Renting a house in Costa Rica is a
dream come true for a lot of people. However that dream can quickly become a
nightmare by making one simple mistake. Welcome to another beautiful day in Costa Rica
Absolutely it's another great day and today boy do we have some good stuff for you. Today we
are talking about renting a house in Costa Rica and giving you some great tips especially what you
need to do or not do to avoid the Gringo prize. Now make sure to stay to the end so that you can
find out about all of that however we did do a great youtube live just a few days ago. Jam packed
full of tips lots of details lots of stories that talk all about rental in Costa Rica. However in
a live we can't insert the videos and insert the the pictures so that you get that you know feel
like it's a real experience like we do in our videos. It is a little bit long but check out
this amazing comment from someone who watched that video. She said when I first saw that this
video was an hour and 28 minutes I thought omg. Can I make time for it? Well I came back almost
a day later and it was well worth every minute. Thanks for telling it like it is. So you're going
to get the good the bad and the ugly in that youtube live. However you're going to find out and
learn some amazing stuff. However today like Allan said we're just going to recap and remember it is
from our perspective, it's from our experiences and. And we're going to just try to keep this
short and we're going to hit the highlights but if you want to know the details and and find out all
of the facts you can do that in the youtube live right there. When we came over here we didn't have
someone like us to share with us. We didn't do the research but boy do I wished I did and so you
can learn a lot of stuff from our video but we've had a lot of people ask you know I just is there
someone that can help me and you know what that's one of the reasons that we created the forum.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could just hire someone to find a rental for you. Wouldn't it be nice to
hire someone that can maybe hold your hand or walk you through it because it can be overwhelming when
it comes time to move to Costa Rica you don't want to forget this you want to do that. Well that's
why we created the forum. Inside the forum you can connect with the right people who provide
that service for you. Find a rental help walk you through moving everything here so you want
to be sure to join the forum and you can go to forum.cloudforestchapel.com so that you can
connect with the right people. There we have recommended businesses places to stay you know
things that's going to save you time and money when you come to Costa Rica. Also this would be a
great time that if you haven't already Subscribed to our channel make sure you Subscribe to our
channel. We have tons of amazing comments on how helpful and all of the great things people are
learning from here. So subscribe to the channel , hit that notification bell so that you'll
be notified of the next video when it goes live. So are you ready to get started?
I'm ready. Let's get started. Darn bugs! He was biting me. One of the big questions we
get is what is the best time of the year to find a rental. Yeah well it would be during rainy
season because that is the what they call the off season. There are not as many tourists here
during rainy season so there's a lot more houses for available for rent whereas during the high
season the touristy season a lot of houses are being rented to vacationers. That's right and so
a lot of people use airbnb and we've used it a whole lot and so during the tourist season well
obviously they can make a whole lot of money by renting them day by day but as soon as the rainy
season gets here which is normally around what? The rainy season is from like May to November.
May to about November rainy season is finally beginning to end here but during the rainy season
well there's not nearly as much renting going on because there's hardly any tourists and so you
can really get some great deals during the rainy season. When you do come to Costa Rica you know
it is a little bit of a trip and for us most of the time when we come it never fails we end up
arriving late at night and you know when we first came we thought well hey we're just going to drive
there don't make that mistake. We highly recommend when you fly in just stay the night at an airbnb
once again we got recommendations on where you can stay at inside the forum but stay there get a good
night's rest and then you can get up the next day and get started on your search. You can drive down
to wherever it is that you're looking for a place to rent. You know let's say that you're going
to be renting over in the Perez Zeledon area or maybe you're over on the beach whatever you
do. Hey take time to look on airbnb. We highly recommend that because you can see the reviews
you can see what kind of renters they are what kind of people they are. That's right so airbnb
is very useful. Whenever you come here you get an airbnb and that's going to be where your rental
search begins because once you rent a spot hey you might be there two or three days maybe a
week then you can talk to them and say hey do you know of any places for rent and that's and if
they don't know they can point you in the right direction. And so that's where you want to get
started you're there and then hey go into town because a lot of places are just not listed
on websites. Now we're going to share some amazing resources things that we have found and
you can have access to simply by going to the description below this video and you can download
the pdf so you can get all of our resources. All of our pdfs are inside the forum as well. Now
once you get started you know you want to actually walk around the town drive, around the
town, go into some of the local stores. Whenever you stop to eat at a restaurant into some
of the local bars and restaurants ask them. Do you know of places or someone that has a house
for rent and that's the easiest way to begin finding something as you drive around you're
actually looking for a rental sign that says "Alkyler" I think is it. I butcher it up
every single time but I'm trying okay. Write this down because this is going to
be your best tip for finding a rental. Almost every community has what's called a Feria
and the Feria is just a local farmer's market they almost always happen at least once a week and find
out what the Feria is plan to get there early and stay late. If you go there you can talk to people
and you can ask them hey do you know anybody that has a place to rent and don't ask them any prices
okay. Ask them just where's a place to rent do you know of any place okay just get contacts and phone
numbers. If you do that you're almost guaranteed to find a place to rent by just hanging out at
the Feria because at the Feria you're gonna find lots of Gringos lots of Ticos and you'll be
able to find something for sure. The next thing that you need to do is that you know a
lot of people when you first get here like us we were looking for a furnished rental.
