EXPLORING COSTA RICA FOR FINDING A PLACE FOR YOUR NEW HOME

Living in the Costa Rica for a while is the right way to decide if you want to live here permanently and where. It is not the same thing visiting as a tourist than dealing with everyday situations.

So, it is a good idea renting a house or an apartment in a location you think could meet your expectations. Once there, you should plan short tours to some other areas you think are potential places for your new home. Try to be there enough time to gather together information about the usual weather conditions during the year, temperatures, services, privacy, criminality and other risks, including floods, strong winds, etc. For other risks, like earthquakes, the only way available is designing your new house with an appropriate structure to resist those natural forces without severe damages or no damages at all. A civil engineer or an architect can do that work for you; those professionals have enough experience to deal with the problem.

Then, you should consider your likes and dislikes, and your nowadays and future needs. For example, a friend from Canada bought an acre (4,000 square meters) lot in San Carlos, Alajuela, in the countryside. It is a flat property. When I visited it, I asked him about any risk because of a river 100 yards far from the lot, and he said the river is deep from the street level, so no floods are known in that area. He chose it for several reasons: having enough backyard space for private activities, such having good time in his swimming pool, planting some fruit trees there, having a nice landscape around for relaxing, basic public services and access, no special natural risks, a reasonable price for the land, etc. Another important reason was he has some physical problems in his legs. so living in Canada during the winters to come could affect him seriously even to need a wheelchair for moving. He asked me for a design for his new home there about a one-story house with total access, using ramps and wide halls and trails to go inside-outside easily, with no obstacles. Talking about the climate, he told me he can deal with the heat if there are fresh spaces inside his house, enough fans, maybe an air condinating system just in case, and mosquitoes screens in doors and windows to feel comfortable; he has had enough with snow there at home, so he will feel free and happy with enough space around, in a nice neighborhood, no crazy noises, and the supermarket close enough to buy some beers. One more thing: he loves his dogs, so I have to be sure they can go outside and inside without problems, for enjoying the backyard and protecting the house.

In other words, I think you should make an analysis, using for instance one applied in business, call in Spanish FODA and in English SWOT (streghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) to evaluate any choice we are considering. That way you should make a decision pretty close to our expectations, otherwise you could regret about it, specially if you run to buy a property without enough information of the area. Too complicated ? Let´s see another example. A friend for US asked me to do a pre-design of his two-story house; once I finished it and he and his family liked it, they asked me why I didn´t include the garage, and I said we should check the properties available before doing it, in order to know if we can arrange the space appropriately. So, when we visited the lots he was considering in Playas del Coco, he realized than putting there the garage in the design could had been inappropriate, because some of the lots have strong slopes that oblige him to cut the dirt, building retaining walls (that are expensive by the way)and there was not enough space for the garage; finally, we found a lot that could meet his requeriments, incluiding the garage space, without investing extra money in retaining walls or extreme landscaping.

So, make your plan for analysing your choices and take your time for making your decisions.

DEALING WITH SOME UNCOMFORTABLE HEAT AT HOME

Hello people. I would like to talk about a topic that could be useful for you.

Thinking about your future in Costa Rica, probably you are deciding between buying a house or building a new one. Even you konw you are making the decision in a tropical country, and despite the usual pleasant weather, perhaps you are not considering, in full awareness, how the heat really hits your favorite area for living.

This situation, in combiation with the effect of global warming, could lead to an unpleasant surprise, specially if you are not well advised on your investment, which is having very hot rooms, which would require to use an(extra)air conditioning system, or simply suffering the consequences. In order to save energy costs for air conditioning, for example, I would make some recommendations.

One is designing or buying the house with large windows that allow direct ventilation when they are open. They also allow good internal lighting, saving electricity by not turning on lights. If you are concerned about having too much clarity, it is preferable to use curtains or blinds to control the amount of light in the room, otherwise having small windows, ventilation and lighting will always be limited. Remember to use mosquito net sieve if the area where your home is prone of the attack from mosquitoes or other bugs.

Another recommendation is choosing a high-walled house. Instead of 8.5 feet, which is normal, try to get 10 feet or more. Ideally, ceilings shouldn´t be flat in the rooms, but following the contour of the roof structure, as in the case of the "artesonado" (ceilings of wooden boards and beams). There is an additional investment in higher walls, but you gain internal volume, and usually in freshness.

It is also convenient to use an insulator in the ceiling or sticking it to the roof structure. There are alternatives such as using polystyrene boards or fiberglass, but recently I have used another product, which is a silver reflective sheet, whose name I will not say to not create the confusion that I promote it directly, but the fact is that I have applied it in two homes of clients, an existing condo in Sabanilla Montes de Oca, San Jose, and another under built in Guápiles, Limón, and the result, in both cases, was a decrease of the internal temperature and having a cooler environment. For Sabanilla´s house, the effect was even more striking because the rooms, in the second floor, when there was no insulation, were literally ovens during the day. This product, which is available in most stores of materials, costs about 1310 colones per square meter (2.35 USD per square meter or 0.22 USD per square foot), and the installation cost can be 40% to 50% of that value. I recommend that you make the investment, especially if you're building a new home.

