Who is selling my property?

After 10 years of living and working in the Osa Peninsula, and having to meet new and old ” citizens” of this weird conglomeration of races, cultures, social classes and professions, all the days for one or the other of the activities that we have here, I can say that I have a quite good knowledge of the area and its people.

Obviously, in a relative world, a good knowledge is, maybe, in absolute terms, a knowledge about the 2 percent of the total population, and the 20 percent of the territory.

In the last couple of years, as we sayd in another post, the number of people and ” agencies ” that entered in the real estate arena, grew exponentially, without any relation to the real availability of good, clean and safe pieces of land for to sell.

In some moment, if you take this business seriously, it is a good behaviour to spend some time for to go to see how your competitors are working, just to feel the pulse of the market and…. to see if that damned have some more interesting property, that you didn’t found!!

The most of the time is a boring duty, but sometime, a surprise is waiting for you, just back the corner.

For example, I remained very, very surprised to find in a local Realtor listing, the property of a good friend from Miami, a property where I create and build the most magnificent ethnical roof of the Osa Peninsula, for sale, and for sale at a ridiculous price.

In the following three minutes an e-mail was flying through the cyberspace, directed to that Friend, with the question: why you didn’t told me that you was selling your property? and why at a so cheap price??

The next days, the first message in the mailbox was one of my USA friend that began in this way: – What??!!….Who is selling my property??!!…              He never had the lesser idea of selling hid jewel house with a breath taking view of the Ocean, and much less for the price that was listed for in that site.

In other ” investigations “  I made in other site I found:

- one downtown hotel that is listed with a big “SOLD” sign in top the     picture, and the Owner, another friend, never even dream of selling     it.

- an oceanfront property with some cabins with the same sign, and a     price of 100,000 dollars more the price we have for the same listing,     and that never had been sold.

-  an Oceanfront  lot that is for sale at 200,000 dollars, that appear in     another major site for only 18,000.

- a property that is owned by a very close friend that appear listed   together a beachfront house property of a client that gave us the exclusivity for the sale and a big land in the back, just for to put together enough land and offer it like an unique opportunity perfect for the development of a beachfront golf course. My friend told me; “I hope that if they sell it, they sell it for a really good price….”

And this having the knowledge about only the 2 percent of the population and some information about less than the 20 percent of the territory, and having surfed only few web sites!!…..what is the real  dimension of  of this iceberg??….. Huge, really huge…and scaring!

I can understand that some SOB is trying to cheat some naive buyer, offering him some incredible property, obtaining some money for to put in some “escrow” managed by some friendly lawyer, put together enough money for to spend some years on a Brazilian beach, in good company, I hope, and…snap….disappearing…..

I can understand this, but I can’t understand the poor minded guys that short in term of listing or in quality of their property, they think that is a strategic move to add some nice picture of some really nice property to their poor pages, and less than this attitude, I really hate the habit of insert some fake “SOLD” property, just for to appear like an active and successful agency.

Talking about this kind of issues, somebody told me, can be counterproductive for the whole business , but I believe that if somebody can’t play clean in this kind of game, is obbligation of the clean player try to change the situation, both pushing over the poor minded, and /or advising the possible buyers of the existing risks.

I believe that a clean field where to play, make the game more interesting for the players and for the clients too, and I am sure that a satisfied client will bring more clients and more business to the whole market.

I don’t do any name here, but if somebody ask to me in a private conversation I can support each example I was talking before with the pages where to find the felonies at work .

 

 

So many realtors, so little Properties

Judging from the numbers, it looks like Real Estate is the most profitable possible activity here, in the Osa Peninsula. So many person that doesn’t have any , even personal, experience in buying, selling and managing properties, in the last three-four years, just hang a sign out of the door and start trying to sell any kind of land to some candid people that, believing that here around apply the same rules that works at home.

The fact is that real estate is not a kind of business with a long history in this area, until 15 years ago the only land transaction occoured between local farmer and very little or no paper work was involved in the process, an handshake was normally enough for to buy and sell hundred of hectares of land.

In this world of real men the registration of a land to the National Register was a mere formality that was considered not necessary because almost all the dispute were fixed with the help of a couple of machetes or a couple of gun-shells.

Feeling unnecessary the registration for the precious pastureland, you can imagine what they think about to register the unuseful oceanfront lands where no good grass can grow!

The other fact about registering land means that the government can ask for some, normally very little, taxes over that property, and for the vast majority of the small farmer this was a kind of cost that they couldn’t effort.

So, right now, almost all the properties of the Osa Peninsula doesn’t have any registration in the National Register, and often the local owner make confusion between title and plano catastrado, creating much more confusion when they have properties inside the IDA ( Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario) land program.

The people that in the street, bars, shops of any kind and taxi, are trying to sell some land to some naive customer, that think in a huge saving for don’t have to deal with a real estate agent, just add smoke and lies to the already confused situation, hoping in a quick’n easy money falling from the sky, without any regret for to have to cheat the unlucky foreigner.

Properties that have all the papers up to date, are very few, but this doesn’t means that is impossible or dangerous to buy one that doesn’t have all complete. Often is possible with just some weeks of legal works put in order the history of the land in object and obtain the complete set of papers that guarantee the purchase, in some other situation the work to do is more complex and long because the ownership is fragmented amongst several brothers and sisters that maybe don’t live here around, but nothing is impossible, and, normally, buying a land that need to be registered, means a significant saving in terms of money.

Don’t think that is always possible a miracle, and don’t think that all the agents, even with many years of being playing this game, and much less all lawyers of the country, know how to do for to transform a piece of land in a Real Estate… if in doubt stop and ask for help, and don’t believe that because the person you have in front of you is an ex-pat resident here from a long time, and maybe have a real estate certificate on the office walls means that you are out of the risky zone…. we saw things, here, in the Osa Peninsula, that you, the human, couldn’t believe….. but about this we will talk next time…..