You can find them they're a little bit more difficult to find in some of the
remote areas but you can find them okay. Obviously gonna be a little bit more expensive but
well worth it because when you get here you know if you're like us we just came with our suitcases
we didn't have anything so it was nice to be in a furnished place you know for a month and then we
found what we were looking for and we moved into it and we bought some blow up mattresses, blow up
sofas that we sat on until we decided okay we like this place and then we could buy what we needed
to buy. Right and that's why airbnb is such a airbnb.com is such a good resource because almost
all the houses listed there are furnished because they're putting them on there for vacationers you
know people need to have everything available when they're coming on vacation. That's right and you
know airbnb make sure that you download the app onto your phone or your tablet you know but you
can go to airbnb.com and I looked today and when I was looking it was over 300 places anything
from 11 bucks to 300 or 400 bucks a night so you can find some phenomenal places and if you're
coming here just to look you can rent just a room instead of the whole house if you're comfortable
with that because you're not going to spend time in there you're out looking for a place to rent.
Right and if they don't mention a weekly rate or an extended stay rate and you're wanting to
stay for a month don't hesitate to ask about it. Ask if they will give you a rate. That's right
see you can schedule to rent for them for you know a couple of days after you get here and you
find out okay well this is not a bad airbnb. Talk to him say hey can I extend my stay and stay for
a week. Right that's a good point Allan because maybe you don't want to arrange to stay
for an entire month at a particular place until you've come and stayed in it for a
little while and then talk to them about. That's right because I have stayed in some airbnbs
and I rented just the room well. This poor old guy was a a bachelor a single guy and he couldn't hear
that well so he was on his computer a whole lot and every time you turn around I heard ding ding
ding as these messages were coming in and so that was a nightmare. I wouldn't have wanted to stay
there more than one night. Right. So it's good to come down here stay a night find out then you can
decide if you want an extended stay. Right. Now whenever you're looking for a place and you're
driving around. The thing that you want to keep in mind because you know if you're like us you
probably have to have internet and so a quick way to find out if that area does have internet
is to look at the light pose. If you look at the electric lines you're going to see these little
boxes right here and these boxes were are a great indicator that there's internet there. Now it
doesn't mean you will have it because it might be full but most of the time you will have access.
Now just because they don't have the little internet box on the poll doesn't mean you can't
get internet because there are several different forms of internet. Download the resources which
will show you the different places that you can get internet from and who we think is the best if
you can find it in that area. As you're walking around or driving around and you say okay well
this looks like a promising place and you see that for rent sign and there is a phone number.
Very very important tip write this down. Write it on your forehead so you don't forget. I
don't care how good your Spanish is whatever you do no matter how tempting it is. Do not call that
number yourself and ask them how much is the rent. Because they know that's a Gringo on the other
end they can tell you don't have the Tico accent and you're going to pay too much. Right and of
course we're not talking about things that are listed on the internet you know in airbnb or some
other resource that you you have found a rental from. We're talking about those situations that
we've been in where we just come across a house by talking to someone or driving past and seeing if a
for rent sign and calling the phone number. That's right. So you want to make sure that you you know
that's why you want to rent it an airbnb or find a Tico friend and say hey you get back to airbnb
would you call these numbers for me right here and please tell them that you're interested in it
don't tell them your gringo friend is interested in this because you'll get the same green
gold price ask them would you please call them pretend you're interested in it what is the price
for the rent on this. Also while you're looking for rentals a lot of times you're going to find
houses for sale. Now most of the houses for sale the people are still living there. But we've seen
lots of houses for sale it's obviously it's empty. It doesn't hurt we've called him and say hey are
you interested in renting your house and that's how we have found some of our best rentals. That's
right one of our favorite rentals the owners were painting on the outside getting it ready for sale
and we just asked can we can we rent it until you find a buyer. And they were happy. That's right
and we rented a nice place at a very great price. So don't be afraid to ask okay. Now let's say that
you have had your Tico friend to call and you like the price and now you've set up a time to meet
well obviously you get out there to meet them. Don't be surprised when they show up late. It's
Tico time. It's not going to change so we just want to let you know get used to it. In Costa Rica
everything runs late everything takes longer than you expect it's called Tico time. You arrive and
you meet the owner and you're going to check out the house. What's the first thing you need to
do when you check out the house. Well obviously the very first thing to do is to go inside the
house. If it looks good you think it's acceptable look for the breaker box okay. You want to
look at the breaker box because a lot of the houses depending on the age of it even if
it's new doesn't have a lot of breakers in it okay. Most Ticos don't have computers
maybe a couple of monitors. A lot of Ticos don't have a toaster oven in microwave they
don't have the curling iron and the flat iron. They're not using all the accessories that
you're using. So those are things to keep in mind look at the breaker box to see is there more
than two breakers in there because we have many times we rented a house it only had a couple
of breakers didn't know that tip at the time. Plugged in all my computers and then everything
went so you want to look at that okay. Yes also if you're planning to if the house
doesn't have hot water and you're planning to install what they call a suicide shower that draws
a lot of electricity so you want to make sure about the the electrical box for that purpose.
