What are some of the problems Americans have run into buying property?

There is ocean frontage land for sale but most of it is a government lease, some of it is indian held land, (may or may not be able to register it as titled fee simple), and some is already titled and legalized. The best way to find a decent deal is to hire a facilitator to work for you in searching out the land that is not already with over inflated prices. The difficulty of finding the bigger parcel that you are looking for depends on what area you are interested in buying. For example south coast is quite difficult to find the bigger piece. This is not to say that it can't be done. I do know of farmers and contact people who know about properties that the realtors have not gotten hold of and jacked the prices up on. With Daniel winning the election maybe some of the prices will come down due to weakening demand because of investor worries and uncertainty with his policies and administration. I frankly don't think his term as president will adversely affect the buying of land in this last frontier of Central America.

Thinking they are in America

Not doing their homework

Using a real estate agent (50% to 300% and more markups)

6 mz (10.5 +/- acres with a small nice house) down the road from me went to a man from New York. I was trying to get it before our next trip but he offered more than I did. (I offered $8,200 (asking price) and he offered $48,000. My daughter talked to Don Julio the original owner and he is very happy to get $10,000 for his land and home. I guess the real estate agent got a real good deal!

When you get into water front property it is a mixed bag. Most of it is a government concession of either the Mayor's office or in some cases the indigineous culture. It just is not standardized. There are some problems in one case a real big problem with ocean front indian property in the Tola area. To find 50 to 100 manzanas of ocean front in the sw region of Nicaragua would be almost impossible. Up north it could be done but the climate is much more difficult being so hot with little or no wind currents. I am a facilitator and know the right people to dig up what is available in the sw section of the country. Check out the website fylz.com/nicare which Phil set up for us. I know of many more properties for sale but have not had the time to get them onto the site.

...but I just purchased a small piece of land between Masaya and Granada. My problems were with the topographers. I won't go into details, but these guys were way off and gave me the plans 3 times claiming they were correct. However, each time I received plans from them the measurements were DIFFERENT! Be careful and don't let anyone pull the wool over your eyes. Bad excuses and outright lying seem to be acceptable in Nicaragua for things done incorrectly. Most people are not held accountable for bad workmanship and their pride gets in the way of admitting fault.

Don't get me wrong, the majority of people in Nicaragua are fine craftsman and very good people. I just had a very bad experience with 2 and am still pissed about it.

Other than this experience, I love Nicaragua and will stay here the rest of my life if I can.

CaPoNE2113

if you do buy property, get tittle insurance. also make sure there is no conflicts, use your lawyer never use theirs.

in Nicaragua the seller pays the transfer taxes, make sure he pays you.

your property is not yours until you have transfer the title at the goverment office call reguistro, is where all the books are being kept.

when you see the property make sure also it is completle fence, and before you buy, have someone or yourself talt to the people around to make sure the property owner is the one selling you.

if you can, pay them part of the $ then move in, after a couple month's pay them the rest. this is done easily with a legal paper that you promisse to pay them x amount of money at an esfecific time. promesa de venta. promess to sell...

there is allot of good price property around. look around with time...

take time

juan c teran

I havent talked to this particular guy in a few years but I can go by his house on a visit to Jinotepe and ask him if his land is still available.

Supposedly he inherited about 400 manzanas Ocean front, Somewhere in the souther half of the Pacific coast. I honestly have no details besides that, if its true.

He mentioned to us if we had any business ideas for the beach but didnt have the money to buy the land he would consider some kind of business deal.

In anycase the guy is not well off and maybe for the right price he would sell some of it to you.

It will real difficult to find a large tract of ocean front in the southern zone. There are some concession lots available at good prices. In the northern zone a larger piece could be found. You can avoid the big problem of buying something that is contested relatively easily by using a good attorney. The problem of using realtors with inflated commissions built in can be avoided by not going with those realtors. I can help with that.

because my son was living in Nicaragua last winter and the owner was a friend of his. I was in exactly the position you were in, I wasn't in Nicaragua but I wanted to own land... I never though I'd find something on the Pacific Ocean, but I did. There are several lots left. I liked it much better than SJDS because SJDS is in the middle of no where.. my land is 20 minutes outside Leon on a beautiful clean white sandy beach in Salinas Grande. I know he has a few lots left. If you have any interest in contacting him or my lawyer (honest, good people) I'll send you the #'s.

