The Central Valley of Costa Rica is the most populated area of the entire country with more than half of the country’s population residing in and around San Jose, our Capitol. As you get a little further from the center, the crowds start to thin, and you can find green fields, coffee farms, blue skies, and nice towns close to all the amenities of the larger areas. San Ramon and the Central Highland towns are a perfect example of that. Just 45-75 minutes from the SJO airport, San Jose, and the Central Valley, we are steadily becoming more sought out by expats and ticos alike. But why choose Paradise Management to find your ideal property in San Ramon and the surrounding mountain areas of the Central Valley?
First, CRPM is committed to providing you with a quality, time-sensitive, ethical real estate experience. We are friendly and professional, courteous and honest, and we provide service without pressure. But if we think you will miss out on something, we will let you know. You are making a very important decision, and we are the company with a history of agents and owners that the expats and locals have trusted for years to buy, sell and rent their homes here in San Ramon, Alajuela, Costa Rica. We enjoy what we do, we enjoy showing you where we live, and we look forward to sharing our properties with you. From small affordable lots to large development properties and everything in between.
A History of Honest and Ethical Practices
Its hard to know who you can trust, especially when you are purchasing property in a foreign country. Why have folks living in San Ramon trusted CRPM for years? Many reasons. We are the third owners of Paradise Management, we have over 10 years of experience in real estate, and over 20 years in customer service, and sales. When it comes to doing things the right way, CRPM has always been the place to go. We uphold the same values of the company that started with the company’s creators. We are from NYC and San Jose, Costa Rica, and now live right here in San Ramon after visiting most of Costa Rica for the past 17 years. Some people smirk – city folks selling real estate in the country side? Us city folks are some of the MOST honest – we tell it like it is, we are up front and check the details, the fine print. We do background checks on all of our properties before we even put them up for sale on our site. You don’t want to buy the neighbors garage when he is out of town from a shady realtor, and we are not the ones who will try to sell it to you.
A Great Reputation
We started here in San Ramon as Vista Valverde Pacific View B&B. We have 5 star reviews across the board for helping folks not only with their travels, but also with relocating here in San Ramon while staying at Vista Valverde during their home searches. Taking over Costa Rica’s Paradise Management Realty was a natural progression for us, and we look forward to offering the same level of customer service and attention that our B&B guests receive, to our real estate clients as well. We have just started offering our guest house rentals short term for folks who need a place longer term while constructing their dream home, or just checking out if San Ramon is right for them.
Great Prices
We offer properties at great prices. There are few exclusive listings in Costa Rica, so you may see the same house on two different sites. Many times folks ask us why some of ours are cheaper. Its because we stay in touch with our sellers about the market trends, and help them try and sell their homes so they can not only profit, but do so in the best time frame possible. That means making their price attractive to our buyers. By understanding the market – not only in San Ramon, but Costa Rica in general, as well as other countries from Panama to Ecuador, we give sellers reasonable expectations about how they must price their property in a changing global market. Sellers usually respond with quite reasonable and low prices compared to other parts of Costa Rica and South America. Paradise Management can help you find properties with motivated sellers – whether you are looking at one of our luxury estates that start over a million USD, or one of one of our smaller building lots. Let us know what you are looking for and we will get you the best price for it.
Listing Agreements
Many single realtors, even top seed agencies in Costa Rica do not have listing agreements with their sellers. Others have simple listing agreements that focus exclusively on commission payments. CRPM listings have formal Listing Agreements* that make sure our sellers and our buyers have no surprises. Our Agreements cover topics such as commissions as well as escrow terms, sale terms, and privacy agreements. They lay out exactly what we are expected to do for our commission as your realtor – from listing to marketing. This allows a variety of protections for the buyer as well, as we have the requirement to disclose any liens or substantial problems with the property. Depending on where the property is located, and the size – we may also charge a nominal listing fee of $100 to cover time and expenses incurred with obtaining, creating and maintaining a listing. We have found that sellers willing to make not only a signed commitment, but a small financial one, tend to make better sellers! They have shown they can review and complete a signed agreement with firm commitments. Folks unwilling to sign a listing agreement are usually more difficult with regard to the contract and closing process, wasting time and money. And once we have the signed contract, we have all the information we need to create Offers and Purchase Agreements in less than a day! We already have all the info and most of the die diligence out of the way! By completing a Listing Agreement, and paying a small fee, we are able to find sellers who are more likely to cooperate when it comes time to entering into fair deals for buyers. And our buyers know this and appreciate it – so they keep referring others to us.
