Homes for sale and homes for rent in Santa Ana, San José, Costa Rica | Newsletters

Dear friends,

When I started Residencias Los Jardines, I started writing a weekly news letter -determined to tell all the good, bad, and the ugly. I knew some readers would be interested in the construction process. I expected others might be interested in the lifestyle of two people who had decided to live outside the box. For others, the adventures of Lita, the parrot and the cat took on an entertainment saga all its own.

Residencias Los Jardines is finished. We periodically have resales and rental availability. Some readers may be interested in this information.

Brian Timmons
DEVELOPER / PROPERTY MANAGER
Residencias Los Jardines / https://www.residenciaslosjardines.com info@residenciaslosjardines.com
ResidenciasPropertyManagement@gmail.com

 

Featured house this week

Paradisus Condos / Rohrmoser
FOR SALE / FOR RENT

 

Residencias Los Jardines
Property Management, Rentals, Re-Sales

Market Activity

Sales: one inquiry.

Rentals: one rental, two inquires.

 

FOR SALE

Unit #110: $215,000 / See Unit

Unit #114: $235,000 / See Unit

Unit #116: $214,000 / See Unit

FOR RENT

Unit #112: $1,500 mo. / March-April / See Unit

Unit #113: $1,400 mo. / Immediately / See Unit

 

HOUSES FOR SALE

UNIT #110
FOR SALE $215,000

Total Area (Sq Ft): 1290
Total area (Sq M): 120
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 2
Floor(s): Single Floor
Type: Attached
Furnished: Yes

Beautiful end-unit bungalow (one floor) town home (part of 4 homes) situate at the far quiet end of Residencias Los Jardines, steps from the main pool. It includes one designated parking spot and one storage unit. The home is 120 square meters (approximately 1,300 square feet) with two bedrooms (master has king size bed and guest has queen size bed), two full bathrooms (one being an ensuite), a large open concept kitchen, living room, dining room, granite breakfast bar with stools and features vaulted ceilings and lots of windows. The home has a large covered terrace overlooking the gardens. Custom made wood blinds cover all windows throughout. Ceiling fans in bedrooms, living room and terrace.

 

UNIT #114
FOR SALE $235,000

Total Area (Sq Ft): 1290
Total area (Sq M): 120
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 2
Floor(s): Single Floor
Type: Attached
Furnished: Yes

This 1,290 sf. (plus covered parking for one car and two lockers 67 sf.) single story, semi detached house, with garden terrace, two bedrooms is a beautiful executive style home. This home consists of two large bedrooms one with six piece en-suite bathroom with additional access to separate full shower. Each bedroom has large closets with extensive built-ins for personal organization. The vaulted living room and bathroom ceilings provide a feeling of grandeur while allowing the warmer air to rise and exit through the ceiling ventilating system. There are four TVs (one in each bedroom, one in the living room and one in breakfast / dinning room.) This is a beautiful well appointed home.

 

UNIT #116
FOR SALE $214,000

Total Area (Sq Ft): 1290
Total area (Sq M): 120
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 2
Floor(s): Single Floor
Type: Semi-Attached
Furnished: Yes

This 1,290 sf single floor home includes a 300 sf front terrace plus parking for one car and a separate, secure storage locker. It is and end unit and therefore attached on only one side by a 6 inch cement demising (common) wall, which prevents sound transfer.

HOUSES FOR RENT

UNIT #112
$1,500 mo. March-April

Total Area (Sq Ft): 1290
Total area (Sq M): 120
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 2
Floor(s): 1 Story
Type: Attached
Furnished: Yes

This 1,290 sf single floor home includes a 300 sf front terrace plus parking for one car. It is attached on two sides by a 6 inch cement demising (common) wall, which prevents sound transfer.

 

UNIT #113
$1,400 mo. Immediately

Total Area (Sq Ft): 1290
Total area (Sq M): 120
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 2
Floor(s): 1 Story
Type: Semi-Attached
Furnished: Yes

This 1,290 sf single floor home includes a 300 sf front terrace plus parking for one car. It is attached on one side by a 6 inch cement demising (common) wall, which prevents sound transfer.  The three other sides allow light, ventilation and  garden views.

