Costa Rica Real Estate Prices in the Face of the Global Crunch - Where do they stand in March 2009?

Scott Oliver - March 2009

The Costa Rica real estate market is a difficult one to read. Without an accurate and comprehensive Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system nobody can tell you that the overall market is up or down by an exact amount - we are all making educated guesses.

But in living here and dealing with hundreds of transactions per year with numerous Realtors, dozens of developers and real estate attorneys and discussing the business of real estate with them every single day of the week, we would hope that our estimates are more accurate than most.

Are we asking you to trust what we say and ask no questions? Of course not! Trust and verify the information when you're here visiting properties and, remember that in most areas you - the buyer - have the upper hand at the moment. This general information is simply a basic guideline as to what is happening at the moment in different areas...

There are isolated fire sales and certainly sellers are more willing to listen to offers but once again I can confirm that none of the experienced developers with a proven track record of delivering a quality product that we recommend on this site have lowered their prices.

There are areas in Costa Rica which have seen more prices weakness than others and over the next few weeks, we'll publish a series of regional market updates which will give a fairly clear indication - although admittedly not 'scientific fact' - of which real estate markets are holding steady and which markets are seeing declines.

There is no over supply of quality real estate in the Central Valley area, quite the contrary, and the fact that a few projects have been put on hold means that in Santa Ana for example, which has seen significant job growth with numerous multi-nationals moving into the area and hiring more staff, we do not presently have enough completed, quality real estate for sale and that is also helping to keep prices very stable indeed.

On the other hand, tourism to Guanacaste has suffered the most and with very little other business in the area, I would expect that our investigation will show that prices have fallen more in Guanacaste because of that but, this price weakness will probably move South down the Pacific coast before it starts affecting the more resilient Central Valley area.

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.