Costa Rica Property | 8 things I wish I had known before I bought!

Hello, my name is Richard Lacey. Today's video is about eight

things

I

wish

I had

known

about Costa Rica before purchasing here. In the end, I have a bonus for you number nine, which I think is the number one reason why I really love living here in Costa Rica. If you like today's video, subscribe below and just click on the alerts so you get notified and next time I produce another video, so we'll jump right into number one, I think that's the most important thing. it's about location, they always say location, location, location and it's probably half a dozen nice coastal towns where you might want to consider living on the west coast, on the east coast, on the Caribbean side, there are some nice little towns, but no it is.

It really is a very popular place to live permanently and between each of those different beach towels there is a huge difference in prices in amenities in lifestyle quality of life half an hour south of where we are now the prices are much lower but you are living on a dirt road a proper supermarket is half an hour away and it's a different lifestyle if you're in the south of Dominical it's absolutely beautiful but there's no real town center you just have a big highway long and then many small communities along. the way people love it and a lot of people live there and are very happy but the number one point is you have to keep in mind that there are a lot of different places if you're not sure it would be good to come hire a car and just Travel for a couple of weeks stopping at half a dozen different places until you find a place you really like, Liberia's number two airport, which is why everyone seems to think there is only one airport in the country, which is San Jose.

His name is Juan Santa Maria, which is by far the largest and is in the capital city of San Jose. San Jose is not a nice place. I say that with a lot of love, I lived there for eight years or so and I had a It was very fun when I was there, but it's not really a place you would want to spend any time in, either as a tourist or even as alive as I worked there, so for me it was important at the time, but now I'm very happy. living outside the beaches, um, but most people seem to end up flying to san jose and then you have to spend the night in san jose and it's a hassle for me.

Liberia airport is in Guanacaste which is on the northwest coast great for beaches so you have Cocos 20 minutes from Tamarindo where I am an hour away and many other coastal towns are very close they fly to all major hubs in North Ame

rica

so for me if you can fly to Liberia I would say it's much better because you have a very short trip once you arrive so you spend your first night here staying where you want to be without extending your stay and another day, so liberia airport for me is a hidden secret about this country, so coast.

Ricans love their administration and their ticking boxes and their pieces of paper and it's probably the biggest annoyance. The biggest complaint I get from people who move here is simply the amount of paperwork if you want to open a bank if you want to pay the electricity bills. in your name or you want your internet to work faster or they love your paperwork so they will give you a list of

things

like this that you need to take to the bank to open your account so you diligently leave and you get your list of things and you walk in there very proudly and present your folder with exactly what they asked for and then they go, well, actually today Tuesday, so we also need these other pieces of paper and the only solution is to keep a huge smile on your face and know lovely and say absolutely I'll be right back with all those and make friends with the people behind the counter because they have a lot of discretion and it sounds strange because in my other office in Spain they don't These are the requirements and you do it or you don't go anywhere here, they seem to be more flexible, so if they really like you, they will make things easier for you, so if you come in and say no, last week you told me that.

I just needed these why do you tell me this and that and then they get nervous and then you are lost forever, so once you lose your patience in any administrative situation, you have lost the game completely, you just have to stay charming, say absolutely and get it and it will work and then once it's done, I mean, now you know, having been here a few years, I never feel that way because I have my connections and I have everything. Set it up to be a little tricky when you first get here, but you just have to try hard and like I say, keep a smile on your face and everything will work out.

Number four, speaking Spanish, you absolutely don't. You don't need to learn Spanish if you're going to live here. I have friends who have been here for 25 years and they don't speak a word of Spanish and they are fine and they have their friends and they can go. in the bank and they can get things done, I think if you learn, even if it's the smallest amount, I think you will be richly rewarded. The locals really appreciate it, even if you can just say good morning and can I have a beer? and you know, how are you today?

How is your wife? They really appreciate it and I think it will really broaden your experience and the richness of the interaction that you have with the locals here, so I would definitely recommend if you could learn a little bit of Spanish, you know, when you first come, you learn an hour or two of lessons a week and then try to talk about it when you go out and I think it will really improve the way you feel about country number five, the rainy season. It's not as rainy now, this comes down a bit to where you choose to live in the country because Costa Rica has a lot of different microclimates so if you're in the southern Sunday area the floor is more like Jurassic. park, so you have leaves that are this big and it's jungle and rainforest.

Now the rainforest gets its name because it's very, very rainy, so if you're in the southern part of the country you'll probably see it four times. It rains more than in Guanacaste, which is a dry tropical planet, so where we are here we receive very, very intense rains, where it will rain most of the day, probably for a month, month and a half of the year in October, November, then we will have a completely dry period, which goes from Christmas to Easter, where we see no rain and then the rest of the year you may see some afternoon showers, so even when it is called rainy season, you have beautiful clear mornings and then probably cloudy over a heavy rain mid afternoon until late afternoon and then it clears up and you start again the next day with a beautiful clear day so I really love the rainy season.

