What about Panama?

Construction Boom in Panama is Built on Drug Money
By Andrew Beatty

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - The shiny skyscrapers that soar above Panama City's coast and loom over the small Central American capital give it a skyline more suited to an Asian powerhouse like Hong Kong or Singapore.

While a subprime mortgage crisis batters the United States, construction has been booming in Panama. According to the most ambitious construction plans, Panama was to have been home to nine of Latin America's 10 tallest buildings by the end of the decade.

But the lights are off in many of the luxury apartments, new buildings sit empty, and suspicion is growing that Panama's property boom may turn out to be a bubble built by speculators on South American drug money.

Real estate agents say the large number of temporary residents in the country is the reason for the city's dim skyline at night. U.S. anti-drug officials say a more likely reason is that Colombian drug cartels use the real estate sector to launder money.

In September, when Panamanian police arrested Colombian drug lord Jose Urrego, they discovered he owned properties and businesses across Panama, including the Pacific island of Chapera, valued at around $12 million.

"It has become more difficult to transfer money through banks, so we have seen a lot more people carrying cash into Panama through Panama City airport," said a U.S. government official in Panama, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"They launder money through the real estate sector, the banking sector and the Colon Free Trade Zone," he added, referring to Panama's import-export park.

Panama's unguarded jungle border with Colombia and its numerous coastal islands, bays and inlets have made the country a major stepping stone for the drug trade between South America, Mexico and the United States.

Its relaxed immigration laws and its good air transport links make it an easy place for Mexican and Colombian cartels to meet.

"The Colombians do not need a visa to get in to Panama, so they are increasingly using it as a place to meet, saying to their Mexican contacts, 'Let's do Panama'," the official said.

APARTMENTS ABOUND
Around 11,000 apartments are forecast to come on the market in Panama City before the end of the decade, according to estate agent Sam Taliaferro. More luxury apartments could be built in Panama over the next few years than the number built in Miami between 1995 and 2005.

All that is for a city of some 800,000 mostly poor Panamanians, some of whom live in rickety wooden homes built a century ago to house workers who built the Panama Canal.

While Panama is a major shipping route and the canal is undergoing a $5 billion expansion, the country's economy remains small and few Panamanians say developers can justify the need for so many skyscrapers.

The increasing numbers of Americans who retire in Panama head for the country's cooler mountain region, for instance.

Some pressure groups and opposition politicians accuse the Panamanian government of approving construction permits regardless of real demand because building creates construction jobs and develops the impressive skyline, photos of which adorn the country's tourist brochures.

Enrique Montenegro, head of the Anti-Corruption Front, said around a fifth of all real estate projects are bought using drug trade cash.

"Some promoters do not ask where the money comes from," he said. "Drug traffickers buy the apartments and use them for their meetings in Panama, or rent them on," he added.

"ILLICIT INVESTORS"
Panama's Attorney General, Ana Matilde Gomez, acknowledged there are "illicit investors" in Panamanian real estate but said the government was powerless to limit the skyscraper boom.

Gomez said the government's focus was on preventing money laundering in the banking sector, which in the 1980s and 1990s was a haven for drug money but has been drastically cleaned up via stricter regulation and controls on money flows.

"Outside the financial sector, there are things we cannot control. Any lucrative economic sector that is booming is attractive to ... illicit investors," she told Reuters.

Even without the suspected drug money, real estate agents say speculators are creating a dangerous bubble that is pushing up rents throughout the country, where 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, and could litter Panama City with half-finished, abandoned buildings.

Already, there are high-profile casualties.

The 104-story Ice Tower was to be one of the most prestigious addresses in the city, with projected construction costs of $200 million.

Today, its foundations are half dug and there is not a worker to be seen at the construction site.

Jaco Municipality To Spend $6.6 Million In 2008

By Leland Baxter-Neal

The municipality of Garabito, which includes the towns of Herradura, Jacó and Playa Hermosa, is to spend $6.6 million dollars next year according to its 2008 budget.

That budget has been partially approved by the Contraloría General de la República (Comptroller General’s Office), pending a technical study to justify new municipal staff positions being created.

