican S.A. with the property being the asset of the corporation is 1.25%. This is the legal fee to change the “junta directive” (the board) of the company and the ownership of the shares of the company and to register these changes in the National Registry. Working through one of the recommended lawyers of Century 21 At The Beach this fee can be reduced. This fee reduction is a result of the long standing relationships Century 21 At The Beach has with these lawyers.
6) After Purchase Concerns
Annual Land Taxes
Presently in Costa Rica annual land taxes are 0.25% of the registered land value of your property. Annual land taxes are paid to the local municipality.
Insurance
Insurance in Costa Rica is a government monopoly. All policies are offered by the Institute Nacional de Seguros (INS). There are a number of private entities that sell INS policies. A standard “All Risk” policy will cost 0.28% of the construction cost of the home. Additionally, both Liable Insurance and Home Owners Insurance are available and costs vary depending on the amount of coverage required.
Property Management
As you may not be here to enjoy your home full time you may wish to employ a property management company to pay your monthly bills; water, electricity, phone, Internet, cable or satellite TV. Additionally you may require the services of a property management company to clean your home, maintain your gardens, cut your grass, clean your pool, and fumigate. We can recommend proven professionals for this service.
As you may also wish to generate income from your home while you are not in residence, both long term and short term rentals can be obtained through the property management company.
Why Costa Rica for your Property Investments?
WHY THE PAPAGAYO REGION REMAINS “HOT”
AND WILL GET “HOTTER”
In 2005 I wrote a wonderfully informative article titled “Why Costa Rica, Why Now!” and a few of you truly bored may have stumbled upon it in some obscure magazine or newsletter and actually had the pleasure of reading it. The article described the variety of compounding factors that were directly responsible for the incredibly active real estate market we were enjoying and as a result, the tremendous growth we were experiencing in our immediate area, and to some extent, most of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The factors combined provided Buyers with a tremendously profitable environment and made buying real estate in this area a very, very smart investment.
The reasons were pretty easy to understand;
I) A newly opened International Airport (Liberia International Airport) that had gone from the first direct commercial airline flights, 3 a week out of Atlanta with Delta Airlines, to 18 a week with in one year, with American Airlines and Continental Airlines joining Delta and commencing flights from their hub airports.
II) The opening of the Four Seasons Hotel and Arnold Palmer golf course which are located just across the bay from us. The Fours Seasons and Arnold Palmer golf course were the first phase of a three phase project that will incorporate two more golf courses, two marinas, additional real estate and an overall build out budget exceeding $400 million dollars.
III) A very strong US economy, combined with very low interest rates for mortgages. It can also be argued that the extremely low returns from traditional secure investments (GIC’s, T Bills, Savings Accounts…..) as well as a lingering uneasiness with the stock market, motivated investors to look at real estate as is the case during this economic cycle and Costa Rican was a close and secure real estate market that was performing well.
IV) This fast paced activity was also the result of the initial effects of the Baby Boomer market starting to look off shore for their retirement/investment/vacation properties and making acquisitions.
V) Our area is the closest beach community to the Liberia International Airport.
These were the factors that created the foundation for the growth we experienced from 2003 to the first quarter of 2006. Properties appreciated fairly well during this time period.
Due to the fact that 95% of the buyers of Pacific coast properties in the Costa Rica are from the United States, it is assumed by many of those now looking at Costa Rican real estate that the Costa Rican real estate market should be suffering similar maladies as that of the US real estate market.
The questions I get now are, “How is your market doing?” “Are prices dropping/” “Are you worried about your market?” ….
The reality is nothing could be further from the truth.
The reason I make that statement is due to the following factors;
I) It became very evident that a number of the larges scale developers from the United States recognized the predicament of their domestic real estate market some time ago in conjunction with understanding that the Baby Boomers were looking for vacation/investment/retirement properties outside of the US and looked around the world for better opportunities. Many decided on Costa Rica. With in a two hour radius of the Liberia International Airport at least nine large development properties have been purchased over the last 24 months representing an initial investment of over $325 million dollars to acquire these properties. The collective investment to build out these resort destination projects over the next ten years will be well over a billion dollars. Historically the world over, when this magnitude of investment occurred in a specific area, the neighbouring properties have appreciated in value, and in many cases at very aggressive rates. You know what they say about history repeating itself. The same will happen here. Very beneficial investment opportunities will present themselves to those that take advantage of them. Exceeding the returns of funds in similar secure investments such as GIC’s, T-Bills, Savings Account interest will happen.
