Nicaragua Real Estate – Right now, oceanfront land in Nicaragua isn’t on the minds of many real estate investors or retirees – but it should be. Every well known vacation destination in the world was once a place that few had heard of and even less had visited.
In the early 1970’s, Spain’s Costa del Sol, along the Mediterranean Sea was an emerging vacation hub for many Brits like myself. The idea of getting away from the typical rainy British summers and escaping to the sun drenched beaches of Marbella was electrifying. By the spring of 1981 I had made the nearby town of Fuengirola my home, and the goal of owning some place on the beach had now become my primary focus.
As a young disc jockey I worked the night clubs hoping to save the then insurmountable $19,000 price tag for a one-bedroom condominium exactly twenty-two steps from the sand. Like all 22 year olds, the saving of money was never an easy thing to do and consequently the condo ownership never materialized.
Over the next half-dozen years many miles were traveled and in the fall of 1987 after traversing the globe I landed in Huntington Beach, California. Again the idea of buying a studio condo by the beach sounded like a smart move; the only thing standing between me and that savvy plan again was the $89,000 purchase price. Did I knuckle down working multiple jobs and pony up the dough to buy one? You guessed it!
Funny things happen to us when we’re looking at real estate – the day we’re thinking of buying everything looks so expensive. Yet the day we look back on the decision not to buy everything looks like pennies on the dollar. The best advice I’ve heard over the past 25 years has been…”go where the people are going, get there first and buy the land.”
Nowhere could this be more apropos than the largest (yet most misunderstood) Central American country – Nicaragua. Tourism there has been steadily growing for the past decade and reached the all important one million mark last year. Foreign business investment is up too, according to Mario Salinas, Head of INTUR, the government tourism department.
Salinas disclosed that this year, 2011, Nicaragua was already up by 50 million dollars over investment projects in 2010 and should finish the year at around 180 million dollars. Salinas indicated that 60% of those new businesses are in the small and medium hotel sector which will bring the number of available tourist rooms to about 9,000.
This figure could be even higher if investments by NH Hotels from Spain materialize. The large Spanish hotel corporation is exploring the possibility of moving into the Nicaraguan market. The NH Group operates 400 hotels in Europe, South Africa and North America as well as South America and the Caribbean. Their web site shows that they have recently divested themselves of some Mexican hotels and are looking to replace that business elsewhere in the region. The Marriott Hotels are also considering Nicaragua and are continuing negotiations with a resort on the Pacific side of the country.
Of all the great places in Nicaragua, the small fishing village of San Juan del Sur just north of the Costa Rican boarder is rapidly becoming most known by savvy investors, retirees, and other oceanfront property seekers. If buying land before the crowd arrives is your favorite flavor, then buying Nicaragua real estate should be one place to add to your list now before it’s too late.
Alex Wilson
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