Comfort zones are, well, comfortable. But they're also a place where possibilities are limited and opportunities are minimal. In 2014, my husband Wes and I were getting ready to retire and we wanted some new life experiences.
We took a vacation to Costa Rica and fell in love with the country. It had the climate my husband enjoyed and this Colorado gal loved the mountains.
I had worked in the library field for 30 years and was ready to explore in person some of things that I had been reading about while raising our family and working. Two weeks after joining my husband in retirement in 2016, we moved to Costa Rica. I can attest that retirement isn't the end of the road, but just a turn that can broaden your horizons.
In traveling around the country and doing our research, we decided that we wanted to live in the southern zone of Costa Rica, close to San Isidro del General.
Costa Rica offers so many different areas with micro-climates of different temperatures: city, mountain, beach... When we first moved here, it was overwhelming trying to decide what area was right for us. In doing our research before moving here, we found that most articles advise people to rent at first. Reason being, if you buy in the wrong location, for whatever reason, it might be hard to resell quickly.
We had rented in four different areas close to San Isidro del General. And yes, the micro-climate at one of the rentals actually made my husband sick. We had to break our lease agreement and move to a lower, less rainy location. This was a big eye-opener for us. After renting for three years, we decided the southern zone of Costa Rica was home.
In our 45 years of marriage, Wes and I had never rented before moving to Costa Rica. We missed owning our own house. So, after doing our homework, we were ready to take the leap and invest in a home in Costa Rica. We decided we would take our time and do our due diligence in finding the right house for us. We knew that we wanted to live among the locals in a real village community and not in an expat enclave in a big city.
Word travels quickly and it wasn't long before others became aware that we were ready to buy. An acquaintance had her lovely home with an outdoor pool and garden for sale for some time in Pueblo Nuevo de Rivas. We were approached by her realtor and asked if we would be interested in the property. Pueblo Nuevo de Rivas is a town dedicated mainly to farming, both coffee and livestock.
This was exactly the kind of community we were looking for so we made an offer of $200,000 on the house in October 2018. The owner took some time to think about it because when the house first went on the market, the asking price was $369,000. Happily, by December, our offer was accepted and we closed on the house in January 2019.
Now we own our own beautiful home, in what we consider a tropical paradise, with just the right micro climate for us. We named our newly purchased home "Casa Paraiso".
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