Events up north put chill on real estate here

By: Garland M. Baker B.

Exclusive to A.M. Costa Rica

Editor's Note: While this article was accurate at the time of publication, some information may now be outdated. We are currently preparing a comprehensive update. Sign up for our Alerts to be notified as soon as the revised content is live!

The five-year real estate sales boom is winding down fast in the United States.  Costa Rica’s real estate market is slowing too.  Skyrocketing property values may be a thing of the past there and here.

Many speculators in the United States are now walking away from their deposits or trying to wiggle out of their contracts and losing substantial money in the process.  Others are stuck with their investments because they did not see the reversal coming.

As home equities soared up north, many owners borrowed heavily against their holding there to buy property in Costa Rica.  Usually, this is the case in fast-moving markets.  People get overconfident and borrow, margin, or otherwise overextend themselves to chase increasing values.

Buyers of property up and down the Pacific coast here found a feeding frenzy during the last few years.  Most of them were unaware that frenzies typically signal a top and that they should watch out and not dive into the coming quagmire.

Registro Nacional nears meltdown over fraud

By: Garland M. Baker B.

Exclusive to A.M. Costa Rica

Editor's Note: While this article was accurate at the time of publication, some information may now be outdated. We are currently preparing a comprehensive update. Sign up for our Alerts to be notified as soon as the revised content is live!

The supposedly secure property records at the Registro Nacional are under daily attack.  Computers make up what amounts to a virtual vault, securely holding titles to trillions of dollars of Costa Rican properties.  Paperwork and other computers are the attackers commanded by crooks stealing the assets of others.

The thieves are smart and know how to beat the honest out of assets in a fell swoop.  They use the weaknesses of the registro to their advantage.  The over-burdened organization’s computers collapse under pressure almost daily.  There are those who work there willing to risk their career for a fast buck. 

In the past few weeks, registro officials sloughed off obvious fraudulent activity as unimportant when a suspicious case was presented at the institution. All because the officials said to the filer, “We have too many of these fraud cases to work on.”