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…..