June 28, 2011 - Buying real estate in Costa Rica is in most cases a fairly straightforward process where you have a house budget, you find a house you want within your budget and you buy the house. One thing however that needs to be mentioned when buying Costa Rica real estate is the resale value of your home.

This is not a very popular topic amongst Costa Rica real estate broker at the moment but it is still a very important one which needs to be addressed because no one knows when home values in Costa Rica will rise again nor does anyone know when they will take a dip either.

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In order to properly assess the resale value of a house in Costa Rica, the following aspects must be taken into consideration:

Location of the Home

Let?s talk neighborhood. The location of the neighborhood is one of the best factors to not only determine the value of a home but also what kind of resale value your home may have in the future. I am not talking about limiting you to rich neighborhoods but also about the value of the neighborhood in terms of how far of a walk is it to get to the nearest pulperia (convenient store) or panaderia (bakery) because this actually adds to the value of the home in term of convenience.

Does it have easy access to a main road or to the highway? Someone who has a job that requires a commute longer than 10 minutes will certainly be interest in knowing that.

Economic Stability

Is your home in an economically stable community? The best way to find out is to scope the neighborhood and look for obvious signs.

For example, if you see a large amount of homes for sale or businesses going out of business, this could be because the neighborhood is in a bad economic shape which could really hurt the resale value of the home.

In general, you want to look for a city or neighborhood that has a good mix of businesses and homes as this means that it will probably have a stable economy 5 or 10 years down the road.

Local Government Services

No one wants to go in a neighborhood where it takes an ambulance or the police 20-30 minutes to get to your house in case of an emergency. Do some research and find out how far the police station, hospital and fire department are from your house and how long it takes on average for them to get to your house.

As a selling point to a house, the faster the response time, the better.

Schools and Universities

Sure, you may not have kids or your kids may have already graduated from college but it does not mean that living next to one of those is a bad thing. On the contrary, it is a good thing as the next buyer for the house may have children that are of school age.

Of course, just because you are close to a Costa Rica school does not mean that you are buying a resale winner. Find out from the neighbors if they send their kids to this school and if they send them to a different school ask them why.

Take a look at the school ground and see if the school is in good shape and whether it is overcrowded or lacks students.

Property Taxes

I most countries, property taxes would be a large part of the equation but Costa Rica is a special case because of how the government evaluates the registered value of the property.

In most cases, the property tax is about .25% of its value and the registered value often are not very accurate as they are done by the local government which really has nothing to do with the property itself but rather what is around the property.

Now that you are armed with knowledge about your reselling a home in Costa Rica, check out our Costa Rica Residential Homes for sale!

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Lindsay Long has been living in Costa Rica for over 3 years and has been a real estate agent for 5 years.? She moved to Costa Rica from Atlanta, GA after only two trips to Costa Rica.? Along with her other duties as a realtor, Lindsay also takes care of the Costa Rica Real Estate Blog and the Costa Rica Real Estate Facebook page.? You can contact Lindsay at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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