Properties in Costa Rica Blog

United Country Properties in Costa Rica is a proud sponsor of the 2nd Annual SASY! Charity Golf Tournament to be held this Friday, May 4, 2012 at Valle del Sol in Santa Ana.  United Country believes in giving back to the community by supporting local charities like SASY.  SASY is a non-profit volunteer group dedicated to the prevention of animal abuse which funds nationwide spay/neuter campaigns.

The event will kick off with a Continental Breakfast beginning at 6:30 AM, followed by a shotgun start for golfers at 7:00 AM.  After the tournament there will be an awards luncheon with recognition for the winners, micro-brewed beer, and loads of fabulous prizes.  United Country will have a tent set up at the18th hole, where we will be promoting our excellent golf properties in Valle del Sol, as well as other premier homes for sale all over Costa Rica.

Field is limited to 108 golfers and limited spots for golfers are still available. (Call Marjan 2203-1803 if you are interested in signing up). Just a few of the prizes available for participants:

• Round-trip United Airlines tickets
• Salon 202 spa packages
• Golf Rounds from Hacienda Pinilla, Cariari, and Valle del Sol
• Restaurant gift certificates  from Product C, Cowtown, Maya Lounge, and more!
• Hotel gift certificates from Hotel Indigo, Los Suenos, Pura Vida Hotel, CocoMar Beach Resort and more!
• Massage from  Karen Medicina Integral & Estètica
• and much more!

The tournament always attracts a great group of friends and competitors and United Country Properties in Costa Rica is thrilled to  support SASY! and its mission to end animal suffering.  Stop by the 18th Hole to meet the Properties in Costa Rica team!

The New Yorker
by James Surowiecki

This year, a few hundred thousand intrepid American travellers will head to places like Thailand and Costa Rica, in search of something that they can’t find in the United States. They won’t be looking for Mayan ruins or ancient Buddhist temples, but something a bit more practical: affordable medical care. These medical tourists will be getting root canals, knee surgeries, and hip replacements at foreign hospitals. If health-care costs in the U.S. keep rising—and especially if Obamacare is overturned by the Supreme Court—more of us may soon be joining them.

For decades, wealthy people from developing countries have come here for care, but these days medical tourists travel all over the world. And while it’s hard to disentangle the stats from the hype—a number of countries portray themselves as favored destinations—it’s clear that millions of people are now doing this. The Bumrungrad hospital, in Bangkok, treats four hundred thousand foreign patients annually. Malaysia had almost six hundred thousand medical tourists last year. And South Korea had more than a hundred thousand, nearly a third of them American.

For Americans, the attraction is obvious: medical care is a lot cheaper abroad. At CIMA Hospital, in Costa Rica, for instance, hip-replacement surgery costs around fifteen thousand dollars, roughly a sixth of the average here. So far, though, various factors have kept a lid on demand. Logistics can be challenging, and insurance companies have been leery about reimbursements for care overseas: they already get big discounts with U.S. hospitals, and they risk a public-relations disaster anytime something goes wrong abroad. Above all, patients have been wary. We trust the quality of foreign-made televisions and cars, but we haven’t taken that leap when it comes to foreign doctors. People worry about the lack of legal recourse, and the sheer unfamiliarity of medical tourism makes people hesitant to try it. A few years ago, the grocery-store chain Hannaford set up a partnership for the benefit of its employees with a well-accredited Singaporean hospital. Singapore is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, but medical care there is still significantly cheaper than in the U.S., so the arrangement looked like a model for how medical tourism might work. But none of Hannaford’s workers were interested in going to Singapore.

There are a host of forces that could change this. The quality of medical facilities in developing countries has risen dramatically, and the private hospitals that cater to tourists often feature technologies similar to those in American hospitals. (This has its problematic side: many of these high-end hospitals are in countries where citizens struggle to get basic care.) Furthermore, new companies are making treatment abroad easier and more attractive. Blue Cross/Blue Shield has started a company called Companion Global Healthcare, which connects patients with hospitals around the world. Political events could also quickly make medical tourism considerably more attractive. If Obamacare is overturned, forty million Americans without insurance will stay that way. If Medicaid and Medicare are cut sharply, the cost of American health care will eventually become prohibitive to many senior citizens. And if health-care costs keep soaring fewer employers will offer health insurance. That doesn’t mean that Americans are soon going to jet halfway around the world for an ingrown toenail, but it’s easy to envisage regional systems becoming common, with Americans heading to places like Costa Rica and Mexico, and Western Europeans going to places like Hungary and Turkey.

