079 Investing in Hotels in Costa Rica and raising a family with Joshua Wittman

[Richard Bexon]

Good morning Joshua, how are you doing?

[Joshua Wittman]

 

Doing well, thanks.

[Richard Bexon]

 

Thanks for uh finally uh making the time for us in your very busy schedule to join us on the podcast sir.

[Joshua Wittman]

That's my pleasure thanks for the invitation. 

[Richard Bexon]

Well let's jump straight into it Joshua um as I know we're we're two very busy bees and I'm sure that the guests don't want to hear us small talking so you've been in Costa Rica and also real estate for a while now in Costa Rica especially well I mean the central valley and also in Guanacaste but, I mean what has really,you know, surprised you over the past few months? And, you know, are you seeing any changing buying patterns from clients?

[Joshua Wittman]

Yeah so first, from a commercial real estate perspective I'm seeing a trend pivoting in the commercial office sector. 

Okay, nobody wants to go back to the office so I'm excited to see what these buildings will do with this vacant space. 

Especially, in hospitality I am interested to see what kind of role hospitality will play in these new mixed commercial uses for these office buildings like you see in Lindora, near Escazú, it's so many beautiful glass buildings that are sitting empty, what are we to do with this office space?

 And then also to quote Hannah Fletcher, officially our country is moving into a from a buyer's market to a seller's market in several regions around the country, sorry Hannah Fletcher, is re-max regional director for Costa Rica so top dog there, and sellers with desirable properties are receiving multiple offers in locations like Escazú, Tamarindo, Flamingo, Atenas, and others. 

this is due to a large increase in foreigners taking interest in moving or investing in Costa Rica

[Richard Bexon]

Okay, so you are seeing, you know, because I knew it was definitely at the beach areas and I knew that was kind of in Atenas as well but, you're also seeing it turning into a seller's market in Escazú specifically all the areas of Santa ana, Escazú, kind of west San Jose?

[Joshua Wittman]

So location is absolutely key. 

It's important to also pay attention to desirable properties, we can't draw a circle around Escazú and say it's the buyer's market or it's a seller's market now but, for those those pieces that are low inventory those highly desirable properties, four or five bedrooms within the price range if we're talking about Escazú, around 350 000.

Our market analysis is showing that yes, we are receiving multiple offers those properties are not staying on the market as long and it's a seed from where where we're seeing especially like you said, in the beach towns, as well as Atenas so, it's it's exciting to see this change not only in commercial real estate but, residential and making that as present to the buyer's mind as possible that there are opportunities to be had uh for the short term and long term.

[Richard Bexon]

Do you see any signs of it slowing down? 

I was speaking to a realtor in the Montezuma, Cabuya area the other day, she says that they're seeing a bit of a slow down there. 

I spoke to Gina over at blue water properties on the last podcast and she was mentioning it's not slowing down.

There's more of a lack of inventory now so, stuff is moving more towards you know, especially at the beach areas more land sales where people are looking to build homes.

[Joshua Wittman]

Yeah I'm seeing that there is a larger interest in well, if I can't find it, I'll build it myself um that's why i say that there are long term opportunities here there's a lot of new construction, taking down old neighborhoods and then a lot of public development as well.

 

We're seeing new roads roads being expanded where we used to have bottlenecks that created high traffic, we're seeing those being widened sidewalks being put in um here in the central valley and so that all tells me that things are not slowing down um like you said we we just don't see the inventory that is desirable for the buyer right now and so where is that going to be sourced.

[Richard Bexon]

 Yeah I mean we're seeing a lot of that as well.

I mean just especially on  buying land and construction point of view just the clients we're working with um you know who hire us basically to find that piece of land that they're looking for and then we actually manage the project afterwards for them you know, we're not builders we kind of just put it all together for them with the right architect and then you know, get them there make sure that they're building for an exit as well because sometimes people build a house for themselves and not also to exit it as well so, we're always the pain in the butts just reminding them that like “Look at some point you're going to want to sell this”, so think about that when building it when you you know when you sell it.

