One of our most frequent reader questions is how we picked our real estate investments, and how we are investing in real estate in today’s market. To start answering this question, I will first focus on what we are NOT doing – i.e., real estate investment options we considered but ruled out. We are not financial advisers, so this isn’t about ruling out these investments for others. This post is simply about how we made decisions for ourselves, in case our thought process can help clarify how you might work through the various options available for yourself. Here are the [...]
Jim Reilly - photo by Happy Rice As much as we love writing our own Costa Rica stories, we are only there part-time, and have only recently spent a full month. To get more diversity and insight, we have been on the hunt for ex-pats to interview. First up is Jim Reilly, a lawyer (and the lawyer on all of our real estate matters) who moved to Tamarindo in 2003: I often work from home (in board shorts), and I eat dinner with my family nearly every night. I really enjoy those aspects of my life compared to my legal [...]
Three new tax and corporation laws were introduced in Costa Rica in 2019. We weren’t planning on covering these because they are so new that it’s premature to measure the impact on our real estate. And more importantly, we’re not lawyers or accountants so didn’t want even the appearance of giving official advice. But that said, a reader asked a slew of questions about these new laws, so it’s clearly on your minds. Jordan asks: I married a Costa Rican 3 years ago and have long felt there is a lot of potential in the country. We visit 2/3 times [...]
We just finished spending 30 full days in Costa Rica, by far our longest trip anywhere! We wanted to see what an extended stay would feel like, and also experience the rainier season in the country. All in all, a very successful trip. Since geo-arbitage in Costa Rica is a possibility for us going forward, we were also curious to know how much it would cost for us to spend a month living in Costa Rica. Food was our biggest expense because even though we stayed at our Condo Boom, which has a kitchen, we bought many of our meals. [...]
I didn't make this up. Costa Rica is literally Champion Of The Earth! Champions of the Earth is the UN’s highest environmental honor, and it celebrates outstanding figures from the public and private sectors and from civil society whose actions have had a transformative, positive impact on the environment. Costa Rica was named for 2019 in the policy leadership category. We recently started a series on the blog where we outline the various things we love about the country of Costa Rica. But this news definitely takes the cake! As New Yorker's, we have long been familiar with the late [...]
The Flight Network, a deal-focused travel provider, polled over 1,000 travel writers and agencies (including Costa Rica FIRE!) to come up with its 2019 list for the 50 most beautiful cities. And the top 10 winners are: ParisNew YorkLondon Venice VancouverBarcelonaCape TownSan FranciscoSydneyRome Downtown New York City from Governor's Island In addition to our hometown New York City, I voted for Tamarindo, though it’s really a town, not a city. The five South and Central American cities that did make the list included Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (15), Buenos Aires in Argentina (20), Quito in Ecuador (32), Cusco in [...]
CNN Health reported on a new study out of Heidelberg University in Germany, which found that parents are happier than non-parents in old age, but ONLY if their kids have moved out. We are a sample size of one: we dropped off our youngest to college in late August and were on a plane to Costa Rica within the week. While our oldest still lives at our official home address, we plan to travel for most of the next year, so we’re essentially childless. Are we happier? Happiness could be the result of empty-nesting or of Pura Vida We are certainly [...]
We’re staying in Costa Rica for a full month, so it’s a great experiment in day-to-day living. One of my goals for our stay this time was trying out the health care. I decided to start with a visit to the dentist since I am in-between dentists at home. My regular New York City dentist was on a sabbatical. I tried a neighborhood dentist in Riverdale but wasn’t 100% convinced to switch over. I wanted to try out a Costa Rica dentist now since I may need expensive work done sooner than later. I could have bought a car for [...]
About one year ago, we started exploring selling our Indianapolis portfolio. You can see the property details on all five rentals here, and our sell v. hold analysis here. In a nutshell, this was our highest cash-flowing geography (compared to Asheville, Jacksonville and Tamarindo), which is why we bought in this market. But it was also our biggest management headache – while we worked with local property managers in Indy, we went through three of them in under four years and were never fully satisfied. Shortly after listing the portfolio for sale, we received an offer but ended up declining [...]
Caroline and I just finished up our first week in Costa Rica. We will be here for just about a month in total. Our prior trips have all just been a few days. Normally at that point we'd be heading home, but since we are now empty-nesters, there is no rush, and we are happy to still have more than 3 weeks remaining in this trip! We are not adventure seekers, and pretty much stick to walking around town from our condo to the beach and to various restaurants. But in Costa Rica, there are many opportunities to run into [...]
