Introduction
[Richard Bexon]
As I said, it’s not live, so I’ll basically say good morning and we’ll get started, okay? Good morning, Luis Fernando.
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
How are you doing? Hey, Richard. Nice to be here. Thanks for giving us the space to share with you some info.
[Richard Bexon]
Not at all, man. It’s an absolute pleasure to have, I would say, another project management development engineer on the podcast as well. I see.
I mean, it’s kind of a bit of a new role in Costa Rica, kind of the owner’s rep project management and project manager now, and a lot of people are like, oh, well, why do I need it? And then you hear all these horror stories of, I mean, they happen all the time. It drives me nuts, Luis Fernando, when someone’s like, yeah, I’ve bought a piece of land.
I already have my builder. And I’m like, what? You’re not going out and bidding your project?
Why would you lock yourself in with one builder right from the beginning? Also he’s going to be the architect. And I’m like, wait, your company who’s kind of more engineering is also going to be your design art guy.
Those two parts of the brain don’t often work together. But anyway, I’m sure that we’ll talk about it. But Luis Fernando, how would you describe 2025 so far as it comes like in the volume of your work, your company, like are you seeing it speed up, slow down?
It’s pretty steady.
2025 Market Overview and Regional Analysis
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
Well, we will have to look at it from different perspectives. But on an overall thing, I think it has been steady and diverse because, you know, on the high season, everybody wants to build. Everybody wants to come and buy and have their house building in no second.
Right. But in the slow season, we also have clients and people want to develop or build. But it’s more like and it’s more like more selective.
You know, the people I don’t like to say this, but they can be a little bit more smart about the investment. Right. Because it’s not like a romantic thing.
Right. Oh, I’m Costa Rica. I want to build.
I want to buy. And then they go and buy crazy prices and they build crazy things with crazy prices also. But just because out of the romance of the thing, you know, but on the slow season, we we yes, indeed, find some more selective clients.
Obviously, the workflow is lower, but or slower in this case. But but we find like more selective investors that we like to call them or clients. But let’s say it has been steady.
We have an office in Tamarindo. It’s our main office in Guanacaste and everybody’s talking about the bubble of the investment that Guanacaste is going crazy. The Guanacaste, the new HACO and the new Pacifico Central.
And well, yes, indeed, we are having that that behavior like back in 2006, seven prior to the 2008 crash. But but I think this bubble that we’re living in Guanacaste is is infecting in a good way all the Pacifico Central because new developments are coming. More people are buying the Pacifico Central also here in the Pacifico Norte.
But I think this bubble is a more steady one. I we really believe that if we manage to direct the people towards the right direction, I think this bubble can last 20, 30 years for our companies.
Regional Price Dynamics and Land Valuation
[Richard Bexon]
Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, I mean, you mentioned that the Central Pacific, because I’m in Manuel Antonio today and I think it’s an area like developed heavily, like in the 90s and 2000s and then kind of slowed down. Everything then was more to Guanacaste.
But I think because of the price spike up there in Guanacaste, people are now looking to stay here in the Central and kind of Southern Pacific a little bit, you know, down towards Uvita or those areas because it’s just so jungly. I mean, I’m at the canopy level right here, you know, looking out at the canopy. You don’t get that up in Guanacaste as much.
Yes. And the wildlife that we have here, you know. So, yeah, it’s going to be interesting.
I mean, look, you know, builders are now coming. They’re not as busy. Architects aren’t as busy.
So things are definitely slowing down. I can see that. But what is still probably pretty heavy is you still have the developers coming in to develop, maybe not as heavy as before, but like maybe because those projects take three or four years sometimes to get started.
So we’ll still continue to see them. And that luxury end of the market is definitely still there as well. That really high end luxury market.
And, you know, we have some of those developments as well. I think it’s kind of more that condo, you know, up to a million dollars has kind of slowed down a little bit because we’re starting to see those prices come down pretty heavily as well.
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
And also, Richard, one pretty important thing is that, and you said it, a lot of clients or investors are moving down to the Pacifico Central because of their prices. But the sad reality, and I like to say this about Costa Ricans, about my people. But sadly, it’s a behavior that we are producing.
And I’m talking about Tico’s, because Tico owners in Guanacaste are putting crazy prices towards the lands. And we have talked to several real estate companies here. And I’m in my office in Tamarindo right now.
And we have talked to seven of them, like the big ones here, and they all say the same. The highest prices on the land, even without water, are coming from Tico owners because they say, oh, everybody’s coming to Guanacaste. So a hundred K piece of land now is worth four hundred K, half a million because everybody’s.
