💭 Thinking about making a move to the beautiful and tropical country of Costa Rica? One of the biggest decisions you’ll face is whether to 👷‍♂️ build your own home or 💸 buy a pre-existing one. 🏠 To help guide you in this process, we talked to Dan, an experienced construction 🛠 expert who has spent 15 years building homes and hotels in Costa Rica. 🇨🇷 He knows the ins and outs of building in the country, but also cautions ⚠️ that there are unique considerations to take into account. ✍️

“People build houses all the time, but they’re going to be a little bit different than what people are used to in North America.”

If you’re considering living in Costa Rica, it’s important to do your research and gain a good understanding of the local real estate market before making any major decisions. If you haven’t spent a significant amount of time in the country, it’s best to wait at least a year to get over the “honeymoon” period and avoid any potentially costly mistakes. However, if you’re a seasoned Costa Rica traveler who has been researching locations, speaking to lawyers and experts, and are familiar with the Spanish language, then building your own home may be a viable option for you. With careful planning and consideration, you can create your dream home in this beautiful country.

In conclusion, if you’re looking to move to Costa Rica and are deciding whether to build your own home or buy a pre-existing one, it’s important to carefully weigh the options and do your research. Dan, an experienced construction expert, offers valuable insights into the unique considerations of building in Costa Rica. Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or new to the country, taking the time to understand the local real estate market is crucial. With patience and careful planning, you can make your dream home a reality in this beautiful tropical country.

What Was Said In the Video

Hey guys, I’m michael alan and I’m from the real estate section of TravelCostaRicaNow.com. Welcome to our new channel. Our channel is going to have a lot of information on real estate. We actually already have a lot of information on here, but they are in playlists. We’re adding new content all the time and growing it slowly, but there will be a lot of great information on here. We would appreciate a subscribe to help us grow this channel because I think if you’re thinking about moving, living, and especially building or doing anything with real estate, this is going to be a great resource.

Dan congratulations, you are the first original content on this channel this morning and for the free sponsorship for the interview. All right guys, Dan has been living here as long as I have, which is about 15 years. He is very experienced in the world of building in Costa Rica. He’s been managing construction sites and helping people build their dream homes, so he knows a thing or two. Anyway, Dan, thank you. We’re going to talk about building in Costa Rica. I just want to start off with a question. All things considered, if everything goes right, is building cheaper than buying something pre-existing?

Well, it can be. I mean, if you find a brand-new finished home that a builder is selling, the builder is making a profit on that, so that part is true. In general, if you can find something already done, it makes your life infinitely easier, and I do recommend it for that. Of course, you do pay for the convenience. If you have a construction project, you’re going to be invested for quite a bit of time, sometimes months, and in some cases, close to a year.

Okay, so let’s take our friend Bob’s house, which you helped build. Sure. How much cheaper was it? I mean, he did that pretty inexpensively, right?

Sure, he did, but he also invested a lot of his own time because he did a lot of landscaping himself and things like that. But yes, if it’s done right, what would be like the percentage difference? You could save yourself 30 or 40 percent, which is huge. Kind of big, right?

Well, but that leads into the next thing. Because not everybody should be considering building.

I don’t recommend it for most people. It’s a lot of work, and not only is it a lot of work, but there are building codes in this country, some of which are very strict. In general, the level of structural construction in this country is good, but everything else, especially from our perspective of what we expect living from North America or Europe, most people are a little bit puzzled by some of the things that get done.

So, who shouldn’t build? And you just said most people.

Well, if you don’t know what you’re doing, then it’s going to come out a lot more expensive than you originally thought. But is it possible if you know a little bit about building?

For instance, if someone hears you and says, “I don’t know anything about building, but I know the house I want. Could this guy, Dan, do it?” Is there a way to do it even if you don’t know anything about building?

Sure, sure. Absolutely. I’m talking about two different things, I guess. There is the person that comes down here by himself and tries to build, and then there’s hiring somebody. Maybe you know a little bit about building, or maybe you don’t, but you want to build your house the way you want it. Well, it depends on what your expectations are, that’s really what it comes down to. Because, I’ve dealt with builders in the states before and they just hand you a catalog, and the house looks like this, and you get to pick out this house, and it’s going to look exactly like that, like something that you picked out of a magazine. And if you’re trying to have that same experience, you’re going to be probably a little bit disappointed, or it’s going to be a lot more expensive than you originally thought.