[Joshua Wittman]

So I think that it’s so important to have an exit strategy.

When you are building something because, I see a lot of gorgeous diplomat houses that were built 15-20 years ago that are smack in front of american international school or pan-america and nobody wants to buy a two million dollar house and have a butler and a full-time wait staff maintaining this house.

The market is definitely going to change, it is as we progress in this development of Costa Rica and and so I think it's really important for anybody that is interested in being a part of that development to work with somebody who can focus their dream.

That's something that I am constantly talking about with my clients, especially those interested in hotels. 

Where is your concept? You know, so many want to focus on “This is my dream. This is where it's going to take me”, but how do we bring them from fantasy to reality?

So I think it's really important for any of your listeners that are considering to build, to work with a professional that can help them align with imagining what's going to happen in the future 10-20 years down the road for this investment.

[Richard Bexon]

Well, I think you bring up something really good which is what I want to touch on later, which is just kind of that dream of owning a hotel here and just making sure, I mean there's dream and then there's the reality of it and those two things can be very completely different.

So there's a lot of moving parts in a hotel but we'll jump into that later.

I want to kind of just focus at the moment just on like again, I know you're here with your wife and also your family.

If you don't mind me asking how old are your children?

[Joshua Wittman]

I have four kids, my oldest is eleven, he'll be twelve in June. 

We have a nine, he'll be ten next week. 

We have a four-year-old and two year old. 

He'll be turning next week as well, so we have a full house.

[Richard Bexon]

Wow, wow, well, I mean, what advice would you give? Because a lot of families are looking to relocate here to Costa Rica. 

Wherever it may be, kind of all over the country, what advice would you give to anyone?

[Joshua Wittman]

First it's really important to have a budget.

We have a free budget or lifestyle calculator on our website, if you're using our website or if you're talking to other locals that have lived here a while it's really important to have a solid understanding of what the cost of living is going to be and if you're if you're interested in looking at the entire country, which I would recommend first if you're thinking about making Costa Rica home especially for longer than six to six months to two years, it's important to understand that especially in the beach towns there are going to be higher prices. 

Especially during high season and these are some things that I don't think families necessarily take into account.

 

They're looking primarily for where the school that they want to be in will be,will they have friends that have similar cultural backgrounds?

 

Are they expat communities? 

And is it going to be safe?

But, what I think they missed especially is “I want to be close to the beach, I want to be 15 minutes from the ocean”.

What my wife miranda and I have found is we are so happy here in the central valley, where the closest beach is 45 minutes away in Puntarenas, Jaco is an hour away but, when we lived we lived in Playa del coco for four years and the beach was a weekend trip, we were a 10-minute walk from the beach from our house.  

So in reality you can have the theme park in your own backyard but how often are you going to use it?

And so that's that's important to take into effect when considering your budget because the beach towns are just notoriously going to be a higher expense to get. 

Put that into perspective, we live in a three-bedroom home in a double-gated community inside the second gate.

 We have 200 town homes  and we pay 750 a month in rent. 

We also moved, it wasn't furnished.

We moved in here and it cost about six thousand dollars to furnish the entire house so that's 750 a month and 6000 dollars for furnishing. 

Keep that in mind this is not a low-income gated community this is very comfortable.

We have 30 kids that live on our block, we have two pools and 3 playground parks every day after 3 or 4 o'clock everybody opens up their front doors and the kids go out and play.

95% of our community is tico and so that's also really important for our community- for our family because we want our kids to be speaking spanish and to become tico we want our family to experience that ‘pura vida’ lifestyle which I think is very much focused on patience on what is in this moment right now and how can I relate to my neighbors? 

To my family in this moment instead of what's happening in this next moment and how do I bring that from the back of my mind into making this next moment really quality?

Which I think is a very North American type of mindset. 

 

Yeah ticos, I have found, are event oriented where gringos are time oriented.