Finally, some customers opt in new homes for not putting ceiling in places like the garage or covered "patios" or terraces. even you can save money by not putting certain finishes (tile for the floor, painting), I do not recommend removing the ceiling, even in the garage, because the ceiling, rather than something cosmetic to cover up the roof structure from below, is a heat insulator, and whether you need to stay in a garage, for example for doing somethning using tools, if there is not ceiling, probably you would have an overheated room.

I think these points are relevant in making right decisions for comfort to enjoy your new home in the country and for avoiding extra costs that you could anticipate in time.

Good luck with everything.

IT HAPPENED AGAIN: DISINFORMATION ABOUT BUILDING COSTS AND LETDOWN

Hello everybody.

I would like to share a kind of testimony about a situation is becomming unfortunately more and more usual nowadays. I published it first in the ARCR forums and I think it is important to share it once again.

The topic is about building costs and the expectations that an owner of a property in Costa Rica has about his/her project.

I will talk about a real case. I won´t share the name of the customer, in order to respect her privacy.

This lady, from North America, contacted me in order to give her a quotation about my professional fee for inspecting and maybe building her new house in the south of Costa Rica. The design and blueprints were done by another professional. Indeed, it is an architectural company.

When I gave her my first quotation, she thought it was not adequate according to her expectations, because she understood the price should be lower. After explaining her the reasons, because of the size of the house, its costs, the time for getting the house done, and the time for inspecting it, she realized we were talking about different budgets for the project.

She asked other builders to know about optional quotations and found out that two of them were offering a price three times the estimation given by her architect. The price I calculated was two and a half her first budget.

In conclusion, she realized her architect gave her a very very low estimation. Indeed, at the beggining, she asked to her architect for a 200 M2 (around 2153 sf) area house, but after discussing the project, the design was for a 340 M2 (3660 sf). She was, in her own words, inconsolable. The architect told her that kind of project would need an investment of 100 thousand USD. I commented it would be necessary from 230 to 250 thousand USD to get it done. So, her architect´s first price was not realistic.

In the case I am commenting, she understood that if she and her husband try to go ahead with this project the size it was designed, they would be at the 50% of the house building process and then they would have a huge problem, because they wouldn´t be able to finish the house and the only solution would be getting a loan they wouldn´t afford. Doing it at a retiring age, 60, would obligue them to work to the age of 80.

I understand, even she is upset and disappointed, she is reconsidering to do her project in a different way in a close future.

I think she was lucky to find out how problematic the situation would have been and she stopped the process in an appropriate time. But this is not the situation about other people.

I would like to know how a similar experience has been for other investors.

I think that certain builders, even some professionals like architects and engineers, are using a not ethical method to close a deal. These kinds of people are creating false expectations in the investors just for getting the job, without consideration to the problems their customers could face.

It is different when a professional gives numbers for real. Even it is discouraging sometimes, it is much better to have the feet on ground in order to go after a realistic project. Then, if the client decides to increase the size of his/her house, or if he/she asks for more expensive materials and finishes, or if the materials prices rise, it is reasonable to adjust the budget according to these factors, and the situation would be under control if the customer knows it just on time to make appropriate decisions.

One of the problems here is that, naturally, people is trusting in other people. It is good, but some irresponsible people are taking advantage of the well will of the investors.

What to do about this situation ?

In my opinion, first of all, ask for many different opinions about your project, about the size, prices, even you can ask for pre-quotations, in order to understand which costs are for real. Then, you can check it with a professional, discussing all the terms and factors involved, before makig a deal about a design. Once you have the design, ask again for quotations. Be careful about cheap quotations; usually, if you accept those kinds of offers, you should be prepare to invest the money to meet the average quotation. This piece of advice applies for buying properties, too.

In other words, be careful. Keep your dreams alive, but don´t take the apparently easy way without asking yourself how reliable that solution could be.

Good luck about this topic.

GOOD BEGINNING OF A NEW STAGE IN YOUR LIFE IN COSTA RICA

It is a pleasure to welcome new readers of this space. Thanks for joining this blog and I hope it could be helpful to achieve your goals.

Many outsiders are evaluating living in Costa Rica at a time which is very important in their lives, as this Central American country offers attractions that really motivate them. It may be their nature, may be its people, or other reasons, the fact is that creating a new home here is part of the settlement process.

As a professional in the field of design engineering, architecture and construction, I have seen many friends, domestic and foreign, go through difficulties to achieve the goal of a new home or some premises for a new business here.

Some have run into problems including, for example, buying expensive properties, getting inadequate designs, suffering with poor quality of construction, spending much more than their original budget, and all this makes their project complicated or a bad experience that spoils their illusions.

Even this does not happen in all cases, I think technically and personally we can share information and advice to help you make better decisions about your future in the country.

Let´s provide and share our consultations and our proposals to advise who would need support.

If we help each other, we will get along much better in the country and will live with greater harmony.