So then what would be the thought process if someone is a builder in the United States, and they’re thinking, “I’m going to move to Costa Rica, and I know building. I’m a construction guy. I’ve done it.” Is that helpful, or is it a hindrance? Because maybe they’re thinking United States-wise, “They know what it means?”

There are a lot of materials here that generally are not recommended, for example, building out of pine, which most homes in the United States are built out of. It’s framed up with drywall, and things like that. Such as hollow walls. Those styles of construction here, while they will certainly fit into the code, it’s not a code issue because they still use the international building code here. But what you will find is, especially here, we live in the jungle, so this is a very specific climate. Also, our climate is a bit more intense than other parts of Costa Rica. For example, we have five different kinds of bugs that eat wood. That’s number one. We have a huge amount of humidity here, so drywall over time has a tendency to fall apart. It can disintegrate. Things like that. So, somebody who was a builder in the States who’s used to building in that style, which most homes are built in that style, that will be a little bit more difficult to do here. Most things here are built with cement because it resists the elements. They are built in wood, but when they build in wood, in many cases, they just build on the outside, and so you can actually see the studs still. That’s not my favorite, but it has a lot of advantages for this particular climate.

So those are the types of things they’re going to have to consider. I mean, obviously, it’s done. People build houses all the time, but they’re going to be a little bit different than what people are used to in North America. What’s the perfect storm if there is somebody that wants to build?

They’ve got to be knowledgeable in the field to begin with. They obviously have to get a good team together and they would have to find somebody who maybe knew Spanish.

Obviously, Spanish would be like a huge thing, right? Knowing Spanish and how that all works?

There are a lot of things to consider, plus the style of construction here. There’s the way most builders here do things. They don’t do everything. So for most construction, a contractor in the states will say, “I’m going to build you a house,” and he will deliver you a key to a finished product. There are builders here who do that, but the majority of builders actually want to do something they call ‘over-grease,’ which means ‘grey work.’ So that means they will put up the walls and they will put up the roof, and they will pour you a floor, and they can put down tile if you want. And that’s about as far as they go. And then after that, the finishing work, some people do it. But finishing work in North America, we tend to have a very high standard of what we’re looking for. We like the details. We like that. And so, that builder is not the guy who will typically handle the detail work. Then you end up paying somebody more like a furniture maker who can make everything custom, which is very nice in many cases, gives a better product than what we buy in the states, and he can build you exactly what you want. But now you’re dealing with multiple teams to do multiple jobs.

Who’s typically building the big, expensive houses here? Is it big companies? Is it, kind of like the beach homes, the million dollar houses that are being built, that people might buy here? Who’s building those?

Well, big hotels are being built by building companies, but most people who build will not use the big companies. I’ve worked with people who do condos and communities, and they use a system pretty much like what I just described to you. But they will pay one company that just comes in and puts up the walls and the roof, and then they will higher a furniture guy who will come in and build all of the cabinets for them. And then they’ll have a company who comes and does the tile work. So it’s basically broken down more like that. I know we do that in the states to some extent too, but if you’re planning on paying a contractor or even an architect to manage your entire project, architects charge 6% of the construction, just to drop by to your construction site once a week. And I’ve seen many times where an architect will design a beautiful home, but then all the little details that don’t necessarily get seen when the house is done end up being overlooked, and that ends up creating more work for the owner later.

Well, you’re starting to get me to think of this, why would anybody build down here?

You would really have to be somebody who really knows the game, knows Spanish, knows the culture, and knows there are three kinds of plus, a lot of people don’t even want to be here full-time. So, if you don’t want to be here full-time, if you want to be three months a year, six months a year, do yourself a favor and buy yourself a condo. Then you can just close the door, it’s already done, and you have a condo association that takes care of those types of things, you don’t have to worry about it. If you plan on moving here, a lot of people have…it’s interesting, there are a lot of new styles of construction that have become popular in the last few years.

Like, for example, a first-floor master bedroom. Now, there’s nothing wrong with the first-floor master bedroom, but you’re not going to find a lot of Tico style homes with a first-floor master bedroom. For example, so you’re going to have to build that if that’s what you want. Um, what I typically tell people to do, if you’re really serious about building, you want to live here, you want to have your own place, you want to design your dream home, that’s fine. In that, find yourself a property that has a little basic, ugly little house that you can live in, and you can be on-site while the whole work gets done, and then you’re going to basically have to watch the entire job all the way through, and that’s what I recommend.

