I’ll admit from the outset, that title is pure clickbait…
since there is no correct answer!
This is a continuation of posts I’ve been writing lately, largely motivated by questions and comments I see posted in various Costa Rica expat-oriented Facebook groups…
Other articles in the series (so far) are:
10 Tips for a Successful Costa Rica Exploratory Trip
Costa Rica Online Advice – Is Any of it Good?
Serious Advice on How to Move to Costa Rica
We North Americans always demand the “best”, right? We don’t settle for second, or third…we want to know, where is the BEST place to invest in Costa Rica…
nothing more, nothing less.
Well, I’m sad to tell you (again) that there is no right answer to the question, unfortunately.
One way to break it down is along the lines of investment motive…
Are you actually an investor, who’s looking more for return (income and/or appreciation) than chasing a lifestyle dream?
Well then, you’d better look to invest in a place and property that maximizes that possibility. If you lack patience, and want to make a quick cash return, well then, you’d better look to invest in a place and property that is in high demand, i.e., where there is more demand than supply.
However, if you do have patience and can wait, perhaps forever, to make your big hit, well then, you could and should look for a place where growth potential is good, but prices are still somewhat low, i.e., a place where supply perhaps outstrips demand, at least for the short to medium term.
That is all just basic economics, which you probably know more about than me.
How about the lifestyle “investor”, the wannabe expat who’s looking for his or her personal paradise, with return being inconsequential, or, at least, not of primary importance?
Then things get a bit murkier and certainly even more subjective.
I wrote an article long ago, entitled The 4 C’s of Costa Rica Expat Living to perhaps provide a helpful framework for Costa Rica lifestyle investment decision-making…
In this post I wanted to go a step beyond and really try to broadly categorize lifestyle choices for the aspiring expat, in an attempt at making them more easy to get your mind around.
On the first level, I would break the country down into rural versus urban. Rural comes first because the vast bulk of the country is indeed, very rural. If you want urban you’re pretty much relegated to the central valley and its GAM, or gran area metropolitana, where half the population of the country resides. That is the only truly “urban” area of the country that offers anything near what city life back home offers.
True there are other secondary cities like Liberia, or San Isidro de El General, where I live. Nevertheless, these “cities” are really just small towns and people who live in them still find it necessary to make that trip to San Jose occasionally for big city stuff.
When I first came to Costa Rica I’d started a tourism company and felt the need to be in San Jose to be near the international airport there.
If you’re business-minded, like I was, there are probably going to be more opportunities in San Jose, since that’s were the bulk of the country’s population is most concentrated.
Of course, all that “concentration” is what a lot of folks are coming to Costa Rica to get away from!
In that case, you’d better cross off San Jose and the GAM as a potential place to be and look to the rest of the country…the rural part…
Of which I can break down for you into two very basic parts…mountains and beaches.
I could go another level of breakdown into touristic and local, but truth is most touristic locations are indeed beach ones, with a few exceptions (La Fortuna and Monteverde come to mind).
If you are a beach person then you’re probably going to be focused on one or more of Costa Rica’s tourism hot spots, like Tamarindo, Manuel Antonio, Dominical, or, over on the Caribbean side, Puerto Viejo. There are many others.
I grew up in Myrtle Beach in a highly touristic environment. I don’t want to live in one of those anymore, ever again. That’s why I live in Perez Zeledon…that’s mountains and fairly rural (even though we do have a nice “secondary” city in San Isidro).
Touristic beach locales are hot, crowded for some parts of the year, and more expensive. And then there’s the phenomenon of people behaving differently (in a negative way) while on vacation. Of course, there are some expats who move to one of the touristic locales in order to be on “permanent vacation.” Those are the ones who often go home after a few years, since there are no cushy rehab centers in Costa Rica.
Of course, you could be a surfer dude and in that case, yea, I can see how the beach would work best for you. I used to be one of those, but at 60, I don’t feel the need or desire to hit the waves as often as I once did.
Costa Rica has tons of great mountain locations. I live in one, Perez Zeledon. There’s also quite a few within an hour or so from San Jose. These places have small towns, wide open spaces, fresh clean mountain air and locals who tend to abide by a higher moral code, generally (yes, there are always exceptions).
If you are budget minded, then you might want to opt for mountain and rural, since city and/or beach (touristic) are going to be the places with a higher cost of living.
The answer is going to depend on your unique idiosyncrasies and proclivities. The Facebook group you’ve been perusing will of course offer a whole slew of anecdotal opinions as to why X, Y or Z is indeed the best…
Just remember, that whether or not a specific place is best for YOU, is a decision only YOU can make…
And you might have to suffer being wrong a few times before truly finding the answer that works!