Retiring to a third world county? (appointed, home, buying)

[Pilgrim21784]

Originally Posted by bgreen4080

anyone know how the weather is like in Costa Rica??

guessin' that it is blazingly hot...

or Cost of Living there?


lots of american retirees used to head to San Miguel de Allende

in mexico, which has a big foreigner/expat population

Costa Rica has a large expat community. We rent a cottage there for several months of the year and have met many expats who are quite happy living there. A useful website for you is welovecostarica.com. CR's weather is a bit variable depending on the elevation and which side (Paciific or Carribbean) you go to, but its definitely a warm climate. Its definitely not a 3rd world country but a vibrant and well managed nation. It has everything from tropical rain forests to 10K plus high volcanoes. Its really an ecological treasure and very friendly to non-natives. We love it and will go back annually for many years.

[tijlover]

Beware, that the global world is catching up everywhere, as part of your considerations.

The past 6 years I made any number of trips to Central and South America with one eye on the possibility of retiring somewhere there. I urge anyone, when traveling and shopping for a place to retire, to go to a big grocery store there and check out the prices. I've done that in every country I visited and was nonplussed as to the high prices of groceries I saw everywhere I went, in many cases, higher prices than found right here in the U.S. Food, I believe, is now on a par with oil, it's the same everywhere. And gas prices? Where, outside Venezuela, did I see lower gas prices than the U.S.?

And housing prices? Well, now after the real estate crash here in the U.S. just go to Realtor.com and start your search for condo's/houses from $20k and upwards. Even in Las Vegas here, you'll find decent condo's for $20-40K, which beats out some housing prices in third world countries, and which will make Mexico look overpriced.

I concluded after all my explorations, that the U.S. has become one of the better bargains for retirement. If I do yet decide to become an ex-pat it will be for climate reasons only, certainly not for a lower cost of living, which, more and more, doesn't exist anymore in the third world.

[Tiger Beer]

Well-said Tijlover.

Actually pretty much ALL consumer goods are significantly cheaper in the U.S...for example, I dont know anywhere else I can buy a little stereo for like $10 than in the U.S. In Korea, it would cost me $90 and they would import it from somewhere else. Even BOOKS...you will ALWAYS be charged more to buy books outside of the U.S., even in Australia! Let alone anywhere else.

Many years ago when I lived in Brazil...the rich Brazilians would fly to Miami and buy all kinds of consumer products and fly back to Brazil. They saved more money by flying and buying IN the U.S. than they did in just consumer goods alone in Brazil.

The things that are cheap abroad are generally housing, restaurants...mostly because everything is walkable and pedestrian-friendly outside of the U.S., so a required car doesnt exist. However, it does seem like prices have risen quite a bit...and prices have dropped significantly in the U.S.

I also use the realtor.com, and not just VEgas....but EVERYWHERE...Michigan, Texas, Ohio, all over the U.S. has super cheap housing everywhere. It is still high in the Northeast and California...but if someone ONLY has an interest in cheap housing and has NO interest in other languages, other foods, other cultures, etc...(I DO have the latter interest)...but many Americans don't. Then purchasing in a less expensive market in the U.S. is the way to go.

[tijlover]

Residents from Tijuana, Mexico, who have their visas and passports, go over the border to buy groceries and other items in the San Diego area. Walk through the massive Gigante Grocery store on Revolution Avenue sometime, and you'll understand why. For those unable to do so, it makes you wonder, given their minimum wage of $4.85 a DAY, what they eat down there? My heart goes out to them!

[mommytotwo]

Originally Posted by bgreen4080

i heard COSTA RICA is a pretty nice place to live...

supposedly the Singapore of central america...clean, efficient, relatively
good standard of living..


can ANYONE back up this claim?


and Belize is suppose to be like paradise...gorgeous beaches etc

I will have to ask a friend of mine. His wife is from Costa Rica, he loves it there. They visit as often as possible and they want to retire down there, though they are many several years away from retirement.......

Originally Posted by Pilgrim21784

Costa Rica has a large expat community. We rent a cottage there for several months of the year and have met many expats who are quite happy living there. A useful website for you is welovecostarica.com. CR's weather is a bit variable depending on the elevation and which side (Paciific or Carribbean) you go to, but its definitely a warm climate. Its definitely not a 3rd world country but a vibrant and well managed nation. It has everything from tropical rain forests to 10K plus high volcanoes. Its really an ecological treasure and very friendly to non-natives. We love it and will go back annually for many years.

Sounds beautiful. I am hoping to visit Costa Rica with above-mentioned friend sometime soon. I am trying to utilize the resources I have at hand for international/national travel. (Cousin living in AZ currently, I'd like to visit before he moves, for example).

And anytime you can go with a native it's just better, which is why I'd like to go to CR with my friend and his wife.

