In Costa Rica you can reduce your month to month living expenses and live very well.

For the past 15 years I have been conducting monthly relocation/retirement tours. I am proud to say that I have personally helped 1000s of people make the move through my retirement tours and best-selling guidebooks. It is rewarding to be able to change people’s lives and to help them find success and happiness in this marvelous country.

It is very important to show my guests what housing options are available to them in Costa Rica. Therefore, I show a sampling of many types of property on my tours. Whether my clients primary interest is to rent or buy, they will have to live someplace. Fortunately, Costa Rica Retirement Vacation Properties provides me with a broad selection of homes to view in different areas. I refer my clients to this wonderful company if they have any real estate needs. I feel 100% comfortable knowing my clients are in the best possible hands. Best of all they are a buyer’s agent.

My tour is NOT a real estate tour to sell property. I do NOT and will not sell property. I sell the Costa Rica’s great lifestyle. However, I am quick to point out to my clients that I would be lying if I said the country was for everyone. I do not force Costa Rica on anyone. I just provide the FACTS help people make their own decisions.

I have been criticized by some jealous Americans because of my success over the years. My tours have been featured in most major U.S.newspapers and magazines such as Newsweek. Because I show real estate, a couple of local Gringo wannabes have accused me of running real estate tours with a hidden agenda to sell property. Absolutely NOTHING could be farther from the truth. I have a stellar reputation and my tours are the ONLY relocation/retirement tours LICENSED and APPROVED by the Costa Rican government’s tourism Institute ICT. I have a stellar reputation to uphold and have put over 30 years of hard work into my business. I have too much at stake to compromise myself. It pains me that I have to write this but feel everyone needs to know the REAL TRUTH and not hearsay.

My clients well-being is always first and foremost.

To show my gratitude to my clients and give others the opportunity to take one of my tours, I have reduced the prices of all of my tours. Some are as much as 50% more affordable. I realize that many Americans have been adversely affected by the current world economic crisis and I want to help by making my tours more accessible to all.

I want to turn as many people as I can to the wonderful affordable lifestyle that is available to them in Costa Rica.

I get a lot of boomers on my retirement tours who grew up listening to rock music from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Many of my clients admit that they like to go to an occasional rock concert. Inevitably they ask if any of the big name groups come to Costa Rica. I tell them that we do have good concerts here. Every year more and more groups come to Costa Rica.

These are some of the luminaries of rock and roll who have played here over the years.

Bruce Springsteen
Sting
Santana
America
Iron Maiden
Red Hot Chile Peppers
Metallica
Axl Rose
Maná (A popular Mexican rock group)
And a few more I can’t recall

I have a friend who is connected to the Rolling Stones. He has been trying to get them to come here for years. ¡Ojalá (I hope so!)!

In the Central Valley there are a couple of radio stations that play a lot of classical rock. We have a club called the Jazz Café where many local rock groups play. Actually, some of these groups are outstanding and have toured internationally.

The bottom line is that old rockers can survive here.

SAN JOSÉ, Mar 8 (IPS) – The Costa Rican government has declared retirement communities, aimed at attracting U.S. pensioners, to be “of national interest.” Plans to create “retirement clusters” providing complete health services for older adults are seen as a profitable prospect for this Central American country.

Old people as a business: this is the bottom line of the government and private sector’s new project.

Noting the rapid development of the “health cities” in Mexico and Panama, Costa Rican officials and entrepreneurs are poised to tap into the perceived gold mine among middle and upper-middle class senior citizens of industrialised countries.

The concept is simple, and includes slashing red tape to the minimum by providing one-stop residence permits at the Migration Directorate, so that foreigners, especially the well-heeled, can come to live in the country.

Tax exemptions on real estate and vehicles are on offer, and a promotional campaign aimed at older adults abroad will be run by the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism (ICT). The government will also boost training of human resources such as health personnel through the Costa Rican Social Security system, and seek to attract investment.

The Competitiveness Ministry has already identified eight locations for retirement clusters in Costa Rica, in areas of natural beauty with plenty of tourist attractions, and close to large hospital complexes.

