Costa Rica real estate<\/a> doesn\u2019t flood or slide down the hill? The answer is most likely, and here\u2019s a brief summary\u2013<\/p>\nEROSION- Lots should not have large cuts (red dirt) exposed above the building site. During my first year here, I rented a house with a hill eroding behind it. Needless to say, landslides are not fun and VERY dangerous.<\/p>\n
RAINWATER MANAGEMENT- Check out the rainwater management on and around the property. Make sure the water is being channeled properly, specifically away from the building area. This may require the installation of canals and culverts in some cases.<\/p>\n
SOIL TEST- Get a soil test before purchasing property on a steep hill or with creeks or rivers running through the property. It usually costs the buyer $200-$300, but it could save you thousands.<\/p>\n
RETAINING WALLS- Add gaviones (aka- secured rock baskets) or a retaining wall to exposed hillsides to hold the land before the rainy season. Another very common preventative measure is securing green mesh or netting (known as, cerran in Costa Rica) to hillside and planting deep rooting plants in regular intervals across the face of it.<\/p>\n
As one couple in the Uvita area found out, there are specific things you DO NOT want to do when constructing your dream home. They purchased an ocean view property that wasn\u2019t quite large enough to fit the building footprint, so they hired a backhoe and cut into an already steep hillside directly behind their home. Construction was nearing completion, and then the heavy rains came. The water saturated the hillside, and BAM, the landslide brought 3 feet of mud through the house, an event both heart-breaking and expensive. It is my understanding that poor water management above the property also played a role in the event.<\/p>\n
In summary, be careful. If buying of a second home in the Caribbean is on your radar, keep the above Hurricane History Map in mind. If you have already been to Costa Rica and love the \u2018pura vida\u2019 lifestyle and investment opportunities, choose your property wisely. Selecting a property based solely on price can be a mistake that ends up costing you a lot more in the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While browsing the storefronts of Quepos\/Manuel Antonio the other day, I saw this Hurricane History Map in an office window. What caught my attention was how Costa Rica was completely free of any direct hurricane\/tropical storm trajectories. People ask us if we get hit by hurricanes, and now it\u2019s nice to have a chart showing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":39082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[2346,2340,32820,32826,32819,32822,18414,32821,32817,32873,4118,30162,2100,32824,2350,32825,32827,2198,15192,32823],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Costa-Ric-A-Hurricane-Free-Zone.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39085,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39058\/revisions\/39085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39058"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=39058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}