206 Buyers Agents and Where to Invest

[Richard Bexon]

Good afternoon, Dawn. How are you doing?

[Dawn Lane]

Doing well, thanks.

[Richard Bexon]

Fantastic. It's an absolute pleasure to have you here on the podcast. I know we've met multiple times, but it's nice to get you on here and to talk about the MLS and real estate in Costa Rica.

[Dawn Lane]

Thank you. It's my pleasure. It's my favorite thing to talk about, so I'm super excited.

[Richard Bexon]

Awesome. Well, I mean, I always like to start the podcast by getting a bit of an update of what people are seeing happening in the market. I mean, I would say the market's had a somewhat good start, even though we're halfway through the year in 2024.

Real estate worldwide, due to interest rates, is kind of slowing down a little bit. But I mean, what are you seeing happening here in Costa Rican real estate?

[Dawn Lane]

That's really interesting that you should ask, because actually, I think we all saw the report from the Ministry of Tourism that said that the tourism is up 15% from 2023. So I have to imagine that out of that 15%, there's going to be some people that are pretty excited about purchasing some property here. And I think we did have a really great start, and now we're through with overexuberant tire kickers, so to speak.

And I think as we enter into the green season, we see more experienced buyers or perhaps some of those buyers that had visited here before, but are now serious. They're not trying to squeeze in showings in between the monkey showings and the zipline ride, or getting a surf lesson in. So they're coming back now during the green season to really seriously focus on purchasing property.

So I think although there are less buyers that we see, we have more serious people who have been in the pipeline maybe for a little while. And some of the other things that I see too is the construction in Guanacaste is insane. I mean, just insane.

And the last thing I'll add to this before we move on is super interesting to see financing. I mean, banks are moving branches here. We've got a new branch from Bach, who's in town and they're servicing clients with loans.

We've got Besete, we've got Lafice over in Coco, and now we have Volo Loans coming in from Utah. And so offering a myriad of products for buyers that want some financing. So it's super exciting to see this.

I feel like it's still continuing to grow.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah. I mean, it's very interesting just kind of just seeing what's happening out there. I mean, I completely agree with you.

I mean, the individual coming, I'm seeing a lot more investors coming, if that makes sense. Meaning that like, I think because of where things are in the US, there is a lot of opportunity still in Costa Rica. Because I think we're only just getting started there, as you mentioned, that 15% increase of like, this will be the biggest year of tourism this country's ever had.

No doubt about it. I see it in vacation rental data. I see it just talking to everybody in the tourism industry of like, it's been a great year so far.

And I only see that continuing, especially as we continue to put more flights on.

[Dawn Lane]

I also see political, you know, we've got some, not that I'd like to talk about politics. Either way, your guy wins or he loses. 50% of the people want out of the US because of whatever happens with the political climate, right?

And in Canada as well.

[Richard Bexon]

So we've got that little magic card in our- We should just rename Costa Rica to Plan B, because it sure sounds, you know, it sure sounds like it is that for a lot of people. So, you know, people are like, hey, what's the political situation down there? I'm like, well, we have a new president every four years.

It's not the same guy. It's usually a completely different party. We have 25 candidates to choose from, and nobody knows who's going to win.

[Dawn Lane]

Yeah, you know, Switzerland of Central America, you know, I mean, there really isn't much that happens here. Nobody wants our Pura Vida. So we love having it, but it's not like something worth fighting another country for, right?

[Richard Bexon]

Exactly, exactly. Well, let's talk about something that you're very passionate about, you know, MLS. I mean, Costa Rica is, you know, it's always people are like, hey, is there MLS in Costa Rica?

And everyone's like, well, I mean, maybe, maybe not. So, I mean, is that correct?

[Dawn Lane]

I will say 100% there is an MLS in Costa Rica. And I will say, it started last year with Becky and Lindsay, who brought Omni MLS to Costa Rica, which was huge just to bring that tool to our country. But, you know, we really didn't have any sort of catalyst in which to get people excited about it.

