Buying a home gives you more opportunity to pick a place that fits your taste, as well as to make changes as you wish. When renting, you are beholden to a landlord. When owning, you are not. There are a few different degrees of flexibility when buying a finished home. One, if you buy the

Owning property means that you have to take charge of its upkeep. That means paying condo fees, hiring local help, or taking on the work yourself. It also means paying taxes. Fortunately, none of these things are really costly in Costa Rica. Condo fees won’t exceed $100 a month unless you’re living in a complex

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,