As for the major differences between building in the United States and building here, or in North America or Europe as opposed to building here, there is some like, “well, here for example, most things are concrete block. They now have a panel system that uses a Styrofoam panel with metal. I use that system as well, but most construction systems here use a lot of concrete and steel. So, the wood here is different than the wood in the states, basically because they don’t have gigantic plantations that are harvesting.

Containers and containers of pine every year, and so the wood here is beautiful and tends to be of very good quality. However, it is more expensive than wood that you would find if you went to Home Depot, for example, and bought all the two by fours for your construction. Most of the work here is done with concrete and steel.

Going back to it, there are several things that we have to contend with when building in Costa Rica. One is the high humidity, which is much higher than you would find in most places. This is huge and many people don’t really understand the impact it has on construction. The bugs that eat the wood are not just termites here. The humidity can cause closed spaces to develop mold, such as under your sink or in closets. Everyone here is very nice about telling you what to do, but as the owner, you need to consider what your construction will look like in a year, two years, or five years, since you are responsible for it, not the guy who did the job.

For example, in areas that rain so much, like here in the rainforest, you need to have a minimum of one meter of overhang around your house on all sides. This is the minimum. They build a lot of low-cost homes here, and the roof often ends at the wall. If you come back a year later, it’s all covered in mold.

The other problem is rain. I mean, the rain is not just humidity. If you don’t know, you might be getting a house – for example, if you buy a pre-existing house, you know, it might have flood problems that you don’t even know about. We’ve seen this actually. If I bought a house like that, I had to deal with a flooding issue where the people would literally just put a little piece of wood in front of the door so that when it rained really hard, the water wouldn’t go in. But that doesn’t solve your problem, and they don’t normally tell you about that. So, what are some of the must things that need to happen for a good experience? Because a lot of times in the whole real estate, people may like the end product, but they don’t really care for the experience. What are some of the must things that need to happen for someone who buys or builds their own house to have a good experience? Well, if you’re a glutton for punishment and want to build your own house, which I don’t recommend, then you have to concentrate on the infrastructure of where you’re building. A lot of homes here, for whatever reason, are actually built below the line of the street. If you’re building below the line of the street, you need to correct that problem one way or the other. Either you need to raise the house or raise the level. It seems like they’re always correcting the land here, but you have to consider drainage, which is very important because we have a very interesting climate here. 80 percent of the time, it works fine, but 20 percent of the time when we get really, really hard rains, all the problems that weren’t corrected when you built the house will come back. That’s when people start getting flooding into their houses.

I know a guy who lives not far from here. He spent four hundred thousand dollars to build his house – beautiful house – but they built it literally at ground level and when it rains really hard, it floods. So, this whole thing is fraught with peril. If you don’t sort it out well, I mean, if you don’t hire a solid contractor – somebody that’s working for you – they could build on not level land from the very start. That’s right, you’re screwed and you’re not going to know that necessarily. And how expensive will that be to fix once you realize that you need to fix it? Because you have to consider something which is different from what we have. If you build in the United States, you will pour your foundation, and a building inspector will come out and say, ‘No, that foundation doesn’t work because you have to have a piece of rebar every six inches running through it,’ and if you don’t have it, they will tell you that. Here, the only thing they care about is that you paid for a building permit. Aside from that, they don’t really care. Now, there are codes, and if you hire an electrician, he will come and build it to the code. If you do, a plumber will come and build. There’s not that many plumbers here, though. That’s another thing. Plumbing is not something most people have picked up along the way, but they will build your entire house without plumbing vents for example. There’s issues like that, so that’s why you need to understand what the codes are in many cases to make sure you don’t have to deal with these problems later.

I’m not trying to encourage you, but why are we making this video? Damn, this is neat! Well, no, because the point is, we’re making this video because Mike Allen said I could save myself 40% when I bought my property, which I guess is substantial, but if things go wrong, that 40% may be zero, exactly. Real quick, it’s a very expensive error in construction, because remember, a house is literally ten thousand details, literally. And it only takes one detail to be messed up to be problematic, absolutely. So, what would you say would be some of the most common mistakes that people would make when building?