Included in that spending is the creation of a 25-strong municipal police force, into which the municipal government is investing $800,000; city beautification projects for Jacó; the construction of a city park and amphitheater and four playgrounds; $250,000 in reparations and works on area schools; and two low-income housing projects that would build homes for between 650 and 750 families.

“Next year is they year in which we will begin our most important projects,” mayor Marvin Elizondo said.

With nearly every road in Jacó now paved, including beach entries, Mr Elizondo added that he hopes to have most of the roads in the canton of Garabito paved by the end of next year.

Mr Elizondo and the current municipal council took office in February. In the 10 months since, the municipality has invested more than $2 million in road works projects covering 175 kilometers (108 miles).

In addition, the municipality has already contracted the paving of four more roads, including the streets Ricos y Famosos and Copey in Jacó, and roads in Herradura and in Queabrada Ganado, for a total of $850,000, which will come out of the 2007 budgetary funds.

“I’m very happy with these contracts,” Mr Elizondo said. “Imagine if that money had been left over?”

Mr Elizondo inherited a budgetary surplus from the former administration of Luis Fernando Villalobos of $3.5 million.
© Leland Baxter-Neal
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TOYS FOR LOTS OF TOTS: Longtime Jaco residents Norma Kahn and her husband Kenneth Kahn were among nearly 20 volunteers that showed up to wrap Christmas gifts for 1000 needy children — yes, 1000 — from the canton of Garabito. Gabriela Arias and Christina Truitt, co-coordinators of Jaco’s Central Pacific Chamber of Commerce, have taken on the tall task of organizing the party, which looks to give Christmas presents to all the needy children in the canton.

The Comptroller, in a report on municipal efficiency released earlier this year, noted that, while spending the second most per citizen in the country, Garabito had the worst execution rate for its budget. The surplus mayor Elizondo inherited accounted for a whopping 61 per cent of the previous year’s budget.

After launching a veritable full court press this year, he has spent from not only his own 2007 budget, but also that surplus. Mr Elizondo however acknowledged that he will likely close out the year with a surplus of his own of $1 million, or slightly more.

Mr Elizondo said he was also able to put some of his excess funds from this year toward the construction of a regional state health clinic, known as an EBAIS (Equipos Básicos de Atención Integral), in the community of Lagunilla. Next year’s budget includes a second EBAIS to attend the nearly 4000 resident that live between Tárcoles and Quebrada Ganado, two small towns north of Jacó.

For Mr Elizondo, however, his pride and joy are the two housing projects to be built next year.

“In 25 years there hasn’t been another social housing project built in Garabito. We have a shortage of nearly 1000 homes,” he said. “This is the most important project because it is giving housing to our working class.”

The Comptroller this week approved the $250,000 purchase of a five-hectare (12-acre) piece of property in the community of Lagunilla, north of Jacó, where the municipality is going to build low income housing for 255 families.

In addition, Mr Elizondo said, the municipality has come to an agreement with a local land owner to exchange a piece of municipal property for a six-hactare (14-acre) lot near Jacó’s high school, on the Costanera coastal highway, where another housing project of 400 to 500 houses is to be built next year.

Mr Elizondo ranked the creation of the municipal police and a new town park as the second and third most important projects.

That park is to be located between the Beatle Bar and the Monkey Bar on Jacó’s main drag, Avenida Pastor Díaz, and will include a $70,000-amphitheater, included in the 2008 budget.

The budget also includes $150,000 for art projects, wider sidewalks and other beautification works along Pastor Díaz.

Construction of Road to Caldera To Begin on January 17

The construction of the San José-Caldera highway which is three decades in the making, will begin on January 17, 2008, the ministro de la Presidencia, Rodrigo Arias, announced yesterday.

Arias assures that all is set for the construction of the road is to begin, as the us$230 million dollars financing and the approval by the Contraloría General de la República (Comptroller's office) are all in place.

Last November 29, the Contraloría endorsed the contract the government has with Autopistas del Sol, a consortium of Spanish, Portugue and Costa Rican interests.

Arias added that the contract calls for the completion of the 77 kilometre road by 2010 and is being financed by the Caja de Madrid and the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE).

Autopistas has a 25 years and six months concession to recover its us$230 million dollar investment.

The new road would cut travel between San José, Caldera, Puntarenas to 30 minutes instead of the now 90 minutes, and cut in half the travel time to Playa Jacó and points in between.

