The first thing to ask yourself is why you want to be in Costa Rica. Vacation? Sabbatical? Change of pace? Retirement? Moving your family? From there, ask yourself how long you will stay in Costa Rica. Five years? Ten? Twenty? Maybe just a month out of the year? Or the rest of your life? The

Pros Short-term cost: In the short and even medium term, renting is obviously much cheaper than building or buying. Those other options require you to have either thousands of dollars in liquid assets, or a down payment and good enough credit to take out a mortgage. To rent, you only need a deposit worth one

As a renter, you are pretty well protected under Costa Rican law. Rental agreements are legally binding whether they’re verbal or written, although it’s recommended that you get a written contract, translated into your native language if you’re not comfortable with Spanish. No matter what it says in the contract, a renter has a right

As mentioned before, there’s certainly a gringo rate in the rental market, just like there’s a gringo price for real estate. The gringo rate, however, generally restricts itself to two circumstances. First, the location – places like Escazú are more expensive across the board (restaurants, furniture, clothing, everything). The second is tourism – a lot of landlords in touristy

No matter what kind of rental you get, it will either be furnished or unfurnished. These are loaded terms, and don’t mean the same thing they do in the United States or Canada. For one thing, unfurnished apartments are completely unfurnished. That means they don’t even include basic appliances like stoves and refrigerators. Furnished apartments,

Where you are looking to live will make a great deal of difference in your rental options, both in terms of cost and availability. The rental market, like the real estate market in general, can be uneven, nontransparent, and prone to exaggerations of price. There are plenty of deals, but also a good amount of

By Martin Rice Lots of folks seem interested in building a house in Costa Rica. My wife and I have done this twice and thought that maybe knowing about some of our experiences might prove useful to others. Because we’re focusing on building here, I won’t talk about buying land. I’ll assume that you’ve already