Sheila

My house in granada has a small peice of the land next door where a I planned to put a garage... Well the land was recently sold. It only has what is called Derecho de Posicion/Right to posess. I have a full blown escritura from 2 previous owners.

Now the new owner is jumping up and down saying that he has never seen an L shaped property before and therefore all the land is his. My lawyers (2 of them) assure me that I am secured. But this dis not stop the new owners to put up a fence to block my access to the land.

Titles here, even what seems to be very clean, usually have some story behind them, and if ever someone wants to dispute it, they can... Even if they do not win, it means you have to either put a law suite or defend against one... Which means at least 6 months of headaches.

The good news is lawyers are not that expensive, and if you have the patience, then usually the other people will ook to settel rather and fight and incure legal fees ( unless the property s very valuable of course)

I have been offered many great and legitimate deals on beautiful property in Nicaragau. These properties would have been great for eco-tourism and tourist related projects.

The only problem that I have ever had about buying property in Nicaragua was lack of money. :-) ____________________________________________________________________

Hi, forgive the only-partial connection to this topic...I don't know how to start a new topic!. Anyway, here's the issue: My recently eceased father Sherman Davies built a house near the lake in Granada in the mid-90's, and after finally being beaten down by the crazy reality of Nicaragua apparently packed a single suitcase and took a plane back the the States never to return, leaving the house and his belongings behind. It just occured to me that technically speaking I've inherited his *hypothetical* home there, although it is almost certainly destroyed by the hurricane and/or squatted in and/or....? I don't have a great desire to reclaim it, but thought I might come down to see it as a way to revisit things a year after his death. Does anyone have any knowledge of him, his house (I remember there were only a handful of resident american's in Granada when I visited and they all knew each other), or suggestions? thanks much you can email me at cupofcarrotjuice@yahoo.com

Jacques, they have had some rather serious tsunami damage in Nicaragua as recently as 1992.

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/slideset/26/26_captions.shtml

That's why I bought up on a hill overlooking the beach, not the beach itself. There are spots with a high bank (like a short cliff) overlooking the beach. Those are nice. Good luck!

rgds,

-web

Property for residential ocean frontage developement has been in demand for some time - ten or more years at least. There are a substantial number of lots already developed in the Tolas area and an association of developers to represent their lobby for an improved coastal highway. The longest term gringo real estate folks are Dale Dagger in San Juan Del Sur and Steve Snider of www.sniderrealty.com Either one if them ,if they are not surfing, can tell you what is going on. I just bought a lot [not acreage]just south of El Transito in a developement called Cumbres de Montecristo in Dept. of Leon. This developement is being done by a long term Nicaraguan unlike a lot of the Tolas developements being done by Danish, International companies,etc. There are a lot of projects on line from what I could tell. Hope this helps.

See http://www.nicaliving.com/book/view/454 for the information. Any natural person can own real property in Nicaragua as can any Nicaraguan corporation. There is nothing special about your citizenship.

You don't need a cedula or Nicaraguan ID to buy land. I bought property in Carazo and all I needed was my US passport.

You need a cedula, or a Nicaraguan Id, to make goverment transaction, Im Nicaraguan and I could not buy property till I got my cedula. now if you are going to buy a lot or a small piece of land for a house, that is no problem of price inflattion, but if you are looking for a bigger size of land like the one you mention you are gona be dealing mostly to a savy landlord, and probably he is experience on who is the buyer.like the us embassy told you, you might buy a piece of land and latter you are going to be dealling with about 10 people teling you they are the real owner and taking you to court etc, I have a trouble with my own property that I have own for more than 20 years. so like other post have said, come to Nicaragua stay a while renting see if Nicaragua is for you get to know people and latter dive to the watter once you know there isnt a rock or a havy tree inside the brown watter. walk into the watter first as far as your belly bottom, or as high as your tit if your agresive and a good swimer, but for your sake dont dive.