Looking for advice on real estate

Hopefully you haven't heard this a hundred times - apologies if this is the case.

My wife and I are starting to think about having a place in Mexico or Costa rica or that general area (probably Panama or North) and I'm looking for some advice or suggestions on where to look.

We are looking for either a house or just a lot to build on later. Want to be close enough to a beach that we can see it or walk there. Want to be somewhere that has access to a pool and tennis (so probably a development?).

We've been very close to flying down to Manzanillo to look at some property there, but realized it's a little out of our price range.

Is it possible to find a lot in the $100K range for what I've described? Or conversely, where would one look for a 2-3 bedrom condo that has access to those kinds of facilities? So far our online search has covered mostly Panama, parts of Mexico, Costa Rica and Belize.

Any suggestions and advice greatly appreciated.

Kiko should be able to stear you in the right direction if your looking in Mexico. He set roots just south of Guadalajara down in Lake Chapala a while back.

My wife and I have long considered this as well (one day).

WHat you could find is a residence property and put a 5 - 10 lease on. If you really wanted it for long term, put a 99 year lease on it with a nonimal annual escalation on it.

Why shell out all that capital and risk the property. At least with a long term lease, its "yours", but without the liability or risk or foreign property ownership / taxes / seizure. Mexico & Costa Rica offer the least risk, but I'd love to hear from others of thoughts as well. I'd like to learn more about possibilities as well.

Leasing the property only applies to coastal areas,near the border, and ejido or indian land. I would have no hesitation in buying land down here. As to taxes, we paid $65 for our property tax this year.

What I would recommend is renting a home in the area that you're interested in for a week or more. Try to also go during the off season. PV and the other coastal towns are great but during the off season it gets over 100 with the humidity not far behind.

I see you're looking for investment information in Outer Darkness again. You just have too many qualifiers:

2-3 bedroom condo
near beach
tennis courts
pool
dirt lot in a development
under $100koser

While I can't speak for the rest of Central America, there are 100's of 1000's of happy time-share owners in Cabo with the same qualifiers.

If you delete the price qualifier, you can find hundreds of communities which meet your ideals. However, each community has it's own flavor and respective problems. So, I suggest you take your better half and spend six months to a year visiting these developments and decide what you really want.

Here are a couple of links for Baja:

Some Interesting Baja Property Info

Winter Ocean View Villa For Sale in Mexico

Let me know if you decide on a Cabo time share.

Thanks for the info and links. With the $100K, I meant for a lot to then build a house on, not for a condo.

I'm seeing a lot of lots in the $150K range - was just wondering if there was something better out there...

If this is a fresh urge you're feeling, I'd recommend renting for a year, not a week or so.
Get down there, look around, learn what you really like.

Thanks for the advice Kiko - greatly appreciated. I have spent about 20 years of my life living outside of the US, so am not completly out of the loop on that one. On the other hand, the points you raise are excellent and I will make sure my wife in particular is aware of them.

Thanks again,

tim

Come down to Panama.

There's a booming expat community in Boquette. Panama City is raising condos by the thousands. If you want to stay in the $100k range, on a beach... I've seen buildable lots in Panama, on the pacific side beach, for around $1 million. On the atlantic side there are more opportunities and it's more remote. These lots were $100k ten years ago.

While you're doing the 6-month search, here's what you do: come to Panama. Spend the first couple or three nights in one of the nice down-town hotels. Then move to a condo for a week or two. Use Panama City as your base. Half of Panama is only a day trip from Panama City.

Any where you go, spend a couple of weeks as a non-tourist. Open a bank account. Interview a doctor. Look at furniture, fixtures, cars, etc- all the things that you would have to do in real life.

From Panama City, Boquete is a 45 minute flight plus an hour drive. Boquete is in the mountains.

Health Care is a major issue. There are some really exciting things happening in Panama.

Don't leave Colombia off your list. Do some research, make a trip there, and decide for yourself. Don't let anyone scare you away from Colombia. I haven't personally seen any beach lots for sale, but I heard rumors that things there have more potential.

Do some research quickly, and then come to the US Based Latin America Rider Rally. You'll be giving an exposition on investment opportunities.

Yup! I love Panama and have spent quite a bit of time there on business travel - I used to be in shipping and spent a lot of time at Manzanillo - in fact i was in the tower when the first container ship came through.

I'm only familiar with Cartagena in Colombia - again from my days in shipping. At the time, Colombia was not so safe for American businessmen - Cartagena was OK, but some other areas were pretty iffy. Maybe things have changed - I've been out of touch for a while.

