240 square meters of warehouse or office space with 2 washrooms. 15 meters x 16 meters in size with a large 4 wide x 5 high meter loading door.  Easily converted into 2 stories with offices.  Reduced for a quick sale, $100,000 under original sales price.  24 hour security and located in the hub of the growth area of Guanacaste. Located directly across from the Liberia International Airport and 7 minutes to the new CIMA Hospital    

 See -  http://www.prestige-ocean-properties.com/Liberia/Guanacaste/Commercial_Real_Estate/Liberia/Agent/Listing_46823448.html

It’s no exaggeration to say that four years ago — unless you count commercial buyers grabbing up ultra-cheap foreclosures — the second-home market was dead as a doornail,” said Rolly Marsh, a market analyst with Chicago-based National Association of Realtors.

The good news comes via the third annual Cotton Report, which reports a polling of more than 800 participants on housing preferences, motivating factors, pricing levels and timelines for purchase. It included participants from 39 states, Canada, Europe and Latin America.

While no direct correlation was made to the harsh winter temperatures, the research survey did point to a significant increase in the number of homebuyers looking to buy a vacation home — in fact, a year-over-year increase of 800 percent.
This trend is further supported by an increase in the number of buyers describing their transition as “a geographic relocation.” Over the three years the study has been conducted, there has been a continuous trend toward smaller homes. The most popular size? It’s now between 1,700 and 2,299 square feet. Homes ranging from 1,000 to 1,699 square feet saw an increase of 5 percent in interest levels from 2010 to 2011.

The Cotton Report also shows signs that pricing levels have adjusted to meet consumer expectations.

In 2009, respondents indicated the need for a 50 percent price reduction in order to re-enter the market. In the 2011 survey, this level of price reduction has changed dramatically, down to 20 percent.

“The second-home market is improving, more orderly and more predictable,” the NAR’s Marsh told Sunshine State News on Friday. “The bad economy and real estate decline of 2006 to 2008 in particular weeded out the speculators. Now we have second-home buyers who buy homes to live in them. Most aren’t purchasing for a quick turnover.

“Buyers are returning cautiously, buying smaller and smarter,” said Marsh.

The Cotton Report, an annual consumer report, is compiled by Cotton & Co., a 28-year old firm specializing in the marketing and sales of residential real estate throughout the United States and the Caribbean.

Says Stephann Cotton, the firm’s president, “The adjustment of pricing to realistic levels has brought buyers and sellers closer together. These price adjustments combined with the brutal winter up North have resulted in strong sales in many of our resort residential properties.”

The future of the 30-year mortgage is still up in the air, Cotton acknowledges, but the survey indicates that even though 36 percent of the respondents plan to finance their purchase with a 30-year mortgage, an equal 36 percent plan to pay with cash. The rest are opting for a 15-year loan.

“One of the most dramatic changes in buyer psychology was seen in the responses from those who are uninterested in a real estate purchase,” says Laurie Andrews, Cotton & Co.’s COO. In 2010, 96 percent of these respondents cited economic conditions or political instability as the reason for not purchasing. In 2011, the number was cut in half, with 46 percent of the respondents saying they now have no desire to move.

“These results show buyers are beginning to separate the home buying process from the economic instability,” Andrews said.

A complete copy of the 2011 Cotton Report, including supporting data, is available on the company’s website, www.TheCottonSolution.com.

The five-day event held at the Pueblo Antiguo in the Parque de Diversiones theme park in the north western San José district of La Uruca was a major success with hundreds of architects, banks, real estate agents and members of the regional real estate community attending. On Saturday a VIP Guanacaste tour  arranged by Remax agent and CCCBR representative, Lucrecia Cordero, the group toured Hacienda Del Mar in Playa Panama, El Cubil and other developments in the region. Hacienda del Mar is a 70 acre residential development project located on the Las Truncas Road in Playa Panama and are expected to announce breaking ground on ocean view condominiums in the new year. El Cubil is a newly completed condominium project in Playa Hermosa offering ocean view units at very affordable pricing.

All individuals and company owners who expected to pay the 2010-2011 income tax next Dec. 15, might be surprised to find out that a quarter of the amount is due a week from Friday.