Up-to-date listings
CRPM keeps an open dialogue with sellers and buyers to keep everyone’s wish lists and property information up to date. As soon as something is sold, it is updated on the site. Prices are updated equally as quickly, new pictures if home improvements have been made, sometimes just a note about how beautiful the flowers are blooming or the mangos growing on the trees.
No Pressure – a Consultative Approach
From the moment you introduce yourself to Costa Rica’s Paradise Management Realty, we have you fill in a short questionnaire about what you are looking for and what’s most important to you. Because that is what is important to us. Make an appointment with us at our home office, Vista Valverde, and lets meet up to tour San Ramon and the listings you want to see. If all goes well, you will find your new home or dream property! But that is not all we do.
Many times we are not just selling a house but a completely new lifestyle. And we are here to help you with the transition. From expat breakfasts to buying a car, we offer many personal services to help make your move here go as smoothly as possible. Some of these are paid services, some are just helping you through the grind of where the post office is and when the Feria is open. Think you would like one of our all-inclusive (3 – 7 days) House Hunting and Relocation Tours? We make each one personal to you. We make ourselves available to you throughout your entire transition if need be, and we enjoy doing it! Use Kim’s blog A Mom’s Guide to Costa Rica, and check out the new 365 days of San Ramon blog as valuable resources on travel and living and moving to San Ramon. Bur remember, we also have listings in all the surrounding towns from Atenas to Palmares, Grecia and Naranjo. Finding and choosing a home, property or investment can take some time, and we plan on spending that time with you. We are not looking to pressure you into buying something you don’t want – we are here to make our clients happy. This is a happy place! Pura Vida.
At Risk – Going Without a Real Estate Service
There is a joke here – How many realtors are there in Costa Rica? How many people live in Costa Rica! Everyone in Costa Rica will sell you something if you want it. But do you know what you are buying? Most don’t even know what they are selling, or don’t care. It’s simple. A buyer without an agent is at risk. We have found that folks taking their own road to see property after property spend a lot of time seeing nothing. Especially when there is a language barrier. You may even be a realtor back home, but do you know what the market values are here? We have seen asking prices more than 750 times what the market value is, and unfortunately a lot of folks down here will sell it to you if you want to buy it, even if its not theirs to sell. Not only could the price be grossly inflated, but not knowing to address key contingencies in your offer can lead to several disadvantages down the road (water, electric, etc.). Sales contracts in these cases can be tipped towards the seller giving the seller subtle out-clauses and direct deposit payments without an escrow or escrow type protection for the buyer. A good agency protects the seller and the buyer. A good agency works with attorneys to prioritize the transaction, help solve any problems, and watch the backs of the buyers as well as the sellers throughout the process. If you are on your own, you are on your own. Just like anywhere else, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. Find good realtor who can show you the right way.
A Selective Portfolio, Knowledge of the Area
CRPM has one of the most selective and extensive portfolios in San Ramon. We choose our homes based on their quality, the lots based on the background checks, and the neighborhoods based on their access to basic amenities. Our focus on San Ramon and our surrounding towns allows us to visit and get to know each and every home, and each and every home owner, throughout the process of our listing process. We do have some outlying beach properties because they are clients of ours here in the mountains, and we offer courtesy listings to our clients there. When it comes to all our properties, however, we know the areas’ micro-climate, distances to amenities, and the nuances of each one we have for sale.
Great team
It takes a lot of folks to make a real estate transaction go through from offer to closing. We are a completely bilingual staff, speaking perfect English and perfect “tico” Spanish, which is a little different than other forms of Spanish. CRPM works with a strong team of professionals including builders (we can also oversee your construction project), architects and reputable attorneys. Right now we are building a house with Eco Casas of Costa Rica. We try to keep our footprint small!
Increase Your Odds of a Successful Transaction
The last thing you want is to fall in love with a home or property and have the deal fall through. From start to finish, CRPM is there for you. Many of you have a limited amount of time here to do your search before leaving to go back home and make preparations for your move, or maybe you are just looking for a vacation home and have a few days to do it. Whatever the reasons, no one wants a deal to go south just because it was not handled properly. Using a qualified agency with an expansive network of professionals who have been working in the San Ramon area for many years promises you the most successful transaction, in the smallest amount of time. We look forward to helping you find your piece of Paradise here in San Ramon and our surrounding mountain towns!
*this is something new for Paradise Management and while we require the Listing Agreement from all our new property owners, we are still in the process of obtaining some listing agreements from older clientele. Additionally, we may have “pocket” listings for homes that you see on other sites. Just let us know what you are looking for.
San Ramon Costa Rica Realtors
UPDATE: CRPM is now Blue Tierra Realty Group with a wonderful site called MLSinCostaRica.com– same great original owners, plus more team members to help! bilingual, and paired with a great building company to help with your renovations or new build!