The main attractions of the development were the ocean, the Tarcoles River, and sunset views. The reason was that the property is an extension of the Carara national park and got cut off with the construction of the coastal highway. The “resort community” was with the name Lomas de Carara. Some others had experience in selling hamburgers and shoes. However, only one director had some real estate development experience, but in Spain. The Dutch development company had a board of directors, who were the decision-makers for the whole group. What happened next is a long story, but here is the short one: Unfortunately, there was no money for any of that, so the plan was to pre-sell promises. Just as a shopping mall needs a grocery store and a bank, Lomas de Carara needed: Unfortunately, the market study pointed out the wrong location, the unusable beach, and the need for an anchor. Los Sueños Resort was the only comparable resort in the country in those days. I had been a real estate broker for quite a few years, but didn’t have any experience in marketing and selling such a real estate project either. In those days, real estate developers seldomly had any idea about their niche market and the needs of that market. Therefore, we first did a market study to see if we had any chance of success at all. But selling a real estate community without a marketing and construction budget was the first one for me too. I had been a real estate broker for many years, with a lot of experience in marketing. ![]() When the Lomas de Carara board of directors hired me as a marketing & sales manager, there was no one in Costa Rica with the necessary experience. Therefore, I want to share some of my experiences in this blog. This happened to a lot of the early real estate developments starting before the year 2000 and many others in the housing bubble of 2006. The problems that this Dutch investment group encountered are typical of investment groups without real estate development experience. So they wouldn’t need much money to develop, apart from the purchase of the land. Also, the group thought they could make a lot of money by pre-selling the properties. ![]() Well, this investment group bought the land in 1998, in the wrong spot. In my opinion, that’s very little for over 20 years of development on 270 Acres! I’m pretty sure they have developed only like 23 Acres of the original property.Īs you probably know, real estate is all about location, location, location. Apart from that, there are a few single-family homes, a clubhouse, and a pool, and that’s it! There is a second apartment building with its own pool, on the extreme south side of the development. The new group finished the eight townhouses “las Vistas” and later built a larger apartment building “Las Brisas”. Or if the new developers who took over wouldn’t have been so greedy. The resort could have been one of the most excellent resorts in the country if the original developers had a couple of million dollars more. In those days, it was fairly common that everyone with enough money to purchase land thought they could be a successful real estate developer and sell in pre-construction.Ī couple of Dutch business people put together an investment group, bought some land near Tarcoles, and the place ended up years later as Nativa Resort. What’s going on? Why wasn’t the resort not more developed in all those years? The community offers the most amazing views I’ve seen in any “beach community” in a long time. More than 20 years later, they are still struggling, and now the development is for sale. ![]() ![]() What happened?Ī Dutch investment group bought the land in 1998 and built eight townhouses, and subdivided a fair amount of building lots in 1999. Nativa was many years ahead and should have taken advantage of the ups in the market for over 20 years. All those communities were started during the 2006 housing bubble and never finished. These, and many others, never got off the ground or were abandoned for a lack of financial health. Some were sold by unscrupulous real estate developers using marketing tricks. Sonesta One Jaco, Columbus Heights, and Costa Esterillos are just a few in the Central Pacific coastal area. There are quite a few abandoned residential communities along the coast of Costa Rica. There are reasons why resort communities like Nativa Resort in Garabito not to be thriving.
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