So it’s a behavior that we are producing. So until that behavior comes down from our people, even, and also some guys are investing because if they come and invest and buy cheap land and try to sell expensive, obviously the clients or investor, even our clients in Guanacaste or they or clients that want to be in Guanacaste, we are also offering them to go to Pacifico Central because with a half a million of a land in Guanacaste, they can build and buy, buy and build a landing in Manuel Antonio, in Quepos, in Jaco, and a super good one with the same half a million dollars. So it’s crazy, but it’s part of where we live right now.
Beach Availability and Infrastructure Comparison
[Richard Bexon]
Yes. Well, and also the demand in the Central Pacific is just as good, if not heavier, than it is up in the northern areas because there are so many beach locations there. Like in the Central Pacific, your areas are really Jaco, Playa Hermosa and then Manuel Antonio.
I mean, there are other stuff, Estorios, Bajuco and stuff, but then the beaches, it doesn’t have the infrastructure that Jaco or Manuel Antonio has, whereas up there you guys have Tamarindo, Playa Grande, you’ve got Avianas, you’ve got Flamingo, you know, you’ve got Las Catalinas, then you go Cocoa and like, it goes, there are a lot of variety of different areas, whereas here on the Central Pacific, you don’t, like you have these little jut points that point out.
And, but also the land is limited as well because so much of it is protected. Tim, also, yes. So it’s, it’s an interesting, like, look, I’m heavily invested in, you know, Manuel Antonio and La Fortuna, just because everybody wasn’t looking, you know, everyone was looking towards Guanacaste and another area.
Development Fundamentals: Understanding Your Market
But, I mean, Luis Fernando, in your opinion, like a lot of people came in and bought land and were looking to develop here. Okay. Like a lot of people are like, oh, I’m going to develop my own subdivision or my own, you know, compact, whatever.
What do people need to understand about doing that?
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
Well, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s like a checklist of things, right? Because first of all, like when we receive an investor or a client, because we like to call them investors, right? When we receive an investor, we, we talk, we address the investment in two ways.
One, what do you want? Yep. Budget is not, not a problem.
And, or how much money do you want to invest? Yeah. That’s different, right?
So when, when they are looking for developments, we, we always, if somebody wants to develop, it’s highly probable that they have real estates or realtors outside Costa Rica, right? So they already have this niche of the market, right? So when they want to develop, the first question is that we do is who are you selling to, right?
If you’re selling to mid-class, blue collars, white collars, I don’t know, you name it. So that’s, that’s number one. Number two, when do you want to sell?
Agricultural Parcels vs. Condominium Development
Because for example, let’s say you have 10 hectares of a lot. So do you want to sell privacy to, I’m going to give you an example. We have a project called Saving Coast.
We’re developing near Playa Avenal because we have an office in Playa Lagarto, that’s where I live. That’s near Los Aras, San Juanillo, Oceanal, and that, and that area. And we have 10 hectares there.
So what, what are we planning to sell privacy? So we are doing something we call in Spanish, Parcelamiento Agrícola. That’s like farms.
What’s funny or what’s interesting about the farms is that you need 5,000 square meters properties, right? So in the 10 hectares, then you have 18 because you need to put roads and you need to put common areas and et cetera. So Parcelamiento Agrícola, my wife is my partner in our company.
She’s a lawyer who has a specialized in real estate and everything. So what we do is if we have Parcelamiento Agrícola and we have the water from the Asada or AIA or from our own well or in the concession and everything, we can deliver that project in six months because having a segregation for Parcelamiento Agrícola, you know, super quick. Yeah.
But, but if the investor say, Hey, I have 50 guys, I have my niche of the market, I can easily get 50 houses. So then we have to go to condominium that we call in Costa Rica, right? Yep.
Which is complicated. Exactly. I am more expensive because you, you didn’t, you didn’t need environmental engineers, you need the Satena, you need the Amina, you need the Imbu.
Well, I bet you know about it. Uh, but for our listeners, it’s a 400% more expensive, like the development, that administration development of the, of the project and the timing. We like the fastest condominium that we have approved and segregated is eight months fighting with Satena, fighting with the Imbu, fighting with municipality.
So having a Parcelamiento Agrícola for 18 guys, 5,000 square meter land, where you can build up to 300 in a house and more pool, barbecue and everything with privacy in three months, let’s say four months, it’s super more easy and more cheap to do than the condominium. So that, that, that’s what we try to do with the investors, right? Try, try to get the most out of the money that they want to invest in Costa Rica, but it also depends on the niche of the market that they want to celebrate.