This in itself is the biggest hurdle I think gringos like me must overcome. I'm constantly ticking the seconds of an event, preparing myself to transition into that next said event I am time oriented.

My tico neighbors are very much the opposite.

The events in the moments, not the allotted sum of seconds. 

I tell all my clients you cannot be in a hurry in Costa Rica.

[Richard Bexon]

Well there Josh,  I mean even with my tico friends as you know my whole day is planned out and some of theirs is but, like beyond that it's just kind of go with the flow and I think to survive in Costa Rica is if you try and swim against that current you will not survive like it's you just can't do it either.

It's just a way, like I just ordered a new car and they told me it'd be ready the first of April then it moved to the first of May, now it's the end of May. Which one is it dude? 

And he says to be honest with you Richard I don't know when you're gonna get your car.

[Joshua Wittman]

And that's okay because the event is getting your car and we're gonna do it right in pura vida.

You can't be in a hurry in Costa Rica and I think you said it's great, you can't swim against that current of pura vida.

I think that if you can learn especially, if you move here with the objective and I think many people are coming here because that idea of pura vida of not being attached to time of escaping the matrix as we hear, I think that's that if you can bring that objective that is your primary objective to escape that sense of time mandated schedule and move into the flow of one event to another and not feeling that rush of the day-to-day, second to second, you'll find that you can thrive very well in Costa Rica.

That living in that moment you find that flow. 

You can truly figure out, you know, where you're going to connect with your heart and thrive in what your heart's desire is and getting out of your head and so many people that are contacting me on a daily basis. 

I hear that they want to escape the noise of North America. 

They want to get away from that hustle and bustle and how can you do that?

That's the pura vida lifestyle, catching yourself from that time, being okay with this half an hour meeting turned into an hour and a half.

It's like that friend who calls you up and you know from the beginning of that call he's asking me for 5 minutes but, this is gonna be a 45 minute call but, you're connecting with that person from the heart yeah.

So that's why you answer that phone call and I think it's the same thing with Costa Rica.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah, I mean it was interesting.

I was discussing it somebody had a theory about this and I because I can't take it as my own but, they were like “look when people around the equator wake up in the morning they can just go to the mango tree or the banana tree and pick a fruit they know that the weather's going to be beautiful all year round they don't need to worry about tomorrow whereas if you live in the northern or southern hemispheres where you need to basically, so grow and then harvest in a small period of time you are constantly planning in the future because tomorrow you might wake up and you might not have food so you have to constantly plan” so you know, I thought it was interesting the way he was because it really made me think about it and I was like you know what he may have a point here.

[Joshua Wittman]

That makes a lot of sense.

You know and also, just when the sun goes down and when people eat, I mean I saw a map the other day of like times of the you know, like in England,we typically eat dinner like 5:30-6 o'clock in the evening.

 

Here in Costa Rica, sometimes it's not until a bit later and usually around the equator you know, and the southern, mediterranean, it's very late into the day.

Yeah, I think that's an interesting point you bring up with time because Costa Ricans rise and go to bed with the sun you know, maybe they wake up an hour earlier and they go to bed an hour or two later but, it very much aligns with my fatherhood time schedule.

Waking up at 5am, most schools start at 6:30 or 7 which sounds preposterously early and most stores close at 7 or 8 and so for me that makes it not feel like I am working against the day. 

I also think that it's important to note that time is of the essence. It's not that we are ticos,  I'll proclaim myself as a gifted or an adopted tico but, time is of the essence here.

 

It's not that we want to waste time or kill time, forget about time but, it's important to be in that moment and keep that moment alive as long as possible.

I think that's truly the essence of pura vida. 

It’s not forgetting about time but enjoying the moment and being grateful for that moment.  

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah, you'd mentioned about getting up there at school so I'm going to ask you a little bit just because a lot of people listening to the podcast of course, are looking to potentially move down here and I think one of the big questions is always going to be schooling.

Can you get a good education in Costa Rica? and how do you find it because I know that you've been in education here in Costa Rica before so I think this is a very good question for you.