If more Americans sought care abroad, it wouldn’t just save them money; it could also help control medical costs at home. Medical tourism can be considered a kind of import: instead of the product coming to the consumer, as it does with cars or sneakers, the consumer is going to the product. More medical tourism would increase free trade in medical services, something there has not been much of in the past. The U.S. has been religious about breaking down barriers to free trade, especially in manufacturing and service industries, exposing ordinary workers to foreign competition. But health care has been insulated from the forces of globalization. This has been great for hospitals and doctors, but less good for consumers. It’s one reason that the cost of health care has risen so much faster than that of almost everything else.

It has been generally assumed that medicine is inherently a local business. But that would change if we allowed Medicare and Medicaid funds to be spent in foreign hospitals, or if insurers cut consumers in on the savings from treatment abroad. And if domestic hospitals actually had to compete with places like Bumrungrad or CIMA, the way American car companies have to compete with Toyota and Honda, they might be forced to become more efficient. Even an increase in domestic medical tourism—people journeying to lower-cost U.S. hospitals, like the Cleveland Clinic—would help. There are other ways to bring free trade to medicine, too. As the economist Dean Baker has argued, making it easier for foreign doctors who met standardized requirements to practice in the U.S. would hold down costs and improve service. In addition to exporting patients, we could import doctors. Politically speaking, of course, this all seems improbable, because the medical industry is a powerful lobby and uninterested in competition. But the reality is that, unless we find some other way to rein in health-care costs, the logic of free trade in medicine is going to become harder to resist. ♦

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2012/04/16/120416ta_talk_surowiecki#ixzz1t0LtYpVg

The western suburb of Ciudad Colon is fast becoming the new hot spot in the Central Valley of Costa Rica.  In Colon, you can enjoy a relaxed lifestyle surrounded by nature, yet still be only 15 minutes from all services and amenities, including Multiplaza Mall, The Forum office park, and Hospital CIMA.  Ciudad Colon is a quiet country town where residents can walk to the weekly farmer’s market, skateboard or enjoy a game of volleyball the newly remodeled park in the town’s center, or jog or bike on the winding road that leads to the U.N.-sponsored Universidad Para La Paz in El Rodeo.  In Colon, it’s easy to take a step back from the hustle and bustle of life and enjoy ”comida tipica” at local restaurants like Sabor a Pueblo or Zompopas, birdwatch from your back porch, or go for a weekend trail ride at one of several local riding facilities.  Ciudad Colon also is home to several annual festivals, including the ever-popular Gran Tope (parade of horses).

Ciudad Colon is located only a few kilometers from the Caldera Highway, allowing residents to make the 1.5 trip to the beach with ease.  Colon also benefits from its location alongside the impressive Virilla Canyon, which provides spectacular views and an abundance of wildlife.  Fresh breezes from the canyon keep the weather in Colon pleasant year-round and make it an ideal location to relax and enjoy time outdoors.  For families with school age children, Colon is an excellent choice, because private schools such as Country Day, Colegio Blue Valley, St. Jude’s and the Panamerican School are all within easy travel distance and offer daily bus service.

If you are looking for a place that strikes the right balance between convenience and tranquility, look no farther than Ciudad Colon.

By Arturo Guzman

Company’s Sales Volume Up 23%, Expansion of Affiliate Network in U.S., Abroad

April 9, 2012 – (KANSAS CITY, Mo.) –United Country Real Estate, the nation’s largest seller of lifestyle real estate, has continued its expansion with the opening of 12 new offices in the United States and six new affiliates in foreign markets. On top of this first quarter 2012 growth, the company has shown a 23-percent increase in real estate transactions during same period.

