Wire Transfers, Escrow and an Investment Idea

When you buy a piece of property in Costa Rica, you will likely wire money from your home country bank to a Costa Rica escrow service. This can be quick and easy, or it can be a major pain in the neck. Life used to be so easy before terrorism… and drug running… and global economic crisis… and climate change and…

Funny thing, we used to find things to complain about, even before all this wonkiness in the world. Had we only known then what we know now.

It has gotten a bit dicey moving money around this planet. There is the off chance that you might be laundering some drug money, setting up to fund an attack of some kind, or generally not doing things just right, so there are safeguards.

For years we have used a rather casual system here in Costa Rica by which lots of land was bought & sold. Buyers generally put 10% of the purchase price of a piece of property into escrow while we real estate guys and the lawyers went about being duly diligent making sure that the property was what it claimed to be.  That money was put into what we called an “escrow” account.

Well, as it turns out, those escrow accounts were anything but actual escrow accounts.  They were simply

Read more

Talk Show, Episode 13

This is our mid-year review of real estate in the Southern Pacific Zone of Costa Rica. With tourism numbers up 11% in Central America, Ben and Rod discuss how this trend points to a brighter future for The Zone. Costa Rica Real Estate – Talk Show 13 by GuysInTheZone

Think Outside The Box (Property in Costa Rica)

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”  – Steve Jobs

I bet your wondering how that idea relates to real estate in Costa Rica?  Well, simply put… if there was ever a time for property owners and real estate agents in this marketplace to be “innovative,” it’s now.

LISTING IS ONLY THE FIRST STEP

Here’s how listing a property usually unfolds in The Zone—

  • Step One: Call up The Guys and set up an appointment to preview the property.
  • Step Two: Determine if an Open Listing or a Modified Exclusive Listing is appropriate for you.
  • Step Three: Wait for The Guys to bring you a buyer.
We all need to think outside the box...

The problem is that Step Three is taking much longer than most Sellers anticipated.

LOOKING BEYOND PRICE

We all know reducing the list price is the easiest way to increase property showings, offers, and sales.  However, if your property is in the ballpark of current market value and it is being shown but not selling, there could be other reasons limiting the sale.

Here at the Guys office, we continue to ask ourselves what can we do to speed up the sales process?  At the risk of sounding trite, one answer is: “think outside the box.”  Here’s an example of how The Guys have applied this idea.

Ben started his Costa Rica blog in 2003 (before many of us knew what a blog was)

Read more