[Joshua Wittman]

Yeah, so speaking as a former teacher of 15 years I think that I have a pretty good understanding of what parents want for their kids in education.

I ran my own school here for 4 years and then in the central valley I worked at country day school for 2 years as a math and computer programming teacher and I can say that yes, there is quality education here.

We send our kids to CIT, that's C-I-T vocational school, typically tico schools graduate after year 11th. CIT has a 12th year that licenses students in a trade of their choosing. 

Main courses are taught twice in spanish and english the school is eight years old and has already grown to more than 700 students the majority of the population of ticos, there's only about 5 or 10 percent that are expats so again, we want to inundate and fully immerse our family into the tico culture and so schools and neighborhood are important to do that.

It's also a huge campus. It used to be a paper factory.

They purchased it, it’s 14 hectares, it has organic gardens, now they actually have an organic market and a restaurant that are operated on the weekends by students and staff and then during the weekdays of course, the students are attending classes but, even my two-year-old, I mean we have a donkey and chickens and they go explore the gardens and so there's this very hands-on experience that i think is so important to practice in education.

 You must pair academics with real life experience or you very quickly lose motivation and interest.

If you don't have a student's interest you don't have them learning so that's what what showed just a really great fit for us at this school.

It's in the heart of Belén in the central valley.

I find schools here following a trend actuall, I have coined “eco-education” or connecting the earth, the community, and the ocean, that's what we called our school in playa del coco school that we have since closed but, have a dream of reopening one day.

There are other programs as well: bandera azul, zero waste, and other sustainable programs are growing in popularity and implementation in schools all over the country.

I know that's an interest for many parents as well as, apart from the academics, what are we looking at for preparing for the future and being globally aware, globally conscious.

I would still recommend the private standard, to the public quality of education. 

It is still a developing country in which the communities without private funds are struggling for the most part especially with resources for teachers.

There's a lack of books, there's a lack of other resources to really engage the students I've seen in many schools classroom sizes over 40 students to 1 teacher and so that you know, public education in my opinion isn't there yet in all areas, there certainly are public schools especially here in the central valley or in some communities in the beach that do have resources and do have the community around that public schools that offer those resources but, in large part I think the majority of the the standard, I should say of private schools, fits what many expats are looking for or are expecting schools to offer their kids 

[Richard Bexon]

How much are we looking at, spending wise , per month for a private school? 

[Joshua Wittman]

We have four kids like i said, and we spend a 1000 dollars a month total.

You know two of those are going half day to the child care program so you know, there's a scale there.

There's also books and uniforms so the matricula (administration) process at the beginning, is kind of a shock.

I thought it was going to be 1000 dollars a month, starting in January and it's actually triple that at the beginning because you have uniforms, books, matricula and other things so that's something to prepare for.

It’s the added cost at the beginning but, something that I found in Costa Rica not just particularly to our one school or schools that we've been involved in is this to use the word “overwhelming” sense of community.

It doesn't matter the quality of education per sé, the tico is generally ready to open their door at a moment's notice without even knowing who you are and inviting you in for coffee and getting to know your roots, not what you do for a living, what's your income, what car do you drive, it is very much the opposite of keeping up with the joneses, of how do we bring the joneses into our family, into our home, and create a community and I see that in Costa Rica. 

That is the number one reason why we have chosen to make Costa Rica, home. 

Because of that sense of community that is so popular in the public sense, you see it within traffic, the cars will stop on either side of the road to allow somebody to cross even though it's not a crosswalk, to being a new person in a neighborhood and everybody asks “who are you? Where are you coming from? Do you have family here?”-  These are the initial questions that a tico will ask and it's so welcoming to a newcomer who's looking to set roots, to create a social structure and be a part of something that is different from where they left and that's really definitely important.

[Richard Bexon]

Let's change gears a little bit and jump into hotel investments now, just because I promised the listeners that we would jump in and discuss hotel investments so I'm sure that they've been talking to us or they've been listening to us talk about kind of living here etc., but I mean what advice would you give to anyone wanting to invest in a hotel in Costa Rica, Joshua?