Promoting Costa Rica as a retirement haven includes much more than boosting real estate sales or medical tourism. “It includes the hotel sector, travel, hospitals and research. Costa Rica will benefit from it,” Competitiveness Minister Jorge Woodbridge told IPS. Patients and their relatives are likely to travel all over the country, staying at hotels and engaging tour operators and so on.

Every 10,000 retirees are expected to generate employment for 40,000 people a year, 10,000 of them in direct jobs and 30,000 indirectly. The average income of the target population (middle and upper-middle class U.S., Canadian and Spanish citizens) is 3,500 dollars a month.

The main Costa Rican medical centres are already building two major hospital complexes in the city of Liberia in Guanacaste province, the top tourist destination in the country. They will comprise a hospital and residential zone, where services will be provided for four levels of care: active retirement, independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing, in increasing order of patient need.

A small retirement community for 12 people, the country’s only operational cluster so far, has opened on the slopes of the Poas volcano.

The owner, Ronald García, told IPS that “coming to Costa Rica has economic advantages” for foreign pensioners. “They pay for accommodation and medical care, and a family visit from home once a month, and it costs less than paying for medical services back home,” he said. His customers pay 1,600 dollars a month, whereas in the United States they would have to pay 4,500 dollars a month for comparable services.

“We want to attract 10,000 pensioners a year,” Woodbridge said. Estimated annual foreign exchange earnings per 10,000 retirees are 340 million dollars, “so in five years, the total would be 1.7 billion dollars,” he calculated.

In any case, the plan will take at least five years to take off as a national strategy, Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz told IPS.

Other Latin American countries have a head start on Costa Rica. Mexico, which has been developing its policy for over 20 years, is now home to 700,000 pensioners from the United States who are living in Mexican retirement communities.

Its other rival is Panama, which has been advancing in this direction for about a decade. Panama has five retirement communities at present, with another 42 currently being licensed and built.

But the government authorities are optimistic. The climate, enormous biodiversity, security, stability, and polls describing Costa Rica as “the happiest country in the world,” are factors that will work in its favour, according to Woodbridge.

Costa Rica’s reputation as “the Switzerland of Central America” will also help.

Not everyone is in favour of the creation of this new market, however. “It will affect the rights of the people of Costa Rica,” said Carlos Páez with the National Union of Social Security Fund Employees (UNDECA).

Páez said “if this is put into practice, doctors and nurses will go into private medicine,” which could bring about a crisis in the Costa Rican public health system, presently stretched to the limit. “There is already a lack of specialists and health personnel,” and the flight of these workers to private clinics and hospitals will only increase the shortage, said the UNDECA trade unionist.

“The first thing the country should do is to solve the crisis in the social security fund, before opening the market to additional demands,” Páez argued.

Every day, some 6,000 people reach the age of 65 in the United States. The baby boomer generation, born between 1945 and 1964, controls 77 percent of the available financial resources of that country.

Forty-six million people in the United States have no medical insurance, a fact that Costa Rica plans to use to attract U.S. older adults to its shores.

By Daniel Zueras

http://www.ipsnews.org/wap/news.asp?idnews=50578

Yes, like every other country in the world Costa Rica does have cockroaches. Unfortunately the worst kind are two-legged variety. Because of Costa Rica popularity as a destination for tourists, and retirement and relocation haven all types of foreigners are attracted to the place. With growing popularity as Latin America’s prime retirement spot scores of gringo opportunists have flooded the country. This was especially during the real estate gold rush that lasted up to 2009. During the boom there were scores of tourists from North America working in real estate offices and selling property illegally . You also had quite a few fly-by-night developers buying land, cutting up hillsides, lacking proper funding and selling lots without permits. Unfortunately, a many investors were left holding the bag. but the current crisis has weeded out most of the illegal agents and developers.

There are other types of cockroaches operating here too. Many foreigners who have only lived here for a short time become overnight experts and start doling out erroneous advice about living and investing here. They basically do it by putting up websites where they make claims about their expertise and or by writing books about living and investing in Costa Rica. Many of these people also expound on the various Costa Rica chat groups, also.

