Costa Rica Mortgages - Expensive from start to finish.

Scott Oliver - February 2007

I have been helping a British friend and an investment client of mine (with excellent credit) to obtain a mortgage in Costa Rica to help buy a beautiful, newly built luxury home in Santa Ana.

He and his wife are legal residents of Costa Rica and we inquired with five solid, established banks, two of whom I already do a lot of business with in Costa Rica and the differences in their terms are huge.

The 'indifference' in the application process for a mortgage in Costa Rica is also hard to believe.

In a country where banks will take 2% - 3% 'commission' of the mortgage amount, many of them didn't even bother to return our emails regarding a US$300K mortgage over a 25 year period.

How many of you would answer a simple email to try and earn $9,000?

One Costa Rican bank offered a 25 year mortgage with fixed interest (over the first five years) at 7.75% one at 9% one at 9.25% and another at 10.25%. On a $300K mortgage that difference of 2.5% per annum is an enormous sum of money.

And according to BankRate.com, the average 30 year fixed rate mortgage in the USA is just 5.75% and in case you ask, there are no "interest only" mortgages that I know of in Costa Rica.

After initially emailing five of the most established banks, about two weeks later, it came down to a choice between two of the private banks and they made the decision an easy one.

One bank (with whom I have banked for seven years) has yet to return a single phone call, and the other always did. The same bank that did not return my calls returned my emails with the automatic message saying that it "was deleted without being read."

Impressive huh?

Within the next two weeks we'll reveal which Costa Rican bank was chosen and as you can imagine, we chose the bank that:

• A: Offered the most attractive mortgage terms and
• B: Was communicative and cooperative in helping us through the mortgage application process.

A radical idea I know but you've heard me say it before, if at all possible, we would encourage you to explore any and all financing options in the USA before resorting to applying for a mortgage in Costa Rica.

Written by Scott Oliver, author of How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa and Costa Rica's Guide To Making Money Offshore.

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