Costa Rica

Costa Rica - pura vida - has a lot to offer the adventure seeker who is looking for blue waters, temperate weather and a beautiful and green country. Due to these reasons the higher-end property market continues to grow rapidly as foreign homebuyers flock in. Due to the absence of official house price statistics, it is hard to assess the exact movements of house prices, but the trend is clearly upwards. In San Jose, the country’s capital, the average listing price of houses increased 6.2% y-o-y to US$1,201 per square meter (sq. m.) in August 2016, an improvement from a meagre growth of 0.4% in the previous year, according to encuentra24.com. On the other hand, condominium prices in San Jose rose by 3.6% from a year earlier, at an average of US$1,685 per sq. m. “We’re definitely having an uptick in sales,” said Shawn Ferguson of Coldwell Banker. Costa Rica’s property market is highly dependent on the U.S. economy, which represents the highest number of foreign homebuyers in the territory. “As the U.S. heads up, so do we,” added Ferguson. The most expensive and fastest-selling properties in Costa Rica are in the Central Valley, the greater metropolitan area (including San José, Alajuela, Heredia and Escazú) where most businesses are, and the Pacific coast. The least expensive properties can be found in new developments in the Costa Rica’s southern region, such as the Osa Peninsula.