The five bridges between Cuidad Colón and Orotina were built and inaugurated during the Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (1998-2002) administration.

Fractional Ownership Still a New Concept

By Leland Baxter-Neal

A new trend emerging in Costa Rican real estate is offering buyers a chance to step into a luxury condominium at a fraction of the price, through a system called fractional ownership. In it, multiple buyers become owners of the same piece of property, such as an ocean view condominium. All are owners with deeds to the property, inscribed in Costa Rica’s National Registry, and take turns at the property throughout the year. It is not, however, a timeshare — a point heavily emphasized by the handful of developers beginning to push this model in Costa Rica.

“People still often don’t understand the difference between a timeshare and fractional,” said Rosa Romero with Ocotalito, a development located on Playa Ocotal beach in northern Guanacaste. Ms Romero noted that through time share properties, buyers buy time, not property.

“With a fractional, you are owner for life and you will return to the villa that is yours,” she said. Well-established in the United States, fractional property sales are just beginning to arrive in Costa Rica. Developers promoting these propertie note that they give buyers the opportunity to own a piece of a property that might otherwise be beyond their budget.

“The good thing about it is that if you want to have a 5000-square-foot, $2-million condo, you get that high end luxury for an affordable price,” said Gary Clarke of Tamarindo-based ABC Realty. “But it hasn’t really been tested here in the community.”

Though a few developers in the Central Pacific, Guanacaste and the Central Valley are beginning to market fractional ownership properties, several realtors The Beach Times spoke with this week cautioned the market might here might not yet be ready for it.

“The problem with fractional ownership is it’s a much more complicated sale unless you have a really seasoned marketing guy,” said Raymond Cruise, of VIP Costa Rica, a real estate office based out of Escazú, in the Central Valley. “It’s really a matter of advertising and marketing. You cannot have a real fractional ownership sale unless you’ve got people that really know how to market to that demographic.” Brad Sanson, a Canadian who drove to Costa Rica with his family in 1999 to found Vista CR, has already built Vista Mar, a 28-unit, standard ownership condominium project, and has one 17-story tower (Vista Las Palmas) and one 15-story tower (Vista Azul) under construction. He is also working with his son Paul Sanson to launch Jacó Project, which they claim will be the first beachfront fractional ownership project in the region.

Mr Sanson said they decided to go into fractional after their research showed buyers only spend a small amount of time at the property each year.

The Jacó Project features 50 condominiums in a 10-story, beachfront tower (construction begins June 2008 and should finish by December 2009) and four town homes, with each property split into four fractions.

Owners alternate time at the property in two week intervals every two months, which alternates every year, scheduled out through 2014.

While the townhouses have yet to be priced, the condos, which range from 1250 square feet to 2870 square feet, will go on sale next year for between $125,000 and $400,000 per fraction.

“You do spend more on marketing,” Mr Sanson said. “Instead of selling a building with 54 owners, we now have to attract 215 owners. We have to be that more visible, and that takes a lot of marketing.”

Mr Sanson said his company does much of their marketing in the United States, Canada and Europe, with print ads, CD’s, online advertising and visits to tradeshows. “Of course we cater to the walk-by and tourists that come down,” he added. Jacó Beach Tower will hold its first “sales event” in February of next year, during which interested buyers that have deposited a refundable $10,000 in an escrow account in the United States fly down to Costa Rica (airfare refunded if a property is bought) for a four-day, expenses paid visit during which they meet developers and architects, see the site and, if they opt to purchase, choose their unit.

“This is a very big extravaganza,” said Paul Sanson. Tranquilo in Punta Leona, another fractional condominium project located north of Jacó in the expansive Punta Leona development, was beginning its second sales event late this week, with more than 30 interested clients having flown to Costa Rica to see the site and potentially purchase a fraction.

During Tranquilo’s first event, held a few months earlier with another 30 buyers, contracts for a total $4.5 million were signed, said Matt Stringer, Tranquilo’s in-country representative.

Tranquilo’s three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath, 2200-square-foot condominiums overlooking the Pacific Ocean are divided into quarter shares, and allows buyers to buy all four fractions of the entire property at a 3 per cent discount. Owners get three calendar months per year, of their choosing, and can stay in other condos in the case of a conflict with other owners of the same property.