And, you know, there was a lot of pushback, and there were a lot of things that were wrong with it. Because when you get a new tool in, and there's change, there are people that are just, you know, going to push back naturally, right? They've done it this way their whole lives.

And now here comes these people coming in with this new fancy tool. But I'll tell you, I took it over about six months ago. This is a passion project of mine.

Because, you know, being in real estate here and seeing how real estate is done. It makes me crazy. I mean, these WhatsApp chats and these Google Drive things.

And I've been, I've been a broker for 26 years. My mom is 88 years old, and she's doing real estate still for 45 years in the Pacific Northwest. And I have a daughter in Canada doing real estate.

So I'm three generations. And that makes me crazy. And it makes me sad, too.

It makes me really sad, because I think, you know, we can do better, we can do better. So I said, Okay, I'm going to commit to doing this. And I started working with Ross Buck, from Omni MLS.

He's the CEO of Latin America Omni MLS. And we started small with a little small group, we just started working on little things without anybody knowing about it. Because we're hearing all this, well, it doesn't work, it doesn't do this.

Okay. Well, it doesn't work if you don't work. If you don't work the system, it's not going to work, hands down.

And we found out that most people had logged in once and given up. So they each we need training. So we got some things fixed.

We got some really cool features added to it. And then I got certified. Can you believe this?

I am the only certified National Association of Realtors, Omni MLS instructor in all of Costa Rica. Oh, I know. It's a huge responsibility.

Huge.

[Richard Bexon]

I can only imagine.

[Dawn Lane]

I do not take it lightly. And, and because I believe in this product so much because it offers transparency, it offers one place for for realtors and and realtors who are legally working here, which is another thing you must, you must be legally working here in order and a member of CCCBR or did I get enough C's in there? Or CRGAR in order to use the MLS.

So it's a great place for for your buyer, for your seller, for realtors to engage. And, you know, we have over 400,000 realtors using the same MLS as us. We have Georgia, we have Houston, we have several in Florida, we have all of these MLSs are coming together.

And the technology is just mind blowing. Every day we add something new.

[Richard Bexon]

Who does the MLS serve?

[Dawn Lane]

The MLS serves your buyers. It serves sellers. And it serves realtors.

Because the realtors can communicate with each other in one place. No more of this. Can I get an unbranded flyer?

You have your own MLS portal. Every realtor has their own MLS portal in which they can then send all the information of all the listings out to their clients framed in their portal, which is huge. And sellers have exposure to their property like never before.

How much exposure can you get from a Google Drive link? Okay, you already have 400,000 realtors on this system, as well as it's now going to be linked to realtor.com. And I'm sure you know that point two is gone.

It's gone. It's pulled out of Costa Rica. So what are we going to do?

You know, what are consumers going to do? Consumers going to go to every single website, try to figure that, navigate that, that, I don't know what to call it, you know?

[Richard Bexon]

It's very complicated. Yeah.

[Dawn Lane]

Yeah. It's just, it's just nuts. And so having this tool is just going to raise the level of professionalism and transparency and give us a platform that is truly stands out amongst anything else in all of Costa Rica.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah. I mean, the question I'm sure that we always get, and I'm sure you get it all the time, Dawn, is like comps, you know, Hey, can you show me some comps for stuff that's sold? Like, you know, and I think that's where the MLS could have a huge impact as well as just giving us data, you know, and visibility.

[Dawn Lane]

That's, I get chills when you say data, cause I'm such a data nerd.

[Richard Bexon]

Oh, I'm there as well, Dawn.

[Dawn Lane]

I love it. You know, like I'm trying today and it's getting there. We have 2,100, almost 2,200 listings on the MLS today.

When I started this, we had less than a thousand. Wow. So this is working.

And, and what I love is being able to have that professional CMA. And also, you know, we, we touched on this financing part too. Well, who's going to do the appraisals?

Where are they going to get that data from? You know, call up a realtor and ask them. This is real solid data that is coming out of here.