That is a change from the current practice if not the current law. The deadline is a step towards quarterly deadlines in the next fiscal year.

Taxpayers have to deposit this tax advance based on either the last year’s tax or the average of the past three years, according to Francisco Villalobos Brenes, director general of the Dirección General de Tributación, the nation’s tax collector.

The taxpayer can choose the lower of the two amounts, he said.

The advance payment does not relieve the taxpayer from filing the annual form by Dec. 15 and paying the amount remaining, if any. Next year, taxpayers will have to file an estimated payment every three months. But the deadline to file the form still will be Dec. 15.

Villalobos has been on the job less than a year and has been taking his responsibility seriously. He was the man who cracked down on soccer players who did not file and pay the luxury home tax.

There have been some other major changes that are important to expats who earn money and pay taxes in Costa Rica.

Villalobos said he realizes that his agency has to provide more information to the English speakers. Expats are sometimes blindsided by changes in the tax rules.

That happened Aug. 15 when banks declined to accept the usual three-part forms on which retailers report the monthly sales tax. Tributación changed the rules, but this was not well known in the expat community. Now the monthly report has to be filled out using the agency’s EDDI-7 system. Eventually the form will be sent to Tributación electronically and payment of any tax will be made through a bank, probably online.

This is the system that the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social now uses.

Villalobos said that help and PC computers are available for taxpayers at the agency’s offices. He said he thought the system was working well because Sept. 15 there were only 292 persons still trying to file their sale tax returns on agency computers by 2 p.m. that day all over the country.

Taxpayers will be filing their annual income tax form electronically in December if the agency’s current plans come to pass.

Villalobos got the job, in part, because he frequently wrote a newspaper column that was sometimes critical of the state of taxes in Costa Rica.

He has a lot to be critical about. He said in an interview Monday that tax evasion ranged from 33 percent to 80 percent, depending on the tax and the taxpayer. The bulk of his efforts has been directed at reducing this evasion. One method was a lottery for persons making purchases with credit

cards.  The first winner, a Bancrédito card holder named Olga María Jiménez Brenes, has just been announced. The idea is that sales tax evasion is much harder if the sales are run through the bank credit card system.

Villalobos also is promoting enforcement. Monday he said that over the last three years banks paid out 14 trillion colons in fees to lawyers and appraisers. That’s about $28 million. He said his agency would soon check into the records of the 287 recipients of these funds to make sure they declared the income.

He also has introduced a plan whereby the top 1,000 taxpayers, primarily companies, will have to submit financial statements audited by an outside accountant. He said Tributación has the right to require this because it has the right to view company books.

But Villalobos uses the term books in the abstract because he just issued a resolution that said electronic books would be accepted by his agency. In the past, companies had to fill out hardcover financial books by hand. He said he based his resolution on the law that created digital signatures. The law also gave full recognition to digital material as it does to the older paper documents. That also means that tax inspectors will have to look at the financial operation instead of just finding fault with the technicalities of the written books, said Villalobos.

Villalobos also is instituting an email system where taxpayers can get answers. That address is consultaart119@hacienda.go.cr. However, questions about a specific company or individual taxpayer have to be accompanied by a digital signature and other documentation. The service is available seven days a week and 24 hours a day.

Villalobos also is the man who instituted a frequently-asked-questions column in English on the agency’s Web page as well as the list of deadbeats who are behind on taxes. He is fluent in English.

It was Villalobos’ agency that swooped down on local restaurants last week and closed some due to irregularities in their taxes.

Another project is to establish a list of profit margins by type of business, for example, a shoe store. If a taxpayer’s firm deviates dramatically from the traditional percentages of its industry, Villalobos said a tax audit is likely.