Common mistake number one is not providing aggregate drainage for your property and making sure that your property slopes properly, that it has trenches around the property. You have to make sure that no matter what happens, all the water will drain away from your house. That’s rule number one. And because of the topography here, this isn’t a flat country. So, some houses will be above the road, and those houses are great. And some houses will be slightly below the road, and you can build below the road, but you’re going to need to make your house above the road one way or the other. That can add another two thousand dollars to your construction just right there. Yeah, there you go, just changing your level. Anything else? Any other big mistakes people make?

Second big mistake is thinking they can do it well. Second big mistake they start it and they’re so knee-deep into it that they never started, you know. I have that they’re in the middle of it, they go, “Why did I do this?” Most uh second thing that you have to remember is that not everything is easy to get all the time, so it’s better. But now, especially with what’s going on with the quarantine, supply chains are starting to be disrupted. So, one time I had to delay a construction project by a week because I needed six PVC elbows, which is literally a 30-cent item that nobody had in the whole area. And when they finally ordered them, they were supposed to get 20, and they only got six. So imagine your whole construction goes for an extra week because you’re waiting for ten dollars in merchandise that you just can’t get your hands on. And so those types of issues exist as well.

What I recommend that you do is you should always have several sets of eyes on whatever it is that you’re doing. And if you don’t know, or if you’ve never done it before, then it might be worth it to pay a second contractor to come in and look over the first contractor’s work. And I’m not saying this because people here are good at trying to find flaws in other people’s work, but you can actually take advantage of that and use it to your advantage. Because if you’re putting a block, anyone can stick blocks, but if you haven’t gotten your levels right, if you haven’t designed your infrastructure right, if you’re siting your home in a bad spot, those are the mistakes that you make. The guys setting one block on top of each other and packing it down, that’s not where you get the mistakes.

Are most people buying their materials right here in Costa Rica or are they coming from somewhere else? If you’re a gringo, usually, you’re not going to build a little Tico house. Normally, you’re going to build something more what you’re comfortable with, a couple hundred thousand dollars or so. And since it’s all about attention to details, Costa Rica’s not really known for their decorations or designer genes. So where are people getting their supplies? Are they actually getting them here? Is everything here? You just got to find it?

Most things are here. If you’re looking to save a little bit of money, we have in the past imported wiring, switches, small details, large heavy items, you get them here. Steel you get here, block you get here. But if you want 400 chandeliers, for example, it might be cheaper to bring in your own 400 chandeliers from Florida than it will be to buy them here. Or you might decide the other route and pay somebody to actually make it out of wrought iron and have it made here, with a slightly different design. But you can take advantage of the artisanship here as well. There is a lot of talent in this country, but it takes a little bit of time to find it.

Yes, that’s very true. So, we keep talking about our friend Bob. Bob built a house. He’s a gringo.

He built a hotel, and then he built a house. That was another project because I remember when he started that. Did he know what he was doing? Or was just a brainchild that he was like, “I want to build something?”

He had an idea. He wanted to have a hotel, and this was it. It was very reasonable, but it was a very ugly apartment building. I’m sure we could get offered La Fortuna Suites.

La Fortuna Suites if you want to look that up right now.

Now one of the top hotels in La Fortuna, which is expanding right now, but that was originally a very low-end apartment.

I remember. I remember I saw it.

And it was built with interesting things, for example, at the time they didn’t put rebar in the blocks around the house in the front. They just never put steel through it because when they were building, they decided that they didn’t have the funds for it. So now we have to come in and deal with issues like that, and that’s what you always have to remember. Especially if you buy anything here that’s old and when I say old, I mean more than 20 years old.

There are going to be shortcuts.

There wasn’t a lot of money circulating around, and so when they should have used half-inch rebar, they’ll use a quarter-inch rebar, which might be wrong.

Plumbing was like that too, wasn’t it? A lot of substandard plumbing that you would never know if you don’t know. You’re like, “I see a pipe there, but that’s right.”

Or a fun thing here, they don’t put shutoff valves on a house, so that means that if your toilet starts flooding, you can’t just turn off your toilet and keep living in your house. You literally have to shut off the water in the whole house.

Now, was Bob knowledgeable when he started?

He had done a little bit of it, but I’ve done so many remodeling projects that it wasn’t a big deal, but was he?

No, I guess my point is how when he started, where was he at in his experience of building?

He hadn’t done anything here yet. That was his first project.

Well, he had you though, which obviously is a big help, right?