 

Our Lives

WEATHER: hot, hot, hot and much much much hotter at the beach... still, sunny, and not a hit of rain. This is the hottest month of the year.

Easter - A wonderful time in the Central Valley: roads are empty, racing cars are non-existent, most stores and businesses are closed, it's great.

Business: I have rented another furnished unit at Paradisus and have a further showing later today. In addition, we had a client interested in purchasing at unit at Los Jardines. We'll see what happens on both issues.
In all three cases, they are Americans... one lives here and two are new to the country.

 

News Items of the Week

Generally....news has been very light this week...

1. Illicit Funds Flow: this is what some attribute to the strength of the colone.

2. Holiday Toll: at mid week--35 violent deaths... wow!!!

3. Disclosure of corporate shareholders: this has been proposed before and seems to be still on the agenda although with not much priority. It didn't get far last time; I doubt it will get far this time but at some time, such action may be approved.

4. Coffee prices going higher: but the yield is low due to a rust disease which damaged the crop. Bananas and pineapples prices are going lower... some of the slack in exports caused by Intel's departure is being made up by medical devices...

 

1. Billions scammed in illicit financial flows
Special to A.M. Costa Rica, with staff inputs

A record $991.2 billion in illicit capital flowed out of developing and emerging economies in 2012 facilitating crime, corruption, and tax evasion, according to the latest study released Tuesday by Global Financial Integrity, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advisory organization. The study is the first analysis to include estimates of illicit financial flows for 2012.

The report, the organization's 2014 annual global update on illicit financial flows, pegs cumulative illicit outflows from developing economies at US$6.6 trillion between 2003 and 2012, the latest year for which data is available.  Titled “Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2003-2012,” the report finds that illicit outflows are growing at an inflation-adjusted 9.4 percent per year, roughly double global gross domestic product growth over the same period.

Costa Rica was in 14th place behind such countries as China, Russia and México, as the biggest exporters of illicit financial flows. The country exported $9.4 billion in 2012 and $94 billion over the period under study.

Costa Rica was 10th in the world for the export of illegal capital, according to the study. That amount was $21.55 billion, according to the study.

“As this report demonstrates, illicit financial flows are the most damaging economic problem plaguing the world’s developing and emerging economies,” said Raymond Baker, a longtime authority on financial crime. “These outflows . . . are sapping roughly a trillion dollars per year from the world’s poor and middle-income economies.” He is president of Global Financial Integrity.

“Most troubling, however, is the fact that these outflows are growing at an alarming rate of 9.4 percent per year, twice as fast as global GDP,” continued  Baker.  “It is simply impossible to achieve sustainable global development unless world leaders agree to address this issue head-on."

Illicit financial flows include such techniques as misinvoicing. This is when an individual or firm uses a third party to skim money from a legitimate import by creating an inflated invoice.

The organization said that policy makers should require multinational companies to publicly disclose their revenues, profits, losses, sales, taxes paid, subsidiaries, and staff levels on a country-by-country basis.  All countries should actively participate in the worldwide movement towards the automatic exchange of tax information, it said.

2. Holiday toll continues to grow
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The Caribbean coast has contributed two victims to the growing Semana Santa death toll.

The Cruz Roja said that one person died in Cahuita Wednesday as the result of a traffic accident and that the body of a 24-year-old vacationer was found on Playa Chiquita in Puerto Viejo. He had vanished Tuesday.

Cruz Roja crews said they are continuing the search for the body of a 23 year old in the Pacific Ocean at Jacó. And they said a man died at the waterfalls in Montezuma on the Nicoya peninsula.

The rescue organization said there had been 26 deaths from violent causes already this holiday week.

The organization also said that 35 persons had sought medical help at the many aid stations that had been set up around the country.

