How much you end up paying for your construction depends mainly on two factors: the kind of materials you’re using and on the location of the construction. Representatives of Zürcher Arquitectos said that, for example, construction in Guanacaste these days is about 25% to 30% more expensive than construction in the Central Valley. As a ballpark estimate, good residential construction in the Central Valley costing between $800 and $1,200 a square meter, depending on the furnishings and the quality of the structure. That puts a modestly-outfitted, 150-square-meter home at about $120,000 in the Central Valley, and more elsewhere.

In a strange twist on cost structures, your biggest expense will come from materials, while labor – most of it poor Nicaraguan immigrants – remains cheap. This is the opposite of the typical situation in developed countries. Recently, the cost of structural steel and concrete skyrocketed, though that pressure is relenting somewhat as the price of oil comes down and global demand slows. Labor costs will also remain low for the foreseeable future due to the same macroeconomic pressures.

Finally, your costs will probably be higher if you build in a rural area where you have to add public works infrastructure yourself. Top quality electricity infrastructure (poles, power lines, transformers) will run you about $35,000, or $22,000 without the transformers. Here it might be a good idea to try to share the cost with some neighbors. If you’re building on a lot that’s in a development, the developer should already have put in the power infrastructure. Also for rural living, figure in the cost of digging a septic field or adding some other sort of water treatment facility to your property.