If you don’t know, and to be perfectly honest with you, I lost money on that job because there were so many additional issues on that home that we found once we actually started tearing into things. You saw there were problems and so, you know, you can charge clients for certain things, but you can’t charge clients for everything and still have them feel like they’re being taken care of. So, there’s always a little level of that, but the point is, you should not assume anything here when you’re building. Like, “Well of course they built it with this.” No, there’s no assumptions on whatever is done. It’s fraught with problems, which is why I recommend that you know what you’re doing before you start investing. I’ll tell you another story. A friend of mine who actually lives not far from here had that same house that is now flooding. He went the right way. He hired a contractor, an architect, and he was living on the site. So, he did all three of them.

That’s pretty good. He did exactly what he should have done. And, I think, always, no matter what your experience level, you need to have someone who knows what they’re doing and have the right people in place.

Even with that, the original cost that he was given for this house was about $250,000 in construction. About halfway through the job, they came back and raised his price more than a hundred thousand dollars.

Is that kind of normal everywhere in the world?

I don’t think so to that level. I could see coming back for another five or ten percent because the cost of materials change things like that. You’d be very open with a client, but a job going up fifty percent in the middle of the job, when the suspects have not changed, is not normal.

So, where do contracts come in on all this?

Contracts are there to protect you, but in this particular case, there’s always something that can be found because there’s always something unforeseen when you’re digging in.

They might say, “We couldn’t have known that when we were giving you an estimate.”

That’s right. They could say that about pretty much anything. That’s right. I mean, even right now. With the COVID situation, you could argue that you have to charge more because it’s getting difficult to source materials. Now, we’re spending more time to get materials or we’re actually having to send a truck to bring them from San Jose. Those types of issues are unforeseen and there’s nothing you could do about it, but they do add to the cost of the job.

Wow, man.

It’s complicated. It’s absolutely complicated and the thing about it is, you could come down here and buy a perfectly decent little concrete house for forty thousand dollars. And if your taste is not too high, you could be done with that. That’s what most people here do, is they live in something like that. But if you have this idea that I had a three thousand square foot house where I live, I want to build the same or better than what I had, it of course can be done but…

It should be said, there are a lot of nice houses here.

And in many cases even here, the quality will be better than what they had back in the United States because it will all be solid concrete and welded steel. So from a level of structure, from a level of quality, they will get a good quality job, but there are so many factors that influence making sure that you get a 100% job well done. That’s usually where the cost comes in. Not to mention the fact that it rains all the time here, which is another major issue in terms of how long things take to finish the job. When we were doing the house for Bob, literally, the day we broke ground, the rain started, and it rained for the next two months.

Yes, which can be a substantial cost if you’re building something bigger with laborers.

You know, everything is like that. It’s a big difference carrying a rock through the mud than it is carrying a rock on flat ground. Little things like that, which we joke about, but for example, that one house that we did for him, that was four thousand blocks, just to give you an idea of four thousand blocks that have to be tripped through the mud now, as opposed to dry working conditions, makes a big difference in cost.

I guess to sum this all up, you’re basically saying, “Unless you have a passion to really build your own dream home, that’s probably shouldn’t be true”.

Unless you’re an adventurous spirit. I recommend finding something that’s relatively done, and you can always make little upgrades here, install some new cabinets, make some different furniture. I recommend most people just deal with that.

And you would have to know, even if you came from a construction background, there are still so many many other things you would need to know in another country.

That’s right, absolutely.

And just knowing Spanish, just that part, there’s one right there,

Absolutely. There is something I still do this to this day because my Spanish is good, but it’s still not perfect. When I want to buy something from a new seller, I have a Costa Rican call him and negotiate with him first.

Yes, because you want to get the right price.

Right, exactly.

I’ve been giving that advice forever. Never call anybody yourself here. You gotta have something to take, but we should actually have a little service about that. That would not be a bad service. You heard it here first. Well, especially it happens with the rental properties too. For example, a Gringo walks up there and says, “quanto questo”, the right question and there is already $200 added right there just because. “Well, that wasn’t good.” So, I guess you’re saying “don’t do that unless you’re really know someone.”

Look, we know we’ve been living here a while. The majority of people who come down here only stay for a few years, right?

Well, I think that, but I don’t think most people don’t think that’s going to happen.

No, I understand that, but the odds are in your favor that you’re not going to stay, so that’s why you always tell people to come down here and rent for a year before they even decide to do anything.