“If you are going to lie to me, don’t lie too much,” he said.
]]> http://rpop.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/first-income-tax-deadline-this-year-is-sept-30/feed/ 0 Remax Prestige Ocean Properties deadline http://rpop.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/monarch-resort-ocean-view-condo-21/ http://rpop.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/monarch-resort-ocean-view-condo-21/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:33:10 +0000 Remax Prestige Ocean Properties http://rpop.wordpress.com/?p=362 ]]>   

      In the province of Guanacaste, on the North Pacific coast of Costa Rica, home of warm breezes, green nature and the best beaches in Costa Rica, is located Monarch Resort Hotel.  Only 20 minutes away from the International Airport of Liberia, located in the magical Gulf of Papagayo, a beautiful location with countless activities and sites. Direct access to Playa Panamá, one of the best beaches in Papagayo Gulf and awarded Costa Rica’s top ecological award. This ocean view condo is 70 sq. meters, one bedroom, one bath with ocean views.  The complex includes a restaurant, large community pool and a  onsite property management company. The new CIMA Hospital is less than 10 minutes from Monarch  and Playa Coco, where you will find more restaurants, pharmacies, post office etc….

  Listed at $145,000

Five bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, large infinity pool with spacious patio area with incredible valley and ocean views of the Bay of Culebra, Gulf of Papagayo and the Four Seasons Papagayo Resort.

Cathedral ceilings, chandelier’s, gourmet kitchen, outdoor entertainment cabana with built in BBQ and pizza oven. Due to the proximity to the new hospitals medical tourism is a definite possibility for the property as there is ample room to expand and build many wheel chair accessible annexes.  Playa Panama beach is less than 5 minutes from the property with shopping, restaurants and banks within 10 minutes’ drive. Marina Papagayo is directly across the bay and easily accessed. The villa has not been occupied for 3 years and some updating/renovations are required which the owner has agreed to perform for the buyer.  The one hectare parcel borders a large 57 hectare parcel of forested valleys, pasture and ocean view land and can be purchased also.

One Hectare with villa – $3,995,000

One hectare with villa and 57 hectare parcel – $18 million

President Laura Chinchilla and the legislature have quietly removed an expiration deadline on the luxury home tax.

The original law, No. 8683, contained a clause, Article 19,  that specified that the tax would only last for 10 years. Many accepted the luxury home tax because of the expiration date.

Without any public comment and in an obscure way, the legislature passed Aug. 25 a revision of the tax law. That was No. 8981. The new measure reaffirmed that the tax should be paid in the first 30 days of the calendar year and that persons who purchase property are responsible for the entire tax when it is due. That means that buyers should require those closing the deal to prorate the luxury home tax if the property is subject to the law.

In a single sentence in Article F of the Aug. 25 law, the legislature repealed Article 19 of the luxury tax measure, which was passed Nov. 19, 2008. The tax is supposed to help build decent homes for those living in slums, but the government has not done that yet with the money that came in at the first of 2009, 2010, and 2011. However, the tax collecting agency, the Dirección General de Tributación, has made a lot of publicity chasing down professional soccer players who did not pay the tax.

Now the tax appears to join the nation’s other levies that will be collected annually forever.

There was no public announcement of the new law, but a copy showed up in the La Gaceta official newspaper. Even with a close reading of the text, most would not realize the effect. There was no mention of this repeal on public statements by the legislature either. The 2008 law can be found HERE.A copy of the law extending the tax can be found HERE!

The luxury tax is based on a sliding scale from .25 percent to .55 percent, depending on the value of the dwelling and the grounds immediately around it.

According to the original law, properties equal to or less than 100 million colons (now about $196,250) are exempt from the tax, but the president has the power to change that number.  Owners of properties valued at more than 100 million colons up to 250 million (about $490,600) pay the lowest tax, .25 percent of the estimated value.

The tax was sold to the public as a 10-year assessment to eliminate slums, and many expats thought that this was a reasonable levy, particularly since it would go away in 10 years. The measure seems to have had an effect on the real estate market, although the extent is hard to tell because there are other factors influencing sales.

The biggest problem with the luxury home tax was that the value was based on a complicated evaluation of the replacement cost of a property rather than the market value. Many homeowners had to hire experts to establish a value under the government’s complex system.

The expiration date was deleted during a period when all legislation has to be initiated by the chief executive. Casa Presidencial is desperate for funds, and nearly half of the future budget is financing by borrowing. The possibility exists that the money from the luxury home tax could be diverted into the general budget with another inconspicuous legal change.
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