Infrastructure Costs and Budget Reality
[Richard Bexon]
Luis Fernando, I mean, I agree with that. And I mean, getting a condominium in eight months, you know, I mean, I would definitely not, I would manage people’s expectations, as you said, that’s the quickest it’s been done, but it can take two and three years, as you know. Yes, exactly.
But I think it’s also just the infrastructure required as well. Like people don’t understand is that like, okay, I’m going to pay, you know, a million dollars for land and my infrastructure could be another million dollars, like that’s what they don’t understand. They come with a million and go, I want to do this project.
They’re like, okay, I’m going to spend seven, $800,000 on the land. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, no. You need 500,000 on land and $500,000 on all the infrastructure required.
You know, and that’s where I think a lot of people go wrong. And also not understanding the market here as well, like it’s location, but also just access to financing. You know, I mean, it’s not often, Luis Fernando, that a development happens and it’s all sold out in two secs.
I mean, like you go to an Asada, there are developments that are still trying to sell and having problems, you know, selling, and I think that that’s the bigger issue at the moment that we have is there were all these developments done, but now the developers aren’t able to sell all these lots in certain areas.
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
Exactly. And all the things with the Asada is troublesome. It’s trouble, you know?
So, but yes, they, you’re right. And what they need to do is to have somebody besides them. And like your company, I know you do that for them too.
Yep. Or yes, we, we try to bring the reality and like you’re saying, okay, you need 400,000 for infrastructure, ready to be ready to sell the lots. And you need another five for the lot.
You need 900, then you need a million. Yep. Or you, or you have to change like, because like I was saying, a condominium.
Yes. But if you go to Parcelamento Agricola, then you can do, you know, um, it’s a lot of infrastructure is, is, yes, it’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty easy. So then your amount of investment versus what you can sell in these smaller or bigger units, but a small, um, quantity, um, that might get you like an ROI.
Bigger and quicker than having these tons of condominiums. Right. But, but it, it, it, it depends.
It depends always on, on the, um, on the type of client, you know, because some of them, they know about this. Some of them they don’t, um, but, but you have to address them correctly. Yes.
ROI Expectations and Market Reality
[Richard Bexon]
But it’s also is that again, yeah, I mean, you need to look at ROI or whatever it is, but you know, I say that if you’re looking at ROI, that you’re in the wrong country, man, I mean, go to the U S you’ll make more money, you know, I mean, this is a country, like you can make good ROI if you know what you’re doing, but if you don’t like, and you don’t have the right team, I mean, you’ll get pants, man. Like, you know, you’re in your wheels and be chasing your tail.
And, you know, I mean, sometimes here you have to ask three people and then when you get the right answer from two people, then that’s what you do, if that makes sense, but you can get three different answers sometimes. Yes. Or sometimes you don’t even get the answer.
Correct. You know, so that’s why your product is only as good as the team that you have on it here in this country. So you need to make sure you get a great team.
The Rebound Client Phenomenon
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
No. And, um, and, and you’re right. And statistically talking, I can say to you that 60% of our clients right now, we call them rebound clients because they get dropped, they got scammed, they get wrong information.
And now we are dealing with projects without budget, uh, without water, without a lot of things because they get mismanaged, right?
Critical Mistake: Single-Source Contracting
[Richard Bexon]
It drives me nuts when, again, someone comes in, buys a bit of land, they get referred to a builder and like, no, they’re like, no, I’ve got my builder. Like, we’re all good to go. And I’m like, well, who’s your architect?
Well, it’s the building company. And I’m like, wait, your building company is also the architect? Like you should probably speak to a couple of architects, but like architects, artists and designers, and that’s what they’re building.
Like architect should not build. Builders should not do architecture. Like they need to be separate things, you know, and I’m not saying there aren’t good companies out there that do have good architects in them, but like, I like to separate concerns because it kind of keeps a balance in a project where you have great architects designing.
You have then bid it, you know, out to a variety of different companies. Cause if you only have one company, man, I mean, I mean, we just got a bid back on a home that was like the lowest was 900 and the highest was 1.2. So that’s a $300,000 swing. That’s a 33% like price difference.
Like if you choose one company, which is it? Is it the 900,001 or the 1.2 million one? Like you don’t know, you know, but there could be mistakes in the 900,001 as well that you need to compare.