But on top of that, a lot of people who are here, they’re not here full-time. For example, I have some houses in a gated community that have security. If you’re only planning on being here three months a year…

That’s a good option for security.

Absolutely, because if you have a house that you plan on leaving for six months a year, then yes, you have to have a gardener maintaining it, who’s going to keep an eye on your house, who’s going to clean your house every once in a while because you know, just leaving a house for two months, mold starts to grow, things like that.

Sure, there are a lot of reasons you want somebody watching,

So that adds a whole different level of complication to it, which is fine, but those are just additional factors that you have to consider if you want to be happy with your investment here.

So, what’s going to be the rebuttal? Because there are going to be a lot of builders here in Costa Rica that might see this video and go, “I’m a builder, and that’s why we do this, this, and this.” I mean, what would they say to this video? What’s their rebuttal to you, Dan? They’re going to be saying, “That’s, you know, that’s not true, or you know.”

There are companies that do what they call Yave and Mono, which is, “they hand you the key.” I’m not saying that, that doesn’t exist.

Are those custom, even that way?

What I’m saying is it’s usually a certain level of construction, which is fine…

More cookie-cutters.

I would say mostly just concrete, concrete steel, tile. There’s nothing wrong with it, but if I said, if you’re looking for moldings, and you’re looking for high-end…

How you think most gringos are looking for that.

I think, they’re looking for the bottom. This is going to be the house you retire in and…

You’re looking for light fixtures from Panama or wherever.

That’s right, exactly. And so from that level of it, that’s why I typically say if you’re going to do that, it’s not a bad idea to pay somebody to just deliver you a house. But then you have to consider something like Christine did, God rest her soul, she just died, but she had come to me and I had given her a price on a house and she went with another builder who gave her a much better price. Well, the builder who gave her the much better price, built the house, and then she realized, that didn’t include windows, that didn’t include a ceiling, that didn’t include tile on the floor, that didn’t include fixtures, that it was basically just walls and a roof, and they just ran the electrical and they ran the plumbing. And there was a toilet.

This is why the price was better Dan.

Which is why they did such a great price, and she didn’t realize it, and literally spent the next two to three years finishing the house, little by little, because then, workers didn’t show up. There’s a lot of that, obviously, That’s just part of living in a place where the attitude is pura vida. I mean, we start with that pura vida attitude, right? So in general, yes, you can go to a builder who can build you a decent level of home. I’m not taking away from that, and there are some who do it very well.

You said there is good building too.

From a structural aspect, it’s excellent. From a design aspect, I’ve seen some very nice homes as well. But it’s most people that I see who are with North American taste when they come here, and they have a certain level of vision, and usually that takes the building to a next level, which is fine, but it adds another 25 percent to it. For example, Bob’s house had teak flooring. Very few homes here actually have that, as well as an entire wall of windows that faced the volcano. I think this building here doesn’t actually have a window on the side facing the volcano. So, little aspects like that. There is a house, Carol Bagwell’s house, do you know who Carol is? They decided not to put windows facing the volcano and you have to look around the corner like that to see the volcano.

That is so weird to me.

It is weird, but the whole point is, if you’re not on top of everything, you will end up with strange idiosyncrasies like that.

Well, I think if this video did do anything, it definitely gave people something to think about and consider if you’re going to go this route because, obviously, it’s doable. I’ve seen beautiful homes, you know, we all have, but you know, it is something to consider because just because the end product looks beautiful and is beautiful, it could have been built on the road to hell. You can get there.

You can find lots of houses here that are beautiful, but I guarantee you, you will never find an owner that says it got done way quicker than I expected and slightly cheaper. So, that’s something. And one thing else I will say is, if you’re going to buy something that’s already done, I typically recommend it, even if that’s not your final house. It’s better to buy something that has a little structure on it that you can live in while supervising the main structure. That way, in the future, it can become a mother-in-law suite, but then you have to dig a moat around it if it’s for the mother-in-law. But aside from that, if you plan to do that, hire a building inspector. It’s worth the two or three hundred dollars that you’re going to spend to have an inspector go out and look at that property. That way, the $300 doesn’t turn into $3,000 for something that the realtor just said, “Oh yes, it’s a great property. There are no cracks in the walls. And here’s your contract”, you sign it, and you’re good to go.

All right, Dan. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. All right, I’m michael alan from TravelCostaRicaNow.com, Real Estate. Peace, guys. Hope it helps.

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