The growing popularity of Costa Rica as one of the most popular retirement havens in the world has given birth to an industry of retirement related businesses. The first being retirement tours. When I started in the retirement tour business almost 30 years ago there were no retirement tours in Costa Rica. There wasn’t even a book about retiring here until I wrote one in 1988. By popular demand in 1996 I conducted my first retirement/relocation tour. Since then my tour business has grown by leaps and bounds. In the process my monthly tour has been evolved and improved to the point to where it is today. The majority of the improvements have been made as a result of my clients feedback and suggestions. Originally, I didn’t include visits to homes on my tours. However, everyone who moves to Costa Rica has to have a place  to live, so I now include a carefully selected cross section of homes and properties for all budgets. This way my clients gain a perspective on the housing situation here, thus enabling them to make the right decision about where to live or buy. Another good thing I did was to obtain license from the Costa Rican Tourism Institute  (ICT) to legally conduct my tours here. The idea is to protect my clients and guarantee the high quality of my tours. This is a tough two-year battle with lot of screening and background checks. NOT everyone who applies is granted a license to operate legally here. Unfortunately, enforcement is lax and there are companies offering tours in Costa Rica with NO licenses or regulations to protect their clients. Due to the overwhelming success of my tours other less qualified Americans have tried to imitate them but with little success. The newest endeavor to try and cash in on Costa Rica’s hot real estate market are real estate tours. No license is required to sell real estate here nor are there any tours of this type which are legally sanctioned. In general, what you have are rogue tour operators and Johnny Come Latelys sponsoring these so-called real estate tours. The agents have NO real estate license, try to prey on their naïve countrymen and neophytes, are often be tourists without residency status, have only lived here  short time, don’t speak the language or know much about the culture, are here to make a fast buck, are wet behind the ears,  have never been in the tour business and are most likely working illegally. Would you buy real estate form a tourist or from a tour operator in your home country? Not if you have a an ounce of brains. Don’t leave your brain on the plane when you come here.