“Six years ago, United Country recommitted to its 87-year-old roots with major across-the-board investments in new services, new technology, new thinking and a strengthened property marketing program to better serve our buying and selling clients,” said Dan Duffy, chief executive officer for United Country Real Estate. “The results we are seeing now from our affiliated offices are a direct result of these targeted investments. We, in close collaboration with our professional local office owners, agents and brokers, are outperforming the current market and are really enjoying the byproduct of a great deal of hard work by the dedicated professionals that are proud to be part of what is proving to be an extremely bright future for the company. We expect a continuation of expansion in the network and our affiliated offices sales volumes in the coming months.”

Just in the first quarter of this year, United Country has opened offices in Mena, Ark.; Eagle, Colo.; Fort Collins, Colo.; Lincoln, Maine.; Moriarty, N.M.; Beaufort, N.C.; Camden, TN.; Aledo, Texas.; Mt. Pleasant, Texas; Independence, Va.; Midlothian, Va.; and Penhook, Va. In addition to new U.S. affiliates, United Country has opened offices in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Pavones, Costa Rica; and Dominical, Costa Rica. The company has further plans in place to expand into six more areas of Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico by year’s end.

Growth was realized across many of the market segments United Country specializes in including land up 52 percent, recreational properties up 36 percent and given the incredible demand for farmland, farms more than doubled versus the first quarter of 2011. Another sign of an improving real estate market can be seen in home sales in the small cities and towns the company serves with sales of residential properties up 12 percent.

“With the real estate market conditions significantly improving, we expect to see this strong growth continue throughout 2012,” said Mike Duffy, president of United Country Real Estate. “Americans still hold dear the dream of homeownership and owning lifestyle real estate, and at United Country, we specialize in helping buyers achieve those dreams.”

About United Country

United Country Real Estate is the largest fully integrated network of conventional and auction real estate professionals in the United States. The company has been an innovator in real estate marketing since 1925. United Country supports nearly 550 offices across the U.S., Costa Rica, Panama and resort areas of Mexico, with a unique, comprehensive marketing program that includes one of the largest portfolios of property marketing websites (more than 3,000 separate sites and traffic of approximately 3 million visitors per month), multiple United Country real estate catalogs with national distribution , an extensive buyer database and national advertising of local properties that reaches more than 90 million homes per week. United Country has recently been recognized by Franchise Business Review,  AllBusiness.com, The Land Report, Entrepreneur and The Wall Street Journal as one of the top U.S. real estate companies.

According to a new study by Columbia University and Yale University Costa Rica has ranked the 5th greenest country on the planet. The study revealed almost all countries on Earth and Costa Rica was the only country in the America’s to rank in the top 10. The other countries that made up the first 5 were Austria, France, Sweden, and Norway.

It seems like everytime we stop and look Costa Rica is coming out in a new study ranked as the happiest, the greenest, and who knows what is next. Being the happiest and the greenest country can be related if you take a deeper look at the equation and the studies. The more time you spend in nature and the more attention you give to protecting your surroundings the happier of a place you will have created for your society.

If you are looking to invest in Real Estate it seems like a no-brainer as Costa Rica is becoming more and more of a spot to live a happy and environmentally friendly life-style.

When you think of Costa Rica the first things that come to mind might be ziplines, beaches, and monkeys. If you decide to stay in San Jose for a night or two you might enjoy some of the ammenities of the city. This gives you a chance to explore the areas of downtown San Jose or visit the many activites in Escazu.

Jaco beach is turning into the combination of both. You can find the beaches, monkeys, and ziplines but also enjoy the lifestyle of the city. The Jaco Theater which was startred by Darren Lee Cole who is the co-owner of the SoHo Playhouse in NYC is in its first season and has been a great success having starting with the Christmas Carol it will not be running its second show.

The show of the season is called 17 Borders Crossings and has traveled from Madrid to make to perform at the theatre in Jaco from Jan. 19th – Jan. 29th. Tickets are on sale now and go treat yourself to a weekend in Jaco or find yourself a weekend vacation home in Jaco with beautiful beaches and some of the ammenities of the city.

