Costa Rica Land Prices Surging Higher - November 2007
Vanessa Loaiza N.
BANHVI (Banco Hipotecario de la Vivienda) is unable to pay for lots for poor people to build on in the San José and Heredia jurisdictions. Prices for lots are not affordable for poor people living in these six counties or 'cantons' and the bank gives preference to families that have lots to build on. A 120 square meter lot in Belén and Heredia currently costs around 5.3 million colones or US$10,707. (See Bancio Nacional de Costa Rica website here for currency exchange rate). The high price of the land in six cantons of the Great Metropolitan Area (GMA) stops Banco Hipotecario de la Vivienda (BANHVI) from building houses for families with low income.
The high priced cantons are Coronado, Santa Ana, Escazú and Goicochea in San José as well as Flores and Belen in Heredia. In those jurisdictions the land market price per square meter is between US$75 and $2,000 (37,875 Colones and 1,010,000 Colones) Moreover, the regulated plans for the municipality require that the smallest lots to be developed should be 130, 150 and 180 square meters (There are 10.76 square feet to one square meter). The regulations for all these areas are above the 120 mt2 that BANHVIA allows for the purchases for a house. For example in San Vicente de Belen, a single 120mts lot costs 5.3 million Colones, an amount that is above the maximum of 3 million that the bank will pay for a social development. The same applies in Santa Ana, where the Mayor, Gerardo Oviedo, accepted that the price of the land, between $75 and (37,875 Colones) to $1,700 (858,500 Colones) per square meter 'is too high' for these kinds of projects.
Meanwhile, there are 36 families in Flores that have to evacuate the area by orders of the Health Ministry because they live in a flood risk area. However, there are no affordable lots to develop. The say that, the cheapest lot costs $150 per square meter (75,750 Colones) and the coffee farm owners are trying to sell their lands to developers that will build for the medium and medium-high class people, so they can sell the land at a higher price, says the Mayor Jenny Alfaro. In Alajuelita and Desamparados, cantons where the lands are cheaper, the Mayors of these two places have already stated the conditions for the construction of new housing projects for poor people. The Mayors, Tomás Poblador from Alajuelita and Maureen Fallas from Desamparados said that they will approve the new urbanization building if all the poor families that live in the area benefit. A lot of poor families from San Jose Metropolitan area came to these cantons during prior governments. There are 3,000 families without homes and 1,500 families living in risky zones, so 'it would not be responsible to solve problems in another areas when we haven't solved them in our own', said Fallas. Restrictions: Ennio Rodríguez, BANHVI's manager, admits that the drop in interest rates and the pressure from foreign investors forces land prices higher in San Jose and its suburbs. Therefore the Bank prefers to develop projects of social interest on the lots that are privately owned by families. During the first ten months of the year, BANHVI formalized 9,746 bonuses and the 75% (7,297) corresponded to the family groups that owned the land. The price of the solution was 4,060,000 Colones. On the other hand, if BANHVI buys the land, the complete solution price is 7 million Colones. In these cases, the bank has preferred to buy lands in rural areas such as Perez Zeledón, San Carlos and Pococí where the price for land is lower.
Cheaper Obvious Differences: Between May, 8th, 2006 and November 7th this year, BANHVI formalized 16,189 bonuses of social interest. From that amount, 3,485 bonuses were given to Perez Zeledón, Pococí and San Carlos. According to Ennio Rodríguez, this situation has something to do with the demand of housing in these areas and the lower land price. A Matter of Saving: For example, in 2006 the Bank financed a house with a bonus in Los Guido de Desamparados. The solution there cost 7.6 million Colones and from that amount 3.4 million was the price of the lot. In the same year, the Bank financed another buying of a lot and house in Florencia de San Carlos. The total cost was 5 million Colones, the price of the land being only 1.5 million.
Land Prices Going Higher: According to Rodriguez, the high price of the land, forces them to promote housing solutions in condominiums. Our thanks to Vanessa Loaiza N. and our friends at La Nación - Costa Rica's largest Spanish circulation newspaper for their permission to summarize their articles in English.
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