That's right. So that it can handle the voltage for the for the suicide shot. So that's a very
good point that she brought up because after you look at that breaker box you want to go straight
to the bathroom to see is there hot water in the bathroom. 99 percent of the Tico houses only
have hot water in the shower and nowhere else. So you want to be sure to see that so
that if it doesn't have a hot shower head. Is there a wire already there if there's not a
wire will they install the wire. Right and most of the newer houses that we've stayed in like through
airbnb they had the hot water but something that you need to consider if you
do have to install the shower is the water pressure. So check the water pressure
because a suicide shower will not come on if the water pressure is not strong enough to keep it
on. And you're only going to have problems with the water pressure is if you're staying in a house
where they get their water from one of the creeks or something like that because a lot of the houses
you know most houses get their water from the city but there are houses that we rented that you know,
like the one we're in now gets their water from a creek and so you know sometimes the pressure
is not really good but most of the time it is something to check okay. Now once you've looked
at electrical box and you check to see if it does have hot water in the shower then the next thing
you need to do is probably look and see well where's the washer and dryer
go. Because 99 percent of them don't have a place for a dryer okay except
in big cities obviously and it's usually going to be outside isn't it. So you want to check that and
see a lot of places they may actually surprisingly have a place to plug up your electric your
your dryer which is uncommon because it's 220. Most people don't have it they always hang their
clothes out on the line but if it does they may not have a vent for the dryer to blow out of. It's
just it's Costa Rica they're not used to having dryers. Once you find a place that you really
really like it's like okay I love this place, the price is right, it has hot water, it
has everything I need. While this may sound unrealistic. If at all possible you want to ask
the owners if you can spend the night. Get your blow up air mattress spend the night because
we have rented too many places where we just rented it on site and then we spend the
night. Our very first night and at five o'clock in the morning the neighbor leaves
and his dog goes into this anxiety attack and he starts barking for the next two hours
so from five until seven it's "woh-woh-woh". No more peace and tranquility for you. So it's
very important that you know not only are you there to wake up and see what the noise factor
is going to be early in the morning. How much traffic noise is it going to be. Hey what's the
temperature two o'clock you know what does it feel like so it's really great. If at all possible
find out what it's going to be like because too many times we've gone somewhere it seemed
perfect, it was quiet. As soon as we moved in we were like "Dang". And that's a good
time you find a place go to the local restaurants the local stores. Ask them, hey
what do you think about this neighborhood? Because one neighborhood that we stayed in it
looked really great and peaceful and the houses were all seemed to be nice and then we went to the
restaurant and went to a restaurant and talked to. Made a friend and started talking to this man and
he asked where we lived we told him he was like oh "yeah". That neighborhood has a lot of theft
"yeah". You know he said now if you'd have gone a little bit I mean even a kilometer north of that
it's great but that particular area had a lot of petty theft you know and that's where we was at.