Be aware that it takes ten or more years to get your feet wet here. You also have to speak the language to understand how things really work. I would not deal with anyone who doesn’t have these credentials, no matter what they says about themselves. Even if they have lived here for a long time, it doesn’t hurt to do your due diligence by making a complete background check of the person with whom you are going to do business. Above all, And don’t believe everything you read. The many opportunities the country now offers have brought all sorts of creature out of the woodwork. Even if you are going on a tour make sure the company has insurance and is licensed by the ICT (the country’s tourism Institute) for your own protection.

The purpose of this blog is not to put down any one group or foreigners but to try and help potential residents locate the correct information, so that if they do decide to move here the process will be as smooth as possible.

“Oh that’s far too beautiful to be real,” I muttered to myself, while examining the photographs in Christopher Howard’s latest book. “These photos can’t be real, I’m sure,” I commented cynically. It was October, a comfortable autumn day. But the days were getting shorter and the nights colder. Cold, windy, bleak, winter days were just around the corner.

Summer and fall are enjoyable seasons in northeast Ohio. And then there’s winter…my thoughts drifted to the ice storm of 1991. Downed trees and powerlines closed many roads. Driving was trecherous. Stores were closed, schools too, and cable TV was out. “How would you like to see Costa Rica?” my husband Jim’s question interrupted my thoughts.

“Christopher Howard is leading a tour in January,” Jim remarked. “Do you think you could get time off? “What are Costa Rica winters like?” I asked. “January is their summer, and in the Central Valley it’s 72 degrees year round,” he replied. “If you like it we could live there comfortably on my pension. You wouldn’t have to work, it would be optional.” “Even with the two children,” I asked. “Yes,” was his reply.

We departed from Cleveland and had an enjoyable, uneventful flight to San José. Jim and I were weary of customs, but it proved to be easier than car trips to Canada. Costa Rican warmth and hospitality were immediately evident; we felt welcome. Someone from the tour company was expected to meet us, but we were flattered and amazed this it was Christopher Howard! Our Costa Rica adventure had begun.

On the way to our hotel Chris helped us get our bearings and was more than willing to answer our many questions.
I was immediately struck by the absolute beauty of the country. Such contrasts! It is even more beautiful that the photographs.

The Hotel Torremolinos was convenient and comfortable. The location was perfect for touring the city on our own. Meals were delicious and reasonable, and in close proximity to numerous “sodas” (small cafés), souvenir shops, a museum, the Central Market and casinos. Hotel security watched over us. We were able to mail our postcards and exchange money at the hotel. They also gave directions and called taxis for us. Imagine that at a Holiday Inn. The streets felt safe too, unlike big cities in the States.

We enjoyed the tour of the different neighborhoods in the Central Valley. We were able to have a good sampling of how people actually live and even see a couple of homes. We were also able to see hospitals, malls, supermarkets and get a good idea of the infrastructure in the area.

We also loved the Banco de Mariscos restaurant in Heredia. It is touted as the best seafood restaurant in the country. Their dishes are absolutely delicious and a bargain. Tiny’s American Sports bar was great fun. We had a group luncheon there and enjoyed hamburgers and fries Costa Rica style.

The two days of lectures and seminars were helpful and informative, especially the representative from the Residents Association of Costa Rica. We have been in touch with several speakers from the tour since our return to the States. Without Chris, we would have never met the realtors, movers, a business consultant, attorneys and other contacts.
We could have NEVER done this on our own.

The Clinica Bíblica Hospital offers great medical care. Not wanting to miss any of the tour, I saw a doctor there for a minor problem. The doctors and nurses speak great English. Bedside manner far exceeds what I’m accustomed to. The wait was short, care great and fee minimal.

When we departed paradise, our flight from New Jersey was cancelled due to the weather. The next flight was delayed for hours while all planes de-iced. Both at the airport and at home we shoveled snow. Sniff, sniff, good-bye for now, paradise.

Update : We are now in the process of selling our two homes in the States and plan to move with the kids to Costa Rica before the new millennium. It came down to a choice between Costa Rica and Florida and the former won out easily. Florida’s sweltering summers cannot compete with Costa Rica’s spring-like climate.

By Carol Burch