I was here last October and it poured rain. It rained a lot then and it was very nice, I liked it, I really did and things seem to drain incredibly fast here so you'll see the rain comes down like never before for an hour and then it clears up completely and then the roads are dry, it's really amazing, so I wouldn't be discouraged from coming in what is called the rainy season. The other thing is that when you look at the weather forecast, if you type tamarind, it will show rain. It rains, it rains, it rains all day and I know for a fact that it doesn't, and what happens is that there are only a couple of weather monitoring stations in the country, so if you type tamarind, it may be extracting the weather pattern from somewhere far away. land that has a completely different microclimate and it's raining so I say don't take the weather forecast with a pinch of salt and I would definitely come and visit in the rainy season because I think it's beautiful there and everything is so green and lush and I think you will be rewarded with the number six, actually the number six and the number seven are related.

Number six is ​​to choose your real estate agent carefully in Costa Rica. There are no requirements for anyone to take any exams or courses to be a real estate agent. You can just wake up one day and call yourself a real estate agent and everyone does it, taxi drivers, gardeners, you know, the cliché is that when you fail at everything else you become a real estate agent, so be very careful because everyone will know to a cousin who is selling land. that's a real bargain and don't get caught up in something because you think you're getting a bargain, choose your real estate agent carefully, choose a name you recognize so that if something goes wrong later you have recourse, There are voluntary bodies for real estate agents. doing courses and getting qualifications and there is also an ethics body related to that so if someone doesn't follow the rules they can be sanctioned so please do your research before you choose who you are going to work with and that is related to number seven, which is bringing your intelligence with you, so if, for example, you are buying

property

back home, then you already have your lawyer, you already know the areas and you also have a group of friends that you trust and talk to.

If you look at things and give yourself a little advice, you end up making a good decision because you have good, solid independent advice from people you trust. Now, when you come to Costa Rica, you don't necessarily have them and I've seen it. Shocking situations where people do things they would never normally do at home, for example, send a hundred thousand dollar deposit to the real estate agent they just met on the beach and then guess what you know, it all goes horribly wrong or you meet someone who has a friend. who is selling a piece of land and then that same friend recommends you to a lawyer who might be related to the person who is selling the land and then when you do the inspection it is the lawyer who recommends the inspector and suddenly you find yourself in a loop situation of people who have an interest in an outcome, whereas if you choose your lawyer and choose your real estate agent independently, even if it is your Costa Rican girlfriend who suddenly becomes the land in Costa Rica, then you still have your independent lawyer who is doing all the checks and doing all the due diligence some reason why people don't do that here, you know, they just get carried away with their own vacation and it's all sunshine and beautiful beaches and they just forget the real concepts basics, the basic checks and independent checks and advice that you would get at home, so I think that's a very important thing to keep in mind.

Number eight is crime. Crime exists in Costa Rica like everywhere and you should just take common sense precautions. Violent crime. Murders are extremely rare. Know? every few years on the beaches you hear about one in the headlines because it's so rare, but you know I'm wandering the beach at two in the morning and I don't even think about it. I think that in general crime is very low, the type of crime you commit here is if you leave suitcases in your car and go to the beach or if you have a laptop on the seat or something visible, your car could be broken into if you buy a house on a hill and you lock it up and leave it for three months where you could get robbed, so that's really it, I mean you don't hear much about it, but you have to be careful again, don't get too carried away for being a beach and I think everything is here, but as long as you take common sense precautions, I think it wouldn't be a problem for you, so if you liked what we've been talking about today, subscribe below and don't forget to hit like and also click on alerts to get information about the next one.

Try to do one a week, try to keep up, so thank you very much for listening. Now, bonus number nine. This is the number one reason I love. Costa Rica and they are the locals, the Costa Ricans are very friendly, they always have a big smile on their face, they welcome foreigners, they are happy that you are coming to their country and they are very proud of their country, they will tell you everything, they are very helpful. I had a flat tire at two in the morning in a bad area of ​​San José, once the next car behind me stops, takes out the jack and changes my tire. and that's not something you would necessarily see in England, so I think the people are really lovely here and that goes back a little bit to the point of learning Spanish, that if you learn Spanish then you will get revenge.

More reward from the locals, but I think the locals are one of the main reasons why I decided to settle here because I have Costa Rican friends and they enrich your day, they always have a smile on their face and they are always happy and they are always smiling and that That's all for today so thank you very much for listening and we will be in touch for the next video.