II) The Liberia International Airport now has 42 commercial airline flights a week and continues to grow. Delta started a direct route to Liberia from Los Angeles in December 2006. Opening the Californian market to a direct flight will have a very substantial impact on the real estate industry here. New direct flights from London, England started in May 2007 opening the European market to Costa Rica. The March 2007 traffic through the airport was an increase of 15% over March of 2006 when it was expected not to exceed 10%. A budget of $16 million has been approved by the government to expand the Liberia Airport and open up an additional 20 check in counters.
III) The following hotel groups have signed contracts to operate hotels in our immediate area, Hilton, Westin, Regency International, Mandarin, Aman Group, Fairmont, Ritz-Carlton, Rosewood, Auberge, J.W. Marriott, and Hyatt. Many of these hotels will be under construction before the end of 2007. The joint marketing done by these hotel groups, combined with that of the airlines, will expose Costa Rica to the internal market place at a much grander scale than ever before. These hotels are all four or five star hotel operations and as a result will be bringing to Costa Rica a large and continuous supply of new qualified buyers each week.
IV) The Baby Boomers, yes I realize this is old and you have been hearing it forever (and more than likely you are one yourself) but the simple reality is that the shear numbers of this age group has changed markets their entire lives. Seventy-eight million people (or there about) will retire over the next 15 years in the US alone. Don’t think those developers that bought in Costa Rica aren’t aware of this. Our market can be sustained by less than 0.5% of the Baby Boomer market. Not much to ask for or need.
V) One of the major factors for our market not softening is that it is a cash market. Close to 100% of the property or home purchases here are cash buys. We do not have to deal with the aftermath of an over indulgence of speculator leveraged financed buys that artificially prop up property values and work to help values free fall when the market turns. This can not happen here as mortgage financing to date is not readily available in Costa Rica.
VI) We are not over built. A more accurate statement would be, we remain under built. The demand is still severely outweighing the supply. It will be some time before supply can catch up to demand, if it is ever able to.
VII) No hurricanes. It may seem like an insignificant factor but it is not. A significant portion of the market purchasing retirement/vacation or investment property would prefer to do so where a hurricane will not destroy their property. Costa Rica is such a place. It is surprising at the number of buyers we have seen that exchanged coastal properties in Florida or Texas for a property in Costa Rica over the last few years.
Yes, you have to take everything I state with a grain of salt as I live here and make a living from owning and operating a Century 21 real estate office, a successful development company and a technologically advanced construction company. However, what I have stated is simple fact and not “speculation”. It is what has happened, and what is happening.
And for me, I do not need to embellish the realities of our real estate, construction and land development industries as I have the comforting knowledge of knowing I can always turn to a prosperous career in free lance writing.
Costa Rica remains “hot” and will get “hotter”. You may want to slap on some sun block and get down here to take advantage of the knowledge you now possess and get in front of all of those that will be coming. There are some opportunities that can be taken advantage of by those that are willing to act upon them, hopefully you will be one of them and we are able to assist you..
Written by Scott MacDougall, an expatriate that has lived and worked in Costa Rica since 1992 and has been specifically involved in the real estate, construction and land development industries during this time. Scott was also a member of the executive management team of Los Sueños Resort & Marina for five years, the largest and most successful resort destination community project in Costa Rica. Scott can be contacted at scott@discovercostarica.com
AND WILL GET “HOTTER”
In 2005 I wrote a wonderfully informative article titled “Why Costa Rica, Why Now!” and a few of you truly bored may have stumbled upon it in some obscure magazine or newsletter and actually had the pleasure of reading it. The article described the variety of compounding factors that were directly responsible for the incredibly active real estate market we were enjoying and as a result, the tremendous growth we were experiencing in our immediate area, and to some extent, most of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The factors combined provided Buyers with a tremendously profitable environment and made buying real estate in this area a very, very smart investment.
The reasons were pretty easy to understand;
I) A newly opened International Airport (Liberia International Airport) that had gone from the first direct commercial airline flights, 3 a week out of Atlanta with Delta Airlines, to 18 a week with in one year, with American Airlines and Continental Airlines joining Delta and commencing flights from their hub airports.
II) The opening of the Four Seasons Hotel and Arnold Palmer golf course which are located just across the bay from us. The Fours Seasons and Arnold Palmer golf course were the first phase of a three phase project that will incorporate two more golf courses, two marinas, additional real estate and an overall build out budget exceeding $400 million dollars.
III) A very strong US economy, combined with very low interest rates for mortgages. It can also be argued that the extremely low returns from traditional secure investments (GIC’s, T Bills, Savings Accounts…..) as well as a lingering uneasiness with the stock market, motivated investors to look at real estate as is the case during this economic cycle and Costa Rican was a close and secure real estate market that was performing well.
IV) This fast paced activity was also the result of the initial effects of the Baby Boomer market starting to look off shore for their retirement/investment/vacation properties and making acquisitions.
V) Our area is the closest beach community to the Liberia International Airport.