I was driving to Golfito yesterday from Pavones and as I bumped along the gravel road, hoping that the annual road grading would start soon I noticed someone who seemed to be lost. Now having lived here at 8 degrees North of the Equator for 12 years, I have come to notice that certain visitors seem to stick out like a sore thumb. As I slowed down to double check that my vision was not deceiving me, I couldn’t help but smile and chuckle as I realized it was an old friend from my childhood. You can imagine the surprise on my face as I was not expecting to see him way down here in the tropics. There he was in all of his glory, with a top hat, corn cob pipe, a carrot nose and a scarf around his neck. Yes indeed! It was Frosty the Snowman (in cardboard) tacked up on the weathered front door of an old farmer’s house, who I am sure had never seen a Snowman, much less snow, but who in the spirit of the season took the time to put Old Frosty up to delight the children and passersby. Somehow after that, I didn’t feel the bumps in the road for the rest of the trip to Golfito, as my mind drifted back to the times in my youth when we would make Frosty the Snowman come to life in our front yards during the winter months.

Costa Rica is a country that spends the end of the year in full celebration. There are many things that happen during the end of the year that make Costa Rican’s get excited about the Season. The first is that the month of December all employees are paid double for one month. The second is that the end of the rainy season comes and it is full sunshine from north to south. Along with some extra money and sunshine all Costa Rican’s will be eating Tamales.

Tamales is a traditional dish that is made of corn base that involves a long process to get them just right. One of the most interesting things about the many Tamales that are made in the country is that they all taste just a little differerent. You will notice that everyone you talk to claims that their grandmother makes the best tamales. In my personal opinion all of the tamales are good and it is the vacation season, nice weather, and overall joy of the Christmas season that makes for each tamales to be the best tasting.

If you are offered a tamale this Christmas season yo almost always have to say yes and dont forget to save room for the next because chances are you will be offered them until they run out which is usually after the New Year.

The Howler monkeys must have digital alarm clocks because every morning at 5:30 a.m. on the dot, I awake to a chorus of male “Congos” as we call them. Their voices travel for miles through the rain forest and serve as a wake up call to the jungle. Shortly after they sound the alarm that a new day has dawned, the other species begin to stir. Green parrots take flight and announce that their squadron has taken to the air with ear piercing screeches that cannot be ignored. The soft cooing of a Dove in a nearby Coco Bola tree softens the blow of the raucous early risers. As the sun begins to rise above the jungle canopy that surrounds my house, soft rays of sunlight pierce through and illuminate the morning mist like beams from a light house. As I stand on the second level porch overlooking the garden, my favorite sentinel for the new day arrives with brilliant blue flashes and not a sound. The magnificent Blue Morpho butterflies take flight and enjoy the open spaces and sweet nectars of the garden. Reflecting on all of the natural beauty that surrounds me every morning, I am grateful and privileged to be awakened by the sounds of nature and knowing that I am alive to experience another Blue Morpho morning.

With the rains tapering off  and the beginning of summer just a few weeks away, soon we will see the population of tourists, ex-pats and Ticos begin to fill in at the beach. Here in Pavones, the horses that have had the beaches to themselves for the last few months will have to share with the coming surfers, sun bathers, and bikini clad girls who adorn the shoreline in the summer months. The economic stimulus that accompanies our guests will be welcomed by locals as the cabinas become occupied and the restaurants stock their kitchens. The smell of pan seared tuna and the wonderful aroma of chuletas and onions will fill the air and fill the tables with people sharing their daily experiences here in the jungle. Children will be on vacation from school and will enjoy the freedom from studies and the energy of youth as they play soccer on the plaza, explore the rivers and beaches, and reunite with visiting family members during the holidays. With the approaching New Year and the promise of Costa Rica’s many attractions, we are all looking forward to a healthy, happy and prosperous 2012!

Pura Vida from Pavones, Costa Rica

Bobby Nielsen,

United Country – Properties in Costa Rica Associate in Pavones, Southern Pacific