[Joshua Wittman]

First, it's really important to have a concept, the concept of your hotel, I'm the only buyer's agent specializing in commercial hospitality real estate that I know of at the moment, if any of your listeners are also a buyer's agent for hotels please contact me because I'm constantly updating my network but, talk to me most of my leads are young money with bitcoin or gamestop if you recall that skyrocketing a couple of years ago. 

[Richard Bexon]

Now I wonder where it is today.

[Joshua Wittman]

I'll have to look but, you know these these are many of my my buyer leads they're coming to me either with young money or they're retiring boomers with a couple million dollars either way, they  usually both have a dream and they're looking for if I may, they're looking to put their toes in the water. 

Let's try this, toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand life is good today, life is good.

As they do, i can connect investors with a huge added value consulting namely and first of all our host Richard Bexon but also as hotel operating consultants and I think that, especially if you're interested in hotels is where you should look for one of whom I will recommend, I meet every monday at the Santa Ana country club, his name is Ricardo Rodrigo Hill. 

He was the general manager of Fiesta resort hotels for over 20 years and so basically I have, I can search over 200- sorry, 2 000 hotels on or off market with the network of lifting agents that I have created over the last two years within Costa Rica but, anytime I get a hotel new or old., listing that is interesting to a buyer I'll put it in front of Ricardo and we'll break it down,

If he doesn't give me the green light, then it goes into the bin or to be looked at, at a later date and so I have Ricardo as well as other operators and experienced consultants who I can put my investors with and help assess or give a SWAT test to what is their plan, what are they looking to do, do they want to just retire? and have some 10 000 passive income coming in every month?

I know that I have a buyer who's a developer in Tamarindo who owns two boutique hotels. He doesn't operate them, he rents them to an operator and he receives 10 or 13 000 a month. 

There are deals like this and there are ways to get a boutique hotel up to that level so that you can retire with your ass in the sand and a cold beer in your hand, or you can create it yourself and I know that there are investors out there who want to find their dream in Costa Rica and build it from the ground up and so it's important to be involved in a network that can give you those facets of your investment to to the spec that you want.

[Richard Bexon]

I'm just going to mention, you mentioned something there which is I think, you really need to find your niche just because there are a lot of hotels here in Costa Rica and they're all competing for noise so you just need to figure out how you're going to separate yourself you know, I always say to people blue ocean, red ocean.

Red ocean, where people are fighting each other, blue where you're on your own so, how do you put yourself in a blue ocean?

[Joshua Wittman]

As an investor or an agent?

[Richard Bexon]

No, as an investor.

I mean looking to invest into a property like you know because I work with you know, hoteliers all over Costa Rica.

Everything from you know, the much most luxurious hotels down to you know 100 bucks a night so you know it's interesting when I meet with them, I mean there was a very prestigious aeronaut hotel where I stayed in one of their rooms and was like look guys you've got to get rid of these jacuzzis you have and put pools in here because your pool's going to cost you about 15 000 but your ADR in these rooms you know, you could increase by 25% and make that back in a couple of months and then I come back like two months later, he's like Rich, I did exactly what you said and you were right you know and I was like wow, I was just kind of like saying it a passing remark not to go and do it but, like there's just all of these intricacies of hotel ownership from the operation, to the sales, and marketing and the sales and marketing is a complete you know, different rabbit hole from property management systems, to channel managers, to using ai for rate maximizations, to then also delivering that service to a client, and then also you know returning back to marketing and getting that client back, again because you'll get a lot of repeat clients or referrals you know, and what a hotel wants is, they want as many much direct business as possible so they're not paying you know 20% - 25% you know commission to expedia, booking, airbnb, vrbo, or just travel agents so I think that anyone looking to buy a hotel here just needs to really understand what they're getting themselves into but, I think you bring up a great point there which is, there are some very good operating companies, management companies of hotels here in Costa Rica well.