3. New UK law supports push here to list corporate shareholders
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The United Kingdom has moved to curb abuse of anonymous companies, which are widely used for tax evasion and criminal purposes.

The private  Global Financial Integrity said that the Parliament approved a bill that establishes a central, public registry of corporate ownership information.

This is an international first, the organization said.

As Garland Baker noted in a 2013 news article  many foreigners who own Costa Rican corporations here do not have their name as the responsible party. A common practice has been to name a lawyer or someone with similar business background to be the president or holder of a power of attorney to handle day-to-day affairs, he said.

The Costa Rican tax agency has threatened to issue a decree requiring the registration of all shareholders in a company.  The reason has more to do with getting taxes than with curbing criminality. The agency, the Dirección General de Tributación, After years of low prices and falling production from the roya fungus, Costa Rica’s coffee exports are garnering better prices, according to a report from the Foreign Trade Promotion Office, Procomer, and the National seem to make the information a public record.

Some argue that a law and not a decree is required to do this.

The action in the United Kingdom would seem to give ammunition to officials here who want to create such a registry.

Until now the only listing of most shareholders has been on the private books of the Costa Rican corporation. Sometimes they would be disclosed. For example, for a firm to do business with the government, the names of major shareholders must be disclosed to avoid officials bidding on major contracts.

Media companies also must publicize the names of their shareholders each year. And a law requires the operators of corporations to surrender the list of shareholders to tax investigators on request.

The proposal would make the list searchable.

“This is a landmark piece of legislation,” said Joshua Simmons. “Anonymous companies are one of the biggest tools for laundering the proceeds of crime, corruption, and tax evasion. Creating registries of the true, human, beneficial owners of each company is a common sense approach to curbing financial crime and the tremendous flow of illegal money. We are very pleased to see the UK take the lead on this issue, and we call on all countries — especially the United States— to follow the straightforward standard set by the UK.”

He is policy counsel for Global Financial Integrity, which says it promotes transparency in the international financial system as a means to global development.

4. Coffee Exports Prices Rise; Banana & Pineapple Prices Sag

After years of low prices and falling production from the roya fungus, Costa Rica’s coffee exports are garnering better prices, according to a report from the Foreign Trade Promotion Office, Procomer, and the National Coffee Institute, ICAFE. While coffee and other exports are enjoying a price boom, Costa Rica’s biggest agricultural exports, bananas and pineapple, are looking a little like a bust these days.

The value of the country’s coffee exports is up 40 percent compared to the same period last year, from $40.1 million in 2014 to $56.1 million in 2015. Farmers and exporters welcomed the improved prices, but the bump in prices came at a time of low volume.

Coffee exports between October 2014 and February 2015 are down 7 percent. Costa Rica exported 1,204,284 60-kilogram sacks of coffee so far this season, down from 1,297,178 sacks during the same period in the 2013/2014 season, according to figures from ICAFE. The coffee authority said it hopes for improved volume during the 2015/2016 harvest.

ICAFE said the increase in exports is likely driven by improving international prices, thanks in part to lower production due to a drought in Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer.

Costa Rica previously estimated that coffee production would reach 1.55 million 60-kilogram sacks of processed coffee during the 2014/2015 season, up 4.5 percent from 2013/2014.

Other exports that saw improvement so far in 2015 were medical devices, up 50 percent from $221.9 million in 2014 to $331.7 so far in 2015, beef, sugar and melons.

The news wasn’t all good for the agricultural sector. Bananas and pineapples, Costa Rica’s most valuable exports after Intel microprocessors, were down 23 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Banana export values slipped to $111.5 million so far in 2015 from $146 million during the same period in 2014. Pineapples tumbled to $109.9 million from $129.1 million.

Both crops have been hurt by rains and low temperatures during the first quarter of 2015. Procomer said that pineapple could bounce back in April if the weather improves, but banana exports may not recover until 2016.

Brian, Lita, the Late Hugo IV, irreverent Vicka, the pigeon toed parrot, Chico II and Chica II