Land for Sale

In Costa Rica every traveler notices literally hundreds of signs on larger roads offering land for sale. That’s why many visitors of Costa Rica wonder: is the whole country for sale? And they also often wonder: is it wise to call the number that’s written under the land for sale advertisement and to buy real estate in Costa Rica this way or are there better ways to buy land.

In our experience its very time consuming and unefficient to use the various land for sale advertisements to purchase land. Many times the phonenumbers are outdated. The sign can be there for several years. And more important: many Costaricans offering land for sale are not really motivated to sell. They just ask a very high price for the land for sale and hope that someone buys this highly overpriced land for sale. They use the local market as a kind of lottery.

The advertisement sign is cheap, and when the paint is good, it can stay there for many many years. No other advertisement-medium can beat this low price. Another reason for the unefficiency of responding to the land for sale signs is the fact that often the prices for Costaricans and foreigners differ extremely. When the seller hears a foreign accent (and everybody who is not a native speaker has this accent, regardless of his or her level of the Spanish language) the price might double.

That’s why we advise foreign buyers to use the modern media like internet when its about buying land.