[Joshua Wittman]

And they're coming here to give a shout out to one operating company Onda they just opened their first hotel room, if you're if you're familiar with their CEO Bill, he has this great idea of, there is a new niche to be taken advantage of between the hostel and the hotel and it is this fast casual niche that isn't being attended, isn't truly being tended to.

We're seeing it being tended to in Air BnBs, in higher end boutique hotels per sé but, we're looking at a guest who wants to spend anywhere between 3-5 nights to 2-3 weeks in the same place they don't want to be packed full of people.

Maybe tops 20 rooms and 25 rooms so we're still in that boutique hotel size and they're looking to pay more than the hostile rate.

They're looking 50 to probably 150 and we now have a residency program in Costa Rica for this type of client, it's the digital nomad, where you have common spaces, where people can talk about what crypto they're involved in or what is their small business that they're running online or exchanging ideas and the isolation of the room, isn't as important as how close is it to the city life or how close is it to the beach, how close is it to the airport and what other kinds of clients similar to my mindset are staying there and so I think it is incredibly important of investing in a hotel to fully understand the concept and what your client is truly looking for and to come back to Onda I think Bill has done an excellent job of doing his market research, before he bought his hotel and he found exactly where his clientele are going to.

He has a great heat seeking map of where the digital nomads are going to and he and I are mapping out where his next locations are going to be. 

I also think it's important if you're interested in managing a hotel instead of owning it to do that same thing, figure out where your clients are going to be and instead of considering a purchase perhaps considering a lease.

There's so many benefits to leasing, where you can focus on your service and your niche as your hotel owner or the operator or your marketing team and like you were saying, blue wave, red wave, are you going to do all of this on your own? or are you going to work against other people? 

And if you're going to be working against other people the best thing you can do is delegate and network that team so I'm seeing that with franchising hotels.

I'm seeing that with big hotels that are looking to scale, building more rooms and increasing their market share to for example, I have a hotel in the heart of Santa Ana. 

it's an economy hotel and one of these, one of the ways he's planning to scale his hotel in these next six months is by building pods, so a pod is similar to a bunk bed but, more isolated you have walls around your bunk bed and you have a curtain that can open or close.

It comes from Japan right, it's that lower tier economy style where you don't need your own room and almost like an apartment style room where you have a kitchen you're okay sharing, a shared bathroom and you're okay spending 50 dollars a night for your pod but, now you just turn one room with eight pods into a 400 dollar a night if it's at full capacity instead of a 50 dollar a night and you have a half kitchen and it’s own bathroom in there you're really increasing your utility.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah, I mean I think you mentioned something there which is, what you need to do, you need to create community because that's what people are going to be coming to your property for.

You know, so like-minded people that want to find connections.

They want to create an authentic experience in creating communities so let's just jump into something a little bit more technical here just because again, I  think we're running a little short on time here but, when, what valuation model do you think best reflects a hotel?

You know, because typically something's worth what someone is willing to pay for it but, I have a lot of people asking me hey Rich, how do I value my hotel and I'm like well, there's a variety of different ways of doing it. 

Ultimately, as it's going to come down to what someone is willing to pay for it but, I mean what would be the you know, the measuring sticks that you would potentially use?

[Joshua Wittman]

Great question and this is something that I scratched my head on for 2 years and finally with my consultant Ricardo Rodriguez we came up with our top 5 questions for assessing any hotel that is in operation.

Now, of course many of these can't be applicable like they were not applicable to many distressed properties over during the pandemic but, the majority of the hotels that are still operating that survived the pandemic are selling as an operating business so the first thing that we look at and again this needs to be tailored to the concept of the owner, what do they what?

What are they really looking to get at?

But, the first thing we need to look at is the number of rooms and the types of rooms.

Do they have suites? Do they have villas? What kind of room are they really looking for?