Bidding Process and Team Structure
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
Totally. My, my father is also an engineer and he taught me something that in the bidding process, the winner always forgot something, you know, because it’s the lowest, so he, he forgot something that the most important thing is like, like you’re saying, like, I’m going to give you an example of our company. We have, we are a project management and development company.
We have builders that they have the small construction company and we have architects that they have their company. And we work as a joint venture team, but the clients talk to different people and we are the, well, in this case, my wife, as a lawyer, she works like a small trust, you know, so we get the contract, we inspect, we approve the payments because we do break down of the payments, like, like tons of payments, because we need to be sure that everybody is working correctly. It’s being paid correctly and not like some of the owners that they have all like these rebound clients that I’m talking about, they have given 50% of the project to begin to a builder and a local builder, which it’s, it’s, it’s insane, like, like really it’s insane, but it’s, it’s part of what’s, what’s happening.
So yes, I totally agree. People need to have a couple of quotes from architects, a couple of quotes, at least from builders and also check their experiences and everything. And, and, and, you know, something that the clients, because they don’t know, obviously, don’t do in Costa Rica is that they check the background of the engineer on the College of Engineers.
Due Diligence: Checking Professional Credentials
We have a super strong College of Engineers here, like the Sophia, I bet you know it, and, and you, and you just can have a call and say, Hey, what, how did this engineer, like, for example, when we hire engineers, like junior engineers, we check their, their behavior, even in the payments in the College of Engineers, and they can say, Hey, he pays late, he like, like, you know, so, so you get to know the feeling of where you were hiring.
And also as a foreigner, he can call the College of Engineers and say, I have found blueprints signed by engineers that are not even registered like a couple of years ago in the College of Engineers. So there, there are tools that the, that the foreigners can use, check the background of everybody, but obviously they don’t know, but they need a good team here to let them know that. Right.
Legal Recourse and Corporate Structure Issues
[Richard Bexon]
Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, look, we’re both in the project management world, man.
I mean, I’m always say to clients, don’t be penny wise pound foolish, you know, which is that like, Hey, I’m going to save money on this, but then later you have to end up coming back. Like this is not the country to do it in. Like it’s a beautiful country, man.
But as you said, Luis, I mean, you give 50% to a construction company, that construction company could just disappear and you’ve got no recourse. And I think that that’s the thing of. There is very little recourse in this country.
I mean, you can get it, but it might take five to 10 years. And by that time the company’s gone bankrupt or like, you just need to be really careful. I like, I like to say we call ourselves like tiger rocks in our business, but like we’re rocks that keep tigers away.
Like, you know, the tiger sees the rock and goes, I’m not coming there. But I suppose in Costa Rica, we would do our rocks, which is that like when the jaguars turn up, you know, to try and get their meat, we’re there with the rock and keep the jaguar away so that no one gets taken advantage of.
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
Exactly. And because, and you know this, the process of getting money back, you sign with a corporation, the builder just builds up another corporation, that corporate, the other turns into a ghost corporation, you sue everybody, you do everybody, you never see the money. Correct.
You end up spending more money, yeah, on lawyers. Totally. And that’s the, that’s the reality.
So, um, like if, if the people are coming to Costa Rica, we are a good country, we have super good people, but like in all countries, there are bad people, there are bad investments and, uh, they just need to, to check the team.
Understanding Intent vs. Competence
[Richard Bexon]
And I don’t think a lot of the time there’s bad intent, Luis Fernando. I think that sometimes it’s just a lot of people have never seen this money before, or it’s a foreman that started this construction company and doesn’t know how to administer that money. Or what’s happening is they’re taking money from one project to pay the next one because they can’t administer the cashflow, like you have to understand it’s still a very young country.
The Pura Vida Challenge in Business
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
Exactly. And there’s something super important to add to that. That’s a super, super smart point.
And we have to add to that, the pura vida feeling, right. That, that we have in Costa Rica. So we, we, and I totally agree.
It’s not because I’m from here, right. But, uh, but we are not bad intent. We don’t have bad intentions.
Obviously we have a lot of them, but I think, I think the pura vida feeling. It’s, it’s good for marketing, you know, it’s good for tourism. It’s good to live because we, we are a community driven country, right.
But the pura vida feeling for, for business, it’s, it’s sometimes a little bit, um, how can I say this? Um, stressful, maybe the wrong word, but because like the foreman that now is a builder from a foreigner receives $200,000, she thinks that everything’s pura vida. So he can pay some debts by a car and then we have, everything’s going to be okay.
Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.
But when they get to that, okay, it’s not okay. And they don’t know what to do. Maybe they don’t speak English that well.
They didn’t have a contract even because sometimes the client thought of a one side of a house and he’s receiving another one from even materials or you name it. So I think also the pura vida feeling makes us with no bad intentions, but with the poor, because we are a young country with the poor management skills that some of our local, because like to add to that, we are talking about the shoreline developments, and we are talking about small towns, because if you go to Heredia, to Guadalajara, Costa Rica and Cartagena, then you find more experienced people, right? But if you go to the shoreline, you find a foreman, you find the contractor that has done two houses, doesn’t speak English. So we are super pura vida, but the pura vida sometimes, uh, kicks us in the back.
You know?
[Richard Bexon]
I get, I get it, man. I get it. Yeah.
But it’s the beauty of what keeps this country, you know, spectacular. So this is totally, but I’d have it no other way. Well, Luis Fernando, this has been absolute.
Great. My last question for you, sir, if you had $500,000 and you had to invest it into business or real estate in Costa Rica, what would you invest it in and why?
Investment Strategy: $500,000 Scenario
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
Uh, that’s a good question. Um, 500,000. Well, we, as a, uh, like I’m, I’m talking about my wife and me because we, uh, you know, we have our company and we, we, we have kids seven years old and four years also, obviously we are planning for the future, right?
So right now, if we had a half a million dollars, we can do two things. One. And as I was saying, get a small lot and do a percent.
I mean, to agricula, to invest, obviously, obviously had the water result because sometimes they, sometimes like 99% of the times they are sad that doesn’t have water because you know, as others are locally managed and, uh, sometimes they’re, they don’t have the experience, they’re just local people. So if I had half a million, I will find out a lot without water, right? So I can get it a little bit more cheap, right?
Not this dream prices, go to the Sarah to see what they need. Uh, get a, somebody, well, we, we, we have it, but if it’s, if it’s somebody gets an engineer to talk to their Sada, to have a real realistic quote, to have water on the property on, if not build a proper, well, I have a concession and everything that there are lots of people to that and build a parcel. Because first of all, if you had the water and you, first of all, you have a property without water, so you can bargain the price number two, you get the water and you have the segregation done in three months, so it’s ready to right.
So you can sell it. Um, if you buy a property at, let’s say a quarter of a million, you can invest. Uh, in, I give you the example of Serene Coast, our project, and we’re investing maybe 200 more in roads, a little gate, even though it’s not private, but you put a little gate there and you build a, um, an internal HOA between the owners and everything.
But, um, with half a million, you can buy the land, fix the Sada for the water or get your own well, segregation and a small road and a gate, and then you can sell it, uh, if you have 20 units, 50,000 each near the beach, super cheap, quick, and you have a million. So you double it like quickly because some, some of the guys or some of the investors, they want to do condominiums do 80 units, a hundred units, but then we get to where you, what you were saying earlier that, uh, sometimes they just, um, have dreams in the perspective that Costa Rica is a place to be a billionaire or become a millionaire, but, uh, but we are not, we’re just, um, one more super nice spot in the world, but, uh, but with our, our limitations, right. Some, some of the guys have built $2 million houses, but let’s face it.
That’s like less than 0.1% of the clients that come here, you know, like in Bali, like in Thailand, like in, I don’t know, everywhere. So, so we, we need to keep realistic. And the bottom line is that, um, with a half a million, you, you can do a lot of things that, and even you can buy a property in front of the poly growth.
And build your house. Yep. Yes.
And have three lots, build your house with that. A small, nice house with a, with a 70 meter square meter of a house with deck, a very, very open tropical, modern architecture and have two more lots to, to be sold and then you get at least what you invest in and you’re even.
[Richard Bexon]
Yeah. Well, Luis Fernandez, it’s always great to speak with another, you know, project manager out there. That’s, uh, you know, keep things cleaner in Costa Rica and fix again.
A lot of the mistakes that have been made, but I will put all of your contact details in the description down below, but very much appreciate you taking us, uh, taking time to join us on the podcast, my, my it’s vice versa.
[Luis Fernando Rojas]
Thank you for having me. And, uh, and I always extend the invitation that if you need something from us and we can help, we are, we are the guys to call like you, like your company and all the listeners out there. We are ready to, uh, to rock and roll, to help you, you know, awesome, man.
You have a great day. Thank you. You too, my friend.
