For all of you who are considering buying real estate in Costa Rica, we wanted to share our experience with John Hepner of Buyer's Agents of Costa Rica. We started actively looking on line for a home in Costa Rica last summer. John Hepner responded to our interest in a property listed by Vacation City.com. After learning of our criteria and budget, John proceeded to search for other properties that we might be interested in. He encouraged us to make a trip to Costa Rica and go on a real estate tour with him. But, we did not come until we had pre-qualified a sufficient number of potential properties of interest to make our trip worthwhile.

Within a short time, John had identified about 15 properties that he felt we should explore and we went to San Jose to start the tour. JohnÕs preparation was invaluable to us. He did not limit our tour to his company's own listing, but arranged showings through several other realtors as well as Òby ownerÓ listings. The tour was extremely well coordinated with each and every property available for showing upon our arrival. We covered a vast area of the Central Valley and South Pacific on our tour. We found just what we were looking for in San Vito, made an offer and after much negotiation handled for us by John, we reached a purchase and sale agreement on the property.

Although it was the only house that we seriously considered of all the ones we saw, seeing the other properties was invaluable in giving us a real good feeling for comparable values. John wasted none of our time during the three days and provided a service that we could not have done on our own. Most of the properties we saw we probably would not have located on our own.

Unfortunately the seller of the San Vito property reneged on the contract and we had to start our search again.

John kept at it for us. By the time we returned at the end of October he had located and pre-qualified another 15-20 properties and had greatly expanded the search area. Again, every listing was coordinated and no time wasted. All the appointments were pre-set by John through other realtors or owners. This time we considered making offers on as many as five of the properties we saw. We settled on our dream house on a ridge overlooking San Isidro de General. Arrived at an agreement and we closed on the property this morning. (Pura Vida! Thanks, John)

We not only love the property, but have the really good feeling that, thanks to John the location is ideal and the price was right. We really did our due diligence.

We have found that most realtors in Costa Rica are very location limited and handle only listings in their immediate area. Unless you have visited the country extensively, have really seen it all and know for sure where you want to relocate, then working through traditional realtors can be an exhausting and unfulfilling experience. In other words, if you have already determined for sure that you want to be in Dominical, then a Dominical located realtor can probably provide access to all the listings you might be interested in that specific area.

John's company, Buyer's Agents, is unique so far as we can tell. They are great net workers and literally cover the entire country through a combination of their own listings and their extensive contacts throughout the country. John is a Gringo so he knows what Gringo tastes are. But he is also totally fluent in Spanish and has integrated himself into the Tico culture. He is the best of the Tico/Gringo combination: a Tico temperament, but with a Gringo work ethic. All time spent with John is well spent.

We could go on and on about how pleased we are with the results of our search for a home in the Garden of Eden. Please don't hesitate to contact us if we can be of any help.

Pura Vida,
David and Maureen Cantley
Stuart, Florida DKC1444@aol.com

November 28, 2007