In addition, Mr Stringer says the project is pre-approved for The Registry Collection, which groups luxury fractional properties — including yachts — around the world. Tranquilo owners would then be able to trade time at their condo for any other property in the collection.

“The other key component is that it’s designed to be vacation home ownership without the hassles. No calls from rental management. When you buy it is fully equipped ,” he said. “We designed this so its exactly like owning your own property. You can buy, sell or will it to your heirs.”

Ms Romero, of Ocotalito in Guanacaste, said: “The novelty is that you are an owner only for six weeks, so you don’t have as many expenses such as condo fees and annual property taxes will be less.”

The Ocotalito project has a total of 36 villas between 12 three-story buildings. Of those, 26 are fractional ownership, between 2337 square feet and 2637 square feet, and sell for $140,000 to $300,000.

“We believe fractionals are more adjusted to the current market,” Ms Romero said. “More people can access them and pay this type of price.”

Brian Smith, a real estate agent with Investment Real Estate in Jacó, however said he has yet to see much interest in fractionals. “We’ve had people coming down interested in fractions end up buying a whole unit,” Mr Smith said.

“Fractional ownership is a good concept for top end developers,” said Les Nunez, of First Realty in Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste. “To reach out and touch people that are potential fractional buyers, that has to be very well thought out.”

Higher values are a result of bull market in real estate

By José Pablo Ramírez Vindas
and the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The nation's property owners are being hit with soaring tax bills because the real estate boom has created sky-high prices that have filtered down to their homesteads and businesses. The nation's taxing authority is using those high prices to adjust upwards the assessments on which the quarterly tax bills are based.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Municipality of Cóbano at the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, Residents there are dumbfounded at the new tax bills.

José Eladio Cortés Castrillo, the municipal mayor, said that the Ministerio de Hacienda studied 54 properties and established values that mean taxes some 1,600 percent higher, particularly for those owners who hold concessions in the zona maritima terrestre, the area between 50 and 200 meters from mean sea level.

The mayor said that a representative from the ministry's Tributación tax agency in Puntarenas visited and later unveiled the new values on which tax assessments are to take place just a week and a half ago.

In the maritime zone the tax rate also fluctuates, the mayor said, based on the value of the property and the use to which the concession land is put. So those with concessions are getting hit from two directions.

Concessions, managed and awarded by the municipality and the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo, are like long-term leases which allow development but not ownership near the ocean.

Some residents report that their bill shows a tax rate of from 2 to 4 percent of assessed value.

The mayor said, as an example, the owner of a property of 1,400 square meters (about a third of an acre) used to pay about 150,000 colons per year. That's $300 at today's exchange rates.

Now with the new value, the annual tax bill is about 3.3 million colons or about $6,600, said the mayor.

He ought to know. He, too, holds a concession, according to his neighbors.

Long-time residents, many of them North Americans and Europeans, are used to paying tiny tax bills. They are up in arms and warn that the Tributación calculations could destroy resale values in Costa Rica. They live in communities like Mal País, Santa Teresa and Montezuma. Many have lived there for years.

Mayor Cortés said that similar changes in value are taking place in Garabito where Jacó is located. There, he said, a square meter of land is valued at about $240 while in Cóbano the value is just $150 according to the calculations by the ministry's functionaries. A square meter is a bit less than 11 square feet.

Similar increases in property values have taken place in inland areas such as La Garita, but the changes in beach communities are more dramatic because of the original low values and the triple digit hikes in selling prices.

The mayor said that there is an appeal process for those who think their values are too high. They can have a hearing before the Consejo Municipal.
Some residents report that a neighbor got a tax bill of $35,000. And some of them have contacted lawyers to see what relief they can get. The Arias administration is seeking to increase the income from real estate as well as earnings. However, legislation in this area has been stalled by the battle over the free trade treaty in the Asamblea Legislativa.

The reassessments, tax rates and higher taxes are believed based on establish law that is just now being enforced. Plus the tax system is based on the assumption that if one property sells for a certain amount, all similar properties have about the same value. Property owners have the option of reporting the value of their property each year to municipal officials, but few ever volunteer that their properties have increased in value, so Hacienda representatives do surveys of sales and attempt to establish values.