These were the factors that created the foundation for the growth we experienced from 2003 to the first quarter of 2006. Properties appreciated fairly well during this time period.
Due to the fact that 95% of the buyers of Pacific coast properties in the Costa Rica are from the United States, it is assumed by many of those now looking at Costa Rican real estate that the Costa Rican real estate market should be suffering similar maladies as that of the US real estate market.
The questions I get now are, “How is your market doing?” “Are prices dropping/” “Are you worried about your market?” ….
The reality is nothing could be further from the truth.
The reason I make that statement is due to the following factors;
I) It became very evident that a number of the larges scale developers from the United States recognized the predicament of their domestic real estate market some time ago in conjunction with understanding that the Baby Boomers were looking for vacation/investment/retirement properties outside of the US and looked around the world for better opportunities. Many decided on Costa Rica. With in a two hour radius of the Liberia International Airport at least nine large development properties have been purchased over the last 24 months representing an initial investment of over $325 million dollars to acquire these properties. The collective investment to build out these resort destination projects over the next ten years will be well over a billion dollars. Historically the world over, when this magnitude of investment occurred in a specific area, the neighbouring properties have appreciated in value, and in many cases at very aggressive rates. You know what they say about history repeating itself. The same will happen here. Very beneficial investment opportunities will present themselves to those that take advantage of them. Exceeding the returns of funds in similar secure investments such as GIC’s, T-Bills, Savings Account interest will happen.
II) The Liberia International Airport now has 42 commercial airline flights a week and continues to grow. Delta started a direct route to Liberia from Los Angeles in December 2006. Opening the Californian market to a direct flight will have a very substantial impact on the real estate industry here. New direct flights from London, England started in May 2007 opening the European market to Costa Rica. The March 2007 traffic through the airport was an increase of 15% over March of 2006 when it was expected not to exceed 10%. A budget of $16 million has been approved by the government to expand the Liberia Airport and open up an additional 20 check in counters.
III) The following hotel groups have signed contracts to operate hotels in our immediate area, Hilton, Westin, Regency International, Mandarin, Aman Group, Fairmont, Ritz-Carlton, Rosewood, Auberge, J.W. Marriott, and Hyatt. Many of these hotels will be under construction before the end of 2007. The joint marketing done by these hotel groups, combined with that of the airlines, will expose Costa Rica to the internal market place at a much grander scale than ever before. These hotels are all four or five star hotel operations and as a result will be bringing to Costa Rica a large and continuous supply of new qualified buyers each week.
IV) The Baby Boomers, yes I realize this is old and you have been hearing it forever (and more than likely you are one yourself) but the simple reality is that the shear numbers of this age group has changed markets their entire lives. Seventy-eight million people (or there about) will retire over the next 15 years in the US alone. Don’t think those developers that bought in Costa Rica aren’t aware of this. Our market can be sustained by less than 0.5% of the Baby Boomer market. Not much to ask for or need.
V) One of the major factors for our market not softening is that it is a cash market. Close to 100% of the property or home purchases here are cash buys. We do not have to deal with the aftermath of an over indulgence of speculator leveraged financed buys that artificially prop up property values and work to help values free fall when the market turns. This can not happen here as mortgage financing to date is not readily available in Costa Rica.
VI) We are not over built. A more accurate statement would be, we remain under built. The demand is still severely outweighing the supply. It will be some time before supply can catch up to demand, if it is ever able to.
VII) No hurricanes. It may seem like an insignificant factor but it is not. A significant portion of the market purchasing retirement/vacation or investment property would prefer to do so where a hurricane will not destroy their property. Costa Rica is such a place. It is surprising at the number of buyers we have seen that exchanged coastal properties in Florida or Texas for a property in Costa Rica over the last few years.
Yes, you have to take everything I state with a grain of salt as I live here and make a living from owning and operating a Century 21 real estate office, a successful development company and a technologically advanced construction company. However, what I have stated is simple fact and not “speculation”. It is what has happened, and what is happening.
And for me, I do not need to embellish the realities of our real estate, construction and land development industries as I have the comforting knowledge of knowing I can always turn to a prosperous career in free lance writing.
Costa Rica remains “hot” and will get “hotter”. You may want to slap on some sun block and get down here to take advantage of the knowledge you now possess and get in front of all of those that will be coming. There are some opportunities that can be taken advantage of by those that are willing to act upon them, hopefully you will be one of them and we are able to assist you..
Written by Scott MacDougall, an expatriate that has lived and worked in Costa Rica since 1992 and has been specifically involved in the real estate, construction and land development industries during this time. Scott was also a member of the executive management team of Los Sueños Resort & Marina for five years, the largest and most successful resort destination community project in Costa Rica. Scott can be contacted at scott@discovercostarica.com
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