That's going to be useful for everybody. You know, just the tools are amazing. So.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, it's, I love data as well.

I have a financial analyst in my office and all his job is to analyze data, which is, you know, again, you know, I, I feel like I'm in a, I'm in a knife fight with a gun sometimes, but, but yeah, no, it's, it's, I mean, the more data we have, you know, as long as you know how to use it and you're not drowning in it. Yeah. I think it's, it's great.

[Dawn Lane]

That's what we're teaching now too. It's just, I'm sorry. No, no, no.

[Richard Bexon]

You go ahead. You go ahead, Dawn.

[Dawn Lane]

We're teaching, cause I'm excited about this. We're teaching people too, because we go in and we find things where, you know, we were looking at, and we see these little things where somebody accidentally put their listing out in the ocean and we know that there isn't a house out there. And so we're fixing things like that.

And also, you know, bringing the agents in to understand how important their role is in putting the data in correctly into this tool and what they're going to get out of it.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah. Well, I think that's great that there is more regulation and more standardization coming to something that today has been kind of very cowboy or cowgirly, if that makes sense, you know, over the years, because you mentioned, I mean, you mentioned something there, which is, you know, the, the realtor should be legal here in Costa Rica. I mean, you know, can anyone be a realtor here in Costa Rica?

You know, I mean, what's your, what's your answer to that one? Because people ask me all the time, you know, and I'm, I answer the same question. I mean, they need to legally be out of work here, but like, how do you verify that?

[Dawn Lane]

Well, first of all, realtor is a trademark name and in order to use the word realtor, you must be a member of the national association of realtors and say, you know, your local association buys you that ticket to be with the national association of realtors. And these are a group of professionals who have agreed to abide by a certain standard of practice and a certain standard of rules with accountability. Anyone else can be a real estate agent in Costa Rica.

Anyone can be a real estate agent.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah.

[Dawn Lane]

But I think when you're looking for someone that you want to represent you, they should at least number one, be a resident of Costa Rica.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah.

[Dawn Lane]

First and foremost, if you're not a resident, you're not legally able to work here. I don't care if you're in trauma, if you're whatever, if you're not, it doesn't, you're not a resident. So you know, it is what it is.

I worked as a referral agent until I got my residency. So I joined, I actually joined the association because I have my license in the United States and I was able to join as a referral partner and then just refer out my business until I could become a resident. And that way I learned the business too.

So I was in it before I could actually do it, but I learned a lot. So you know, if you have a license from another, from another country, you can do something like that. But you know, first a resident, then SUHEP, SUHEP is huge.

You must be registered with SUHEP and the Hacienda so that they can regulate the money and understand, you know, the money as it's flowing in and that you're paying your taxes and you're not, you know, doing anything illegal. And then the third thing, which is not required, it's not mandatory, but you know, if you're going to be a part of a profession, people who invest in that profession by becoming a member of their associate local association are a higher standard individual.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah.

[Dawn Lane]

They're held to a higher standard. They get education, there's designations, there's all kinds of training and there's networking and collaboration and peers that you can reach out to when you belong to the association. So if you don't have at least two out of those three, I would, I would say I wouldn't work with that person, honestly.

I mean, and experience too. I mean, or at least be working with a team, you know, we have 40 people on our team.

[Richard Bexon]

Yep.

[Dawn Lane]

So, you know, we're always helping each other. So at least if you don't have someone backing you up, that's pretty difficult to, it's hard here. It is, this is not easy.

[Richard Bexon]

I mean, I don't think anything is easy in Costa Rica. Right. And you learned that real quick when you get here.

I mean, you know, just, just, I mean, when you buy a place changing over the electric, the electricity name to someone else's enlightenment, like nothing is easy in this country.

[Dawn Lane]

Oh, I know I I'm taking care of a client's house while they're in Portugal right now. And I went to pay their electric bill. And typically I would just go into, you know, official or something and Oh no, now you have to, now they give you a piece of paper that you have to sign up on some other thing.

I'm like, Oh my God, no. But anyway, yeah.

