It’s time to tell you about the home improvement quote. We passed the point of no return on our purchase of House #3. The decision could be responsibly taken after a favorable home inspection report. We decided to get serious about getting a formal home improvement quote from the architect and contractor who had visited…
Estimated Reading Time: 8 Minutes You can use this 21-step Costa Rica property buying guide to make a relaxed purchase without making any mistakes. You have visited all the countries that were on your due diligence list before moving to or retiring in Costa Rica. Now you are visiting to look to purchase a property…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes Are we ready now to make an offer on a home? It was on our first day of searching for a Costa Rican home that we found an interesting one. There were more than a few red flags waving at us if we wanted to make an offer on House…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes This was the first day of our home search as “potential Costa Rican homebuyers.” We loaded up with GoDutch realtor, Isabelle Jones, and headed out to meet the other GoDutch realtor, Brooke Bishop. The plan was to start our home search with three homes that Brooke had arranged to view…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes Let me tell you a bit about our housing search. For a while, Ivo has been subtly steering me toward talking about our experiences buying and renovating our house here. Until now, I have been trying to avoid it by talking about anything and everything else. But now I am…
Estimated Reading Time: 7 Minutes When buying a property, you will want to know how much the closing cost is, right? You just found this absolutely gorgeous property in Costa Rica and you want to purchase it. Before you start negotiating the purchase price, you would like to know what the final cost of that…
Do you know it’s important to do a final walk-through before closing? Today’s the day, you have almost made it! Today is the closing date on this beautiful Costa Rican home you are buying. Now you are only hours away from “home sweet home”. Your home inspector came up with a perfect home inspection report.…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes We hit on 3 more challenges before closing on our property. I apologize for the length of time that has passed since my last blog in late February. I wanted to let some time go by to digest our house purchase, before writing the last chapter, and wrap up our…
Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes I recommend everyone to create a moving plan. Everything you read online might be inaccurate. That is why it is vital for you to stay on top of your moving plan; because I can tell you from recent first-hand experience about requirements, policies and laws nonetheless their enforcement is all…
Estimated Reading Time: 8 Minutes The builder and we had agreed on closing in February. We only have to make the final payment for our amazing property in Costa Rica. As soon as we wire the payment, we can proceed with closing the deal. Of course, these situations almost always have hurdles. The best…
Wrapping up a purchase process is even more important than shopping for a property. Maybe you have read John Doe’s first blog, “A big step in the property purchase process” in December last year. We are now 1 month later and time for wrapping it up. John described the initial stages of their property purchase…
Estimated Reading Time: 4 Minutes Have you heard of fog protection for your home? Probably not! What if a burglar could not see anything, and could therefore not steal anything? Once in a while, like almost every day, we see on the news or read in the local papers that another burglary has happened. The…
by Ivo Henfling Every year I get surprised emails from interested people asking to see Costa Rica real estate during the Christmas holidays. They act surprised when they find out our real estate offices close down a couple of days before Christmas until after the 2nd week of January of the next year. Thousands of…
John Doe and his wife finally decided to make the big step in the property purchase process. This is the real story of a husband and wife who are purchasing property in Costa Rica FSBO. They bought directly from the real estate developer. Nonetheless, they wanted to tell us all about the purchase process they…
Is there a reason everyone thinks a realtor is on call 24/7? I really don’t understand why anyone would call about a property at 11:00 pm or 6:00 am. Do you? When you are a Costa Rica real estate agent, you seem to be on call, just like a doctor or a priest in the…
I am not a political person, I cannot even vote in the US, but I want you to vote for Obama. Some might smile at this comment and some might hate me for it. That’s why I generally stay away from politics, religion, and issues that should not be mixed in business in my blogs.…