I grew up at the beach. When I was seven my family moved to a small barrier island off the N.C. coast, Holden Beach. Later, before the start of my junior year in high school, we moved to Myrtle Beach, where I lived off and on for the ensuing 20 years.
When I first moved to Costa Rica I was of the opinion that in order to do business here I had to live in the big city, which meant San Jose. To be honest back in those days the communication infrastructure was not where it is today, so in some respects I was right. And I wasn’t one of those expats who arrived with enough money not to have to worry about making any more.
After a decade in San Jose I was ready for a change. I moved to the southern zone, to the town of San Isidro de El General, in the canton of Perez Zeledon, about 8 years ago. Then in 2015 I made a disastrous decision to try repatriation back to the States. That lasted about 6 months, when I returned “home” with my tail tucked. By that time there was only one place in Costa Rica I considered “home” and that was San Isidro. I got involved in real estate shortly thereafter, joining the Coldwell Bank team in Dominical.
I came under a lot of influence from the agency to focus on beach listings, even though I lived in the mountains. After a while trying to do just that, I finally decided to go in a different direction. I decided I would only take my listings in the mountains, but would attempt to serve my buyer customers as an agent/consultant who would expose them to both worlds…mountains and beaches. And that’s still what I’m all about.
So, with that bit of background, let me get to the seminal point of this post. And that concerns what I regard to be the Costa Rica beach bubble…
Here’s how that works…and it works in other areas, not just my area of real estate coverage, which encompasses the mountains of Perez Zeledon and the Costa Ballena…
Most of our real estate buyers first arrive to Costa Rica “on vacation”, usually to a beach destination, which in our case means Dominical, Uvita or Ojochal. There they encounter a gorgeous coastline and lots of entertainment options, with many other tourists doing them same thing they are doing…vacationing.
Have you every stepped back and observed the way people behave on vacation? I have. Probably because, as first alluded, I grew up on the beach, in the major U.S. tourist destination of Myrtle Beach, S.C.
People generally don’t act on vacation like they do back home. And they shouldn’t. After all, they might only get the opportunity to be tourists once, or maybe twice, a year. Why not let the hair hand down a little? People on vacation in our Costa Ballena do what people on vacation do all over the world, they have a good time.
The problem is that when you live full-time in that type of environment, you tend to get the idea that life is one big vacation. Well, I guess we could argue philosophically as to whether, or not, that’s actually the case, but…
There’s no doubt about it, the beach is where the money is. And if you arrive to Costa Rica with a pocket full of cash, you’re probably going to gravitate towards that. We all like to show off a bit, don’t we? And what better way to show off one’s success than with a gorgeous beach home in Costa Rica!
So, what do I mean by the “Costa Rica beach bubble?”
Well, all of the above tends to give rise to one.
For starters, it tends to isolate those at the beach from what life is really like for the average Costa Rican. It also tends to raise the prices for everyone down there, including the locals.
In short, you get the Costa Rica beach bubble.
Now if that sounds like your kind of lifestyle, then by all means go for it. It’s readily available and I’m more then willing to expose you to it and help you become a part of it.
However, there is an alternative and, in my market, it’s less than an hour away.
It’s called the mountains.
There you will find a much more entrenched middle class of ticos, interspersed with the occasional gringo expat, living an authentic Costa Rican life. They work and they play, but they don’t do it so much for the “show factor” as for the simple joy of living in one of the most beautiful and happy countries on earth factor. There’s not a lot of showing off that goes on up here in the mountains. People are, for the most part, content to live quiet and humble lives…the kind you’ve heard that goes on down here…the real “pura vida” life.
I know this probably sounds awfully critical of the beach. I don’t mean for it to come off that way…well, maybe a little bit. In all honesty, I just want my readers, and certainly my would-be clients, to know how things really are down here.
You see, there is a Costa Rica beach bubble. It exists in all major beach tourist areas throughout the country. It’s not any different from the one I experienced for my teenage and young adult life on the Carolina coast. For some, it’s the preferred lifestyle. For others, not so much.
For those of you who’d rather live in the mountains and visit the beach, here’s a site with a few properties to peruse…