Costa Rica had become much too expensive in last 10 years so I hadn't even thought much about it until recently. The Southern zone had been undeveloped because of mainly of poor roads and infrastructure. The coastal highway has been completed (cutting the drive time from San Jose from 5 to 3 hours)and a new international airport was approved for Palmar; so development is on the rise. A major developer Ventanas del Pacifico www.ventanadelpacific.com
in Ojochal has built almost 100 homes and sold twice as many lots to be built on.
The mountains come right down to the coast and all the lots are into the mountain sides with either ocean and mountain views or both. At elevations of up 2,000 feet the vistas were stunning and homes could be built for $100/sq. ft.
Janice and I spent 3 days at the Ventanas guest house and spent about 2 full days visiting both completed homes and available lots in their 6+ phases.
SUV's are a must as the development roads are unpaved and quite steep.
The lots range in price from $40-150K depending on both size and views. We were primarily interested in full ocean view lots and found 2 that we really liked at $90k and $130K.
They unfortunately were about 12 km. south of Ojochal which required the drive whenever you want to shop or go to restaurants. Ojochal and the Uvita area was quite unique and each day the area grew on us. The expats have blended nicely into the "Tica" culture and lifestyle and the number of outstanding international gourmet restaurants was amazing. We are still considering buying a lot, but would want to make another trip. The weather was extremely humid and hot and if this was the norm we're not sure this is for us.
