Rudy Matthews of Costa Rica Retirement Vacation Properties shows an Atenas hillside home site to Lanna Mingo, a Colorado woman who is considering making the move to Costa Rica.
THE NEW WORLD
Christopher Howard may be the Christopher Columbus of the Americans-to-Costa Rica movement. He discovered his new world and moved to the Western Hemisphere’s second oldest democracy in the late 1980s from San Francisco.
He began his guru career by writing “The Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica” in the early 1990s. “In those days, it attracted a lot of eccentric-type expatriates,” he said of his earlier efforts.
Howard has been updating his book ever since, and using it as a springboard for tours. Seven gringos, including a reporter and the Lynches, participated in one of Howard’s more recent relocation and retirement tours.
Guests spend a couple of days in intensive seminar sessions, learning about everything from containerized shipping to BUPA, a health care plan aimed at expats.
They get a whirlwind tour of sample residential properties ranging from the $750-per-month rental home that the Lynches took to high-rise condos in the ritzy Escuzu enclave that go for $500,000-plus.
Both Costa Rica and Panama have gradually acquired a safe-haven status in the minds of a growing number of Americans, even though both have a higher rate of petty theft and break-ins than most Americans are accustomed to.
The fact is that it would be tough to travel through Costa Rica for even a few days without meeting a few Norte Americanos.
While Mexico has more U.S. retirees than any foreign other country, Howard notes that it is a nation of 100 million. The Association of Residents of Costa Rica, a nonprofit expat group, estimates that there are at least 50,000 U.S. citizens — or about 1.2 percent of the Costa Rica’s population — living there, many of them from Florida.
Howard hooked up with a real estate firm specializing in selling property to Americans: Costa Rica Retirement Vacation Properties. One of its key agents is Rudy Matthews, who hails from Tampa.
“Most people who come here, they are looking for a less expensive style of living, which is still here,” Matthews said. “What is driving people out of Florida are the property taxes and the insurance, whether they are going to the Carolinas or to Costa Rica.”
While it was once true that a beachfront home for $40,000 could be had in Costa Rica, only countries like Ecuador or Nicaragua could provide those prices today.
“Those days are long gone, but if you are selected and give yourself time to look around, you can still get a reasonable value,” said Matthews, the Tampa Realtor.
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