Successful

Five years ago Century21 asked the Dutch businessman Carlo Köhlinger to set up the sale of real estate in Costa Rica in the most beautiful spots in Nicoya. The Americans set their sights on Köhlinger because he had already managed to carry out a number of extremely successful real estate projects in Costa Rica, Nicoya. Köhlinger can hardly keep up with the requests for land and villas. Coastal areas and bays such as Playa Tambor, Montezuma, Mal País and Costa de Oro are developing at an incredible pace with wealthy and famous Americans standing in line to invest. Even the sober Dutchman himself is a bit baffled by the booming real estate business in this part of Costa Rica.
We met up with Köhlinger in the 5-star resort of the Spanish billionaire family Barceló, owners of the equally named hotel chain (175 hotels in Europe and North and South America). Köhlinger is a house guest of Guillermo Barceló who also has a home in Tambor. “You will probably not believe this”, says the dry Dutchman. “But the prices of land have risen on an average of fifty percent per year recently with apartments, villas and mansions increasing their value by approximately twenty percent every year, and the end is still not in sight. This is really unbelievable”.

PRESTIGIOUS
“Prices here are relatively low, especially in relation to the previous top destinations like Mexico and Hawaii” says Köhlinger. In Mexico the price per square meter rose from 150 dollars to 1,700 dollars in ten years’ time. Consequently with increasing demand, Real Estate prices in Costa Rica have also risen, but with the following difference: Costa Rica is only just beginning! Köhlinger has no words for it. “In 2002 a client bought a property in the vicinity of Tambor for 1.9 million dollars and sold the same land last year for 15 million dollars! I can show you the documents if you don’t believe it. In 2002 another client bought eight hectares next to Tango Mar beach resort for 150.000 dollars. He now sold those same eight hectares to which nothing at all had been done for 1.5 million dollars!” Another example can be seen in the Tambor Hills development project: 7.000 square meter lots brought in 40.000 dollars in 2004, but now they are being sold for over 175.000 dollars!

Christopher Columbus named Costa Rica the “rich coast”. For many Americans and some Europeans, this name has proven to be literally true. No matter how high the dollar gain is in real estate in Costa Rica, the first place still goes to Costa Rica’s natural beauty and ambiance. The eco tourists now have company from dollar-investors. But the Ticos are pragmatic: both things are bringing a lot of foreign capital into the country, and in the end every Tico is the better for it.

Author: Martijn Koolhoven, De Telegraaf