Developers Sign More Water Deals With Government

By Ralph Nicholson of THE BEACH TIMES

Developers have forged two deals — one in Jacó, Puntarenas, and the other in the northern Guanacaste beach town of Hermosa — which will provide thousands of new water hook-ups to both regions.

In both cases, the developers will finance the projects under a private-public partnership (PPP) with the country’s water and sewage body, the Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos Y Alcantarillados, known more simple as AyA.

Once the projects are completed they will handed over to AyA who will operate and maintain the infrastructure.

The two plans are the second and third PPPs to be announced in as many weeks. Early last month a group of real estate developers agreed to spend up to $8 million bringing water to Playas del Coco, in Guanacaste’s north.

The 32 developers signed a deal which will see about nine kilometers (six miles) of underground pipes laid from three well properties in an around Sardinal and servicing the area around Playas del Coco and Playa Ocotal.

Frontier Airlines Adds Direct Flights to Costa Rica

Frontier''s Costa Rica nonstop poised to begin
http://www.denverpost.com

Just after midnight tonight, Frontier Airlines will launch its first direct flight to Costa Rica, the Denver-based airline''s third entry into an international destination.
A full flight is scheduled to take off from Denver International Airport at 12:10 a.m. on an Airbus A319 that holds 132 passengers, said spokesman Joe Hodas.
He said the flight is roughly five hours.
Frontier will operate the flight four times a week — on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday — until Jan. 5, when a Saturday flight will be added.
The Central American province popular with eco-tourists and Spanish-language students also is a popular spot for Coloradans, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.
"Next to Mexico, it''s got to be the No. 2 destination," Clark said.
He said people have been "delighted" to learn Frontier will fly directly from Denver International Airport into San Jose, the capital city.
"They''re just glad to have a local carrier in that market," he said.
Frontier first entered the international market in 2002, with flights to Mexico. In 2006, it began serving Canada with direct flights to Calgary and Vancouver.

Up and Down The Coast, Condos Are The Craze

The Beach Times
By Leland Baxter-Neal


If real estate development in Costa Rica has taken a turn, it has turned towards condominiums.

Driven vertical by both increasing land values and limited space, projects in the Pacific Coast’s most booming destinations — Jacó in the Central Pacific and Tamarindo in Guanacaste — are going very vertical.

“Everything here is now seven stories on up to 12,” said Gary Clarke, a realtor with Tamarindo-based ABC Realty.

In Jacó — where an in-progress zoning plan sets limits at a liberal 25 stories along its beach (see Regional Briefs) — one project under construction is set to reach 17 stories, while another by the same developer will be 15.

Both projects are being carried out by Vista CR , perhaps the region’s most prolific condo developer second only to Daystar Properties.

Daystar, run by a Michigan-born developer named Pat Hundley who moved his family to the Central Pacific a few years after falling in love with the region during a family vacation, has nearly 400 condos on the market and approximately 400 more that will be built over the next three to five years, all in Jacó.

The most ambitious of the projects is The Pacific, set to tower over Jacó’s popular beach entry known as Bohio at 13 stories and containing two floors of commercial space, a third-floor pool and a casino. Another project, called Diamante del Sol, will total 156 units, spread between two eight-story towers and three ten-story towers.

According to Harmony Hoeffner, a Daystar sales representative, Diamante del Sol is already three quarters sold, while The Pacific is set to begin sales this spring. Between Daystar’s seven condo projects, prices run between $170,000 to $1 million, Ms Hoeffner said, while an average two-bedroom, turnkey beachfront condo runs between $45,000 to $499,000.

“We’re running out of prime inventory” Ms Hoeffner said.

Vistas CR, which has built one project — the eight-story, 28-unit Vista Mar — and is under construction on two more that will include a little more than 100 condos: Vista Las Palmas (17 stories) and Vista Azul (15 stories).
© Zoraida Diaz
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EXPANDING MARKET: Construction site for a new condominium tower behind the new ICE office in downtown Jaco. The Central Pacific town boasts some of the coast’s most ambitious condominium projects, with estimates ranging between 1500 and 2500 units.

