- Written by Christopher Howard
Pros You pick the design: Unlike buying or renting an existing home, building your own allows you to truly live in the home of your dreams, since you’re the one who designs it. Save money: Building a home is generally cheaper than buying an existing one because the cost doesn’t include a cut for the
- Written by Christopher Howard
By building your own home, you take on significantly more risk: The risk that materials costs will go up during the project, the risk that you’ll get involved with a legal dispute, the risk that it won’t come out the way you want it to. Once again, the money you save from building instead of
- Written by Christopher Howard
If time is a factor for you, building is not the best option. In addition to shopping for land, you have to do permitting, hire a contractor, supervise the construction, and then handle all the procedures for getting utilities hooked up. All this – if you do it right – often takes upwards of two
- Written by Christopher Howard
Many people build their own home in Costa Rica simply because there aren’t any acceptable ones for sale in the area of their choice. Despite the building boom that’s been sweeping the country for the last decade or so, many popular areas still lack a significant volume of product to chose from. Still, this can’t
- Written by Christopher Howard
Building your own home is more expensive, in the short-term, than renting. However, like buying a home, you can think of it as an investment if you plan to live in it for long enough. Also, building a home is generally even a better investment than buying because it costs less: When you buy into
- Written by Christopher Howard
Pros Return on investment: The money you pay into your property stays there, and if you own it long enough, it’s an asset that will increase in value. The same is true when you build, but not when you rent. Ownership: Owning your own property means you can do what you like with it, within
- Written by Christopher Howard
Buying a finished property means you’ll be sinking a sizable chunk of money into a relatively illiquid asset in a developing country. This means a couple of things. First, that you can look on this outlay of resources as an investment. In the long-run, you will probably sell the property for more than you bought