[Richard Bexon]

I was like, I left my Costa Rican settler because I'm a citizen. So I left my settler the other day in the bank and over the weekend, I couldn't figure out how it was. And of course the bank never called me to tell me they had it.

Of course. So I, I was like, I wonder if I could order online a copy of my settler. And you know what?

It got done today and it will be delivered on Wednesday. I can't believe it. Wow.

[Dawn Lane]

I know some things and then other things are just so difficult. And I think, you know, coming back to that, having that experience, because you can't possibly know what you don't know. There just is no way.

And, and there are, there are things. And so I think having experience and understanding process and understanding how to go through a process and having the resources or the mindfulness to be able to resolve a problem, you've got to be a top notch problem solver.

[Richard Bexon]

I mean, yeah, it's never a straight line.

[Dawn Lane]

Cause we had a problem, didn't we?

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah. But it's never a straight line, right?

[Dawn Lane]

Yeah. But we just kept going through the process and we just kept going through step by step, but it was not easy. And we didn't know if we were going to make it to the finish line, but we focused on that process and we got through that.

And it took a whole village. It took a team.

[Richard Bexon]

Yep. A very good team.

[Dawn Lane]

I must say it was a very, we all worked really well together and I was really proud of that deal.

[Richard Bexon]

Yep.

[Dawn Lane]

So, you know, I mean, it just, you really, and people, and again, like even the agent doesn't know what they don't know. They know more than this consumer who doesn't know what they don't know.

[Richard Bexon]

Yep.

[Dawn Lane]

Right. Yep. It's, it's just consumers walk in here and I feel bad for the contracts they get involved in.

And, you know, I just shake my head. So I am happy to have be moving the needle more towards professionalism, transparency, and, you know, a platform like this.

[Richard Bexon]

Well, I will say from everyone that listens to this podcast, thank you very much Dawn for doing that. Because I think again, it's rising the tide of investing real estate in Costa Rica. So thank you.

[Dawn Lane]

It's my pleasure.

[Richard Bexon]

Well, my last question for you Dawn, which I love to ask everyone, as I know you're busy with the MNAS, if you inherited $500,000 and had to invest it into a business or real estate in Costa Rica, what would you invest it in and why?

[Dawn Lane]

100% property.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah. What would you, what, what and where? Because people always say, like, you know, you've got $5,000.

[Dawn Lane]

What would you, I mean, you don't need- Put me on the spot.

[Richard Bexon]

Yeah.

[Dawn Lane]

I would buy something that is up and coming, an up and coming neighborhood, something like Amanianas or something like Punta Playa Vistas where Becky's building, where it's close to Playa Minas, something that's up and coming. I definitely 100% would buy property because we're not getting any more of it. And real estate is always the best bet.

A business, maybe a business, if you were buying something that was a substantial business, maybe, but it's still a headache and it's still a huge risk. And I think real estate is not as much of a risk if you just hold it. Whatever the market is doing, you can always hold it or you can let it go, but it's something you can hold on that's tangible.

Business is a little scary to me and it isn't solid. It's not a solid foundation to me.

[Richard Bexon]

Well, I think you have to work at a business, if that makes sense. If you buy real estate, I mean, you need to improve it a little bit by there, but it's a job. When you buy real estate, it's not a job.

When you buy a business, I mean, people are like, no, I'm going to passively invest in a business. I'm like, I don't know any business that you passively invest in, unless you're going to be a shareholder in a business and buy it. But if you're going to own a business, its success comes down to its owner.

[Dawn Lane]

100%. And you're exactly right, the job. And so I am 100% invest in real estate all day long.

[Richard Bexon]

Wow. Well, awesome. Dawn, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you here on the podcast and anyone that wants to contact you, I'll put all of your contact details down in the description, but very much appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today.

[Dawn Lane]

Wow. It's been an absolute pleasure. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for your time.

[Richard Bexon]

You're very welcome. Speak to you soon, Dawn.

[Dawn Lane]

Pura Vida.