In addition, Ramada is well into construction on seven ten-story towers that will add 264 condos and 14 penthouses to the market, and a luxury hotel. Not to mention dozens more projects carried out by other developers in the region.

The exact number of just how many condos in Jacó are up, permitted for construction or being planned is hard to come by. In municipal records, some projects are recorded as condominiums, other as apartments, and others simply as residences.

Educated estimates for the combined amount of those built and those under construction or in the planning phase, however, run between 1500 and 2500 individual condos.

“The market we are attempting to penetrate, the Baby Boomers, they are just starting to retire, and are retiring in the millions every year,” said Brad Sanson, who owns Vista CR . “These people by-and-large are looking for a vacation spot or retirement home. Costa Rica is rated in the top three or five in the world for retiring.”

Nearby Central Pacific communities such as Playa Hermosa and Esterillos, both south of Jacó, have seen significant condo development, “Esterillos, that’s booming,” said Brian Smith of CR Beach Investment Real Estate. Underway in that area are two projects that in addition to condominiums, houses and a name-brand hotel (to be announced), both feature full golf courses.

Heading north along the Pacific coast, Larry Albright of Pacific Coast Realty said he estimated between 40 and 50 condos between Flamingo and Potrero, where a two-bedroom, two-bath ocean view condo goes for between $298,000 and $359,000.

Mr Albright said his area has slowed down some after the high volume sales of recent years spurred by the opening of the Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia.

“It’s a little slower market,” he said. “We have lots of condos and few buyers.”

Les Nunez, of First Realty, much farther north in Guanacaste, said in his area, which encompasses Playa Hermosa, Playas del Coco, Ocotal and Playa Panama, has the opposite problem.

“There’s no inventory,” he said. “I’ve got five condos coming on the market, and by February of next year they’ll be sold out.”

In Tamarindo, set south of Mr Albright and Mr Nunez, the number of condominiums is “in the thousands,” said Gary Clarke, with Tamarindo-based ABC realty.
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“What I’m seeing is there is a boom going on here in the condominiums. There is more coming every day,” Mr Clarke said, noting that a two-three bed condo averages about $350,000 to $550,000, “possibly with an ocean view.”

“I’m a little concerned that, with the slowdown with the sub-prime market, who is going to be buying all these condos.”

Mr Clarke said that he has seen fewer buyers in his area, something he attributes in part to out of control development, and infrastructure problems, as well as the highly publicized water pollution problems.

“Our office has concerns that the growth and development is a little beyond what the community can deal with,” Mr Clarke said. “It’s a great community, it’s just going through growing stages.”

Jacó and Tamarindo, both once sleepy surf towns, have been the focal points for the real estate booms of the Central Pacific and Guanacaste. Rapid growth has put development at the edge, or beyond, what local infrastructure can handle.

In Jacó, large projects are currently being denied water availability permits because of a lack of pipe infrastructure to feed them, said Mr Sanson of Vista CR.

According to Mr Sanson, local developers in Jacó are in talks with the Instituto Costarricense de Acquductos y Alcantarrillados ( Costa Rican Institute of Water and Sewers, or AyA) to create a trust fund with private money to build more water infrastructure.

This would follow a similar deal recently hashed out in Guanacaste where a group of developers agreed to spend $8 million on water infrastructure works in order to bring more connections to the Playas del Coco area.

In Jacó, meanwhile, the Central Pacific Chamber of Commerce — founded last year by Mr Hundley of Daystar — has partnered with the municipality to pave 2.2 kilometers of local roads, as well as equip a planned municipal police force.

“There’s an opportunity here to have an impact that you can’t in the States,” said Mr Hundley, explaining why he came to Costa Rica. “Here there’s an opportunity not only to be a developer, but a leader in your community.”

Wal-Mart Continues to Invest in Costa Rica

Wal-Mart Central America announced that it is investing $50 million in Costa Rica this year. The chief executive for Latin America, Craig Herkert, met with President Oscar Arias and made the announcement. He explained that most of the funds will go into another 14 supermarkets, a couple of large ones and a majority of small outlets throughout the country. Wal-Mart's corporate matters director here, Aquileo Sanchez, said that this will mean that the firm will open another 1,500 jobs, taking to 9,000 the current payroll here.