Have you looked into Nicaragua? Yes it is not the standard of Panama or Costa Rica, but that's why you can get some pretty deal on lots.
To give you an idea, I have some lots ready to be built, water and electricity on site, ocean view (pacific side), 10 miles from San Juan del Sur and 20 miles from the Costa Rican border, starting at 60 000 dollars.
Honduras is also worth to check out. Good luck with your project. Pif.

Yup Nicaragua is up and coming. I got lot for sales (govt' lease) second row from the beach for $12,000. the beach is located 50 km from managua close to Montelimar and GranPacifica. Probably not what you are looking for but just to give you an idea of the deals that you can find. there are a lot of big developments that will meet your needs.

Here is an article from the NY times regarding real estate in Nicaragua. I run tours and rent bikes. We can set-up a real estate moto tour if you are interested

Thanks for the info guys - I was a little reluctant about nicaragua because I felt it might not be as politically stable as Mexico. Maybe that's old information though - the NYTimes article certainly suggests so.

I can say that all your comments have certainly helped in convincing my wife to slow down and not jump at the first great thing. A lot of research going on right now...

A new question: Have any non-Mexican citizens on this board actually sold any property they owned in mexico.

I'm starting to hear some stories that it's easy to buy, but hard to sell - as in getting whacked by all kinds of taxes etc. when you want to sell.

Anybody know about this - either for Mexico or for some of the other coutnries mentioned?

Purchaser: $500-1500 to set up corporate ownership

Seller:

10% of gross to Real Estate Agent

30% of capital gain for taxes to Mexico. So don't accept a receipt for half the value of the property thinking the seller is doing you a favor. Annual taxes are extremely low no matter what you pay for the property.

Not sure about US tax. And, there might be ways around the 30%. That is what your Mexican tax attorney is for.

Excellent - thx

We didn't do any of the things everyone says to do when relocating to a new country. We came to San Miguel de Allende in Feb 05, fell in love with it and came back in May and bought a small house because we didn't find the big house we really wanted.

We came down in Dec 05, after selling some property in GA and, while in the process of fixing up our little place, we found a place we really liked nearer to el Centro and bought that and put our little place on the market. We sold it within 3 months and made a nice profit and had no problems.

None of this probably applies to you since you want to be near the beach and you can't own the property directly but I thought I would pass it along.

I agree that it would be a good idea to come down and check it out for a few months to see if you really want to live as an expat but I think if you jack around too long, you'll talk yourself out of it. I'm so glad we did this, I can't tell you. The weather here is great year round, it never gets over 90 and it's so dry that it feels more like 80, and it never freezes. The Mexicans are wonderful, the expat community here is great, there's art openings every week, wonderful restaurants, and good entertainment all year round.

For a biker, this is some of of the best riding in the world. Yesterday (Friday) a friend and I rode over to the little town of Xichu and ate lunch, then through Victoria to Tierra Blanca to a place called El Salto where they launch hang gliders and parasails, for a couple of Michaladas before riding back to SMA. We covered about 200 miles of great roads, both paved and dirt, ate great food, met nice people, and had a wonderful time. . . in 200 miles.

Bud came over to my house on Thursday and said, "Let's go for a ride tomorrow." That's all the planning it took.

The great thing about living in Mexico is that, as soon as you let out the clutch, you're riding in Mexico. None of that two day trip to the border, fighting with customs, then riding another day to where you want to ride.

I've never been to Panama but I have been to Costa Rica and I found it very beautiful but it didn't seem to have much culture. The few artists I saw there were not from there. What I like about Mexico is the culture and the artisans. Want a Virgin of Guadalupe carved, no problem? There's three guys on the road to Delores that can do a beautiful job. Need special cantara canales (water spouts) for your house, no problem? There's places all around that can make anything you need.

To sum up, if you've got the itch, scratch it. I sold my house in GA (in 06) for what I asked for it. If I had waited another year I would have lost 25% and if I had waited two years I probably couldn't have sold it. You never know what's coming down the road.

A timely post! As I do more research, I am starting to talk myself out of it. Almost everyone is advsing me against it...

I think we'lll take some vacations first, look around and then decide.

Culturally beig out of the US won't be an issue for me - like i said earlier, I 've lived outside of the US as much as I have in the US.

I didn't realize you had lived outside the US before. That being the case, you should have no problems. The way things appear to be imploding in the US I'm sure glad I got out when I did.

Bingo! Absolutely don't buy until you rent for a while.....in most places the RE is very expensive for anything approaching your standards, but monthly rental is cheap, in all but the real tourist areas.