This is the first property we built in Nica - about a 100 yard walk to Colorado's. Subway and his wife stayed here a couple of times. This is what started it all for us.
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This is the house we originally built to retire in .... about a 10 minute walk to Colorados or Panga Drops - 2 minutes by golf cart! Yes- that is a pizza oven.
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This is the view from the bedroom of the house i'm currently building. Overlooking the bay at San Juan Del Sur - if you look closely you can see the statue of Jesus on the hilltop to the right of the bay. Before Covid - we would see Cruise ships dock in the bay - at night when they were all lit up - pretty cool to see. Can't wait to check out the view from the pool with a cold one after a surf session.
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So to answer some questions - we originally had been taking some vacations in CR before convincing Mrs. Flyinraptr to give Nicaragua a try. One walk on the beach - and she proposed the idea of buying property in Nica - i suspected her of smoking weed behind my back. We built the rental place initially and made 2 or 3 trips annually before the idea of retiring and moving to Nica became a reality. We knew the rental property would not be big enough - so we went forward with buying another lot and building the second house. My Spanish - experience consisted of listening to Pimsler Spanish tapes on my way to work - prior to moving ... needless to say my Spanish was very very limited. Having never purchasing property outside the US - the idea of buying property within a gated community with an existing infrastructure seemed like a safe bet ... we had read about and talked to people who bought property and built houses with no water, electricity, roads, security, etc and it sounded daunting and way over our heads at the time. Now that we have been living in Nica for 3 years - and have a better understanding of how things work and the lay of the land - building a house is still an extremely challenging experience and way more hands on than we had anticipated. But at the end of the day ... i think the third time will be the charm and the thought of not having to deal with an HOA or other ex-pat @holes is worth the effort.