[diegobras]

I have heard that many European retired people have bought large ocean-side properties (not the beaches themselves, as they are public properties here and can't be bought or sold) for quite cheap prices on the Northeastern coast states of Brazil, like Bahia, Ceara and Rio Grande do Norte (the best ones, in my opinion), mostly Spanish and Portuguese people. Maybe they've found a good way to spend their latest years close to the beach at low prices, I sugest you people to research about that... Here in Brazil we have a gigantic coast that isn't too crowded, except for capital cities of the coastal states. Plus, our ocean is very calm and natural disasters such as Hurricanes, Earthwakes, Sea Storms, Volcano eruptions, are pratically non-existant (there has never been any relevant earthwake registered in Brazil).
Plus, minimal national wage here is R$ 465.00 (about US$ 215.00), so there's always a possibility of having a personal house maid for very low prices, and since the mentioned regions are poorer than the Brazilian average, it's quite easy to find an employee for this wages. And this is not slavery wages for the Brazilian northeastern standards, people actually live on these wages with no despair, as we have universal heathcare, governmental financial aid (about some US$ 50,00 extra for the poor families), and universal school access here (all of these benefits stink, but they are free and give financial relief for those who don't earn enough to pay for something better).

On the other side, I wouldn't recomend the southeastern coast, property values are much higher there, and people aren't quite as friendly as those on the north.

[Eduardo983]

In Venezuela, with $100,000 dollars you can purchase a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment in the best residential places of Caracas.

They have the cheapest gas in the world $0.12 cents/GALLON

CNN/Money: Global gas prices

The women are among the hottest http://www.aneki.com/beautiful.html in the world because the melting pot in Venezuela is composed by: Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, Germans, Arabs, Blacks and Amerindians. https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...ve.html#People
As a result, you`ll see beautiful women everywhere... Food market, beach, neighboorhs, malls,etc.

Even an unemployed average Joe has a beautiful women in Venezuela...

There is an island called margarita island... if you have 150,000$ you could purchase a small hotel and live forever in a paradise...

Venezuela was a paradise that attracted people from europe for decades..specially from Spain and Italy. Now, Chavez that mother****er monkey has destroyed the quality of life in the country. The people were whiter before...now they have left the country and have gone back to europe... specially the offprings of europeans that were born in venezuela. Well,, what can I say... Venezuela is a beautiful country with the worst president in the world.

[diegobras]

Oh yes, and Brazil has had real democratic political stability for about 25 years now.

I really don't like Chaves... Even tho my girlfriend's French Bulldog is named Chaves (we think it's a fun name for a dog).

I've heard from someone at work (can't remember who) that for about R$ 70,000.00 (US$ 30,000.00) you can buy a three bedroom apartment, one street close to the beach, in a city like Joao Pessoa, the capital city of the coastal northeastern state of Paraiba (homeland of the famous Havaianas flipflops), in a good neighborhood. Actually for those prices I'm considering on buying an vacantion apartment there for myself, as it's an unbeliavable price for the real state standards here in the capital city of Brazil where I live, Brasilia. Plus, everything (except for gas prices, that are quite expensive considering the American gas prices - here it costs around US$ 4.30 a gallon, but prices are stable and haven't changed much for around 3 or 4 years, regardless of international oil prices, which can be a good thing - if those prices go too high - or a pain in the back - if those prices get too low, like now) there is quite cheap, such as groceries, electric bills (about 95% of all electricity in Brazil is obtained using water electrical plants, a cheap and clean energy), water bills (mine HERE in Brasilia, considered the most expensive water bill in Brazil, costs about US$ 15.00 monthly), and housing taxes (mine HERE in Brasilia, also considered one of the most expensive yearly housing taxes here in Brazil, costs about US$ 170.00 a year, including trash collecting taxes (which are mandatory HERE in Brasilia, but not elsewhere).

The same apartment would cost here around US$ 200,000.00, which is insane!!!

[Tiger Beer]

Maybe about 10 years ago I taught English in Brazil, and LOVED it. My favorite country by far. It's hell to work and try to earn a wage there. But if someone was retiring, it is fairly ideal, depending on your interests. To me it would be ideal.

The Philippines is another country I'd consider retiring in if I was of retirement age with income from it.

[pigeonhole]

I've thought this through extensively, and come to the conclusion that owning property in one's HOME country is essential...and the rent you'd made off of that, you could supplement yourself to live in another country...and if a person was of retired age with retirement money, that would help out immensily as well.

That's what I plan to do in the future, however I'm still hesitating between renting my "fabulous" real estate (a flat- however the positive thing is that's in a HCOL zone and the building from the late sixties is very well cared for by our homeowners association) given the high level of local taxes and the service charges , -and the risk of having tenants who don't pay their rent-or sell it and invest in bonds & shares (I know, not a sound idea right now, but the financial situation can change in the future) in my home ("1st world")country/