If the owner wants an economy style great then that's the kind of room that we're looking for and that's probably the number of rooms we're looking for or over 50 rooms if we're looking at an economy, if we're looking for boutique okay great, then we're looking at around 25 rooms and then the other numbers can come in the next piece is what is their average sorry- what is their annual average occupancy this is an incredibly important number especially in Costa Rica.

Because we have high and low seasons in some parts of this country we have the 6 or 7, even in some areas 8 month low seasons, yeah so, you're going to be making the vast majority of your revenue during 1 or maybe 2 quarters of your year and then you're surviving. 

You're trying to do special events or overhaul your marketing for those other 6 months, that you are near rock bottom depending on what your scale is for rock bottom of occupancy so that's our second measure of how do we assess, is this a good operating hotel? Do they have high occupancy?

And I would recommend looking at high occupancy as 80 for the annual average not 80 per month, for january through March, we're looking at for the whole year and that's really important because if you don't have that occupancy then your ADR, your total revenue, these are pieces that just don't fit with that concept and then we're looking at the average daily rate again. 

That's for the entire year, what is their average daily rate?

And also because many have different styles of rooms they might have the presidential suite and then they have their economy room as well so we need to take an average of all of those including their occupancy to have a good measure of how they are producing with those 3 things.

We can typically calculate their total revenue we'll also ask for their total revenue to be able to run the numbers backwards and then finally we're looking for their gross operating profit so those last two pieces we should be able to run the map backwards to be able to find but, of course those are super important for understanding the utility of that hotel.

[Richard Bexon]

Definitely, well let me jump to my last question here, Josh, if you inherited 500,000 dollars and had to invest into business or real estate in Costa Rica what would you do? and I think you asked the question here, how much you're allowed to leverage if I said you could not leverage anything you have to use 500 000, what would you do with it?

[Joshua Wittman]

Okay, well first, my mind goes to my heart and my passion projects and so I would buy the hotel I have listed right now. It's called the Asclepios wellness and retreat center. My wife Miranda, would thrive as an artist, author and educator.

Miranda's dream is to operate a facility like Jacob's pillow. This countryside hotel has a desirable, boutique feel and has more amenities than most boutique hotels in the country including an amphitheater and that is definitely a draw for Miranda so, I would buy Asclepios.

However, if i'm getting back up into my head and running my numbers, I think hotel Louisiana is a really great purchase it has room to almost double the number of rooms on campus it is in the heart of Santa Ana and this is a piece that I think is important to focus on in considering hotels in all of Costa Rica, is that consistent occupancy.

We don't get those high occupancy numbers 80 plus, unless you have that consistent occupancy you can't have 100 occupancy during high season and then 30 occupancy during low season your numbers just won't add up so, you need a consistent occupancy and you can often find that in a well operated hotel in the central valley.

Why? Hotels in the central valley are producing from ticos who are coming here for special events, doctors appointments, business retreats, from other parts of the country and these do not have a season for them.

Costa Rica has beautiful weather all year round so, you have weddings all year round, you have birthday parties all year round, you have businesses running retreats all year round here and so because of the national market share you have a higher occupancy, hotel Louisiana has 88 occupancy for the last two years showing that with only 47 rooms and they're planning on building 30 pods and potentially 20 more rooms within the next 18 months, as well as implementing a new restaurant so there's a huge growth potential in this hotel. 

And that's just going to make it’s numbers go up more so from a mathematical perspective I think that this ROI which is currently hovering for the sellers, negotiable price at nine years ROI we could probably, with some development work that down to a 5 or 6 year ROI, definitely which to me is very attractive.

[Richard Bexon]

Well Josh, as my grandmother would say I'm gonna have to love you and leave you unfortunately.

But, this has been an amazing podcast really appreciate your input on kind of, living here, relocating here and also your valuable input on owning or buying a hotel here in Costa Rica for anyone that wants to get in contact with Josh I'll put all of his contact details in the description, his email and also his telephone number, you can reach out to him and Josh it's been an absolute pleasure sir, thank you for coming on the show.

[Joshua Wittman]

Thanks a lot Richard it's been a pleasure.