Yeah we found out the hard way that it really did. Yeah we got stolen a propane tank was stolen like
three different times and I had to start chaining it down after my third time so anyway important
to know ask around okay. Now let's say that you have finally decided on a rental. Yes I like
this place and you've made arrangements with the with the owner. Almost always unless you're in a
popular tourist area you're not going to have to worry about signing a contract. The very few that
have asked me to sign a contract. I just told him I wasn't going to sign a contract because you
know I want to make sure that I like it here. If I like it I'm probably going to stay a long
time but if I don't like it I'm going to have to leave and too many times I've rented a place and
it wasn't like the owner said so I had to leave. Now there has been one place they were
adamant I had to sign a contract so I made sure to spend enough time before agreeing
to a contract and usually if you have to agree to a contract then you can get a lower price and
say okay so it's going to cost me 200 Colones a month. If I sign a contract for a year can I get
it for 175 000 Colones a month. So you can always negotiate that factor all right. Now most of
the time you're not going to have to worry about contracts most of the time you're not gonna have
to worry about putting any deposits down okay. That's our experience okay but we've always
rented in rural areas where there's not a lot of tourists okay. So we're just showing you from our
perspective what happened with us. This next tip is extremely important and could help keep you
from making a costly error that you could easily make if you didn't know this information. When you
are negotiating the price of your rental. Always negotiate the price in the local currency of Costa
Rican Colones. While Costa Rica does accept the us dollar, you never want to pay for anything with
US dollars unless you are in a business that has registers, that use software to convert the US
dollar at the correct current exchange rate. Then when paying in US dollars you'll get the
correct change back in Costa Rican Colones. Savvy Ticos or not so honest people will insist or
try to convince you to pay in US dollars because the US dollar has a higher value. Instead of using
the correct daily exchange rate, they will usually use the convenient exchange rate of 500 Colones
to one dollar. This makes the math easy. For example, a hundred thousand Colones would easily
convert to two hundred dollars. However if you had agreed to pay the normal hundred thousand Colones
at the current exchange rate that same hundred thousand Colones would convert to only a hundred
and sixty six dollars and not two hundred dollars. For example, the house I'm renting now is
normally rented to any Tico for a hundred thousand Colones a month, but when the owner
saw I was a Gringo he quickly asked me to pay two hundred dollars a month and had I agreed
I would be overpaying every single month. To help you understand if I pay the normal
price of a hundred thousand Colones, the owner is always getting the true
asking price and I'm not overpaying. The Colones to US dollar exchange rate fluctuates
daily. When we first came to Costa Rica, the hundred thousand Colones converted closely to
two hundred dollars. The Colones has dropped in value and today that same hundred thousand Colones
is only worth a hundred and sixty six dollars. Imagine how much money you would overpay
every month if you had made the simple mistake of agreeing to pay in US dollars. Once you find a
place and you've negotiated price and you love it, now that you've decided to rent the place, it's
time to ask the landlord what is the physical address because Costa Rica doesn't have 911
address system. So it's important to find out what is the physical address of that place. Typically
a physical address is going to be something like 50 meters north of the post office white
house on the left side of the road. And you might not be the only white house on the
left side of the road. I think I got him. So ask the physical address so that whenever you
get a pizza delivered or whenever you go to pay your electric bill or do your banking or you do
something where they ask your address you'll know the correct address okay. So that's real important
that you ask the physical address then you're going to have to pay the electric in the water in
most cases and when you do it's almost never going to be in your name. It's going to be in the name of
whoever owned that house and they don't change it out like it does in other countries. So you want
to ask, what is the account number to electricity, what is the account number to the water and
whose name is electric in, whose name is the water in because oftentimes and many times
it's been in several different names okay. So make sure you ask that because when you
go pay that electric bill on that water bill which you can pay at almost any little bitty
small poop area that's a convenience store or the bank. Then they're gonna ask you're gonna
give them the account number and they're gonna say and that's in such and such name that way you
can verify that you're paying that bill and not somebody else's electric bill. So it's important
to get that info. It's also important to ask hey who's taking care of the yard? Is that your
responsibility to cut the grass or is it theirs. Is their trash pickup because some places don't
have trash pickup and that's important to know because if there's not trash pickup that means
everybody is burning their trash in the yard and that can be a stinky situation. We talk more about
that in that live video you probably should watch. And if you are into recycling you might want to
ask that where is their recycle drop off. Keep in mind no matter where you're at it's only
temporary. In most cases and sometimes we've rented a place and only stayed 30 days. We stayed
a month only to find out hey we couldn't get internet access or it was too noisy whatever and
it can change in a moment. So it's only temporary. Try to stay light until you know for certain
that you like it then you can start buying your furniture or buying pieces you know a piece at a
time and that's what we did. All right so really I think that's pretty much everything isn't it? I
think so. You know that is a little recap. That's right that's the majority of the stuff now we
go into detail on that youtube live so be sure to check that out and look put some comments
down let us know was this helpful for you. Hey is there something we forgot about. Put it in
the comment section and we'll be more than glad to answer your question. Hey the best thing to do is
to join the forum because there there's questions that have already been answered and you can find
those answers inside the forum so so easy. Instead of going from video to video to video. So we look
forward to giving you some more great information. Next week remember we try to go live or we try to
premiere a new video every Sunday at 2 pm eastern standard time and we're either doing a live or
we got a video that premieres live and we're always online to answer your questions while that
video is going in at least for an hour afterwards so that we can answer your questions as quick as
you're typing them in. So until next Sunday, we look forward to talking to you chatting with you
in the forum in the question box and we'll see you next week with another awesome video where
we're talking about living in Costa Rica.
