Looking for opinions on moving from San Fransisco to Panama?

I'm considering selling my house and moving to Panama or Costa Rica. I'd walk away from here with about $400k and would like to live near a nice beach community and semi retire. I'm 45.

Public Comments

1. do your homework as with anything. It has not been as rosy as some has proposed. Buying Real Estate This subject alone would require a book to cover. The number one rule in buying real estate in Panama is: "Cover Your A. s .s. ". Of all the discussions regarding rip-offs and scams on gringos the number one complaint concerns buying real estate. There have been reports of numerous scams regarding Escape Artist, International Living, MLS, projects for teak and noni farms and uncompleted projects on Isla Solarte, If it sounds too good to be true it is. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a "Realtor" in Panama even though everyone seems to use the term. There is no "Board of Realtors" or code of ethics. Also, there is no such thing as a Multiple Listing Service, although one individual uses that name for his website. For purposes of this subject I will create a new term of art to use, namely Unrealtor. Panama is rife with gringos preying on gringos in real estate scams. It seems that every crooked real estate salesman has moved to Panama, so always CYA. First, never ever buy real estate in Panama sight unseen, I repeat, never ever. Second, never buy real estate on the first look, no matter how hard the Unrealtor presses. There's lots of available real estate in Panama and most of it will still be available a year from now. It is suggested that you rent a place for six months or a year to make sure that's where you want to live. This will give you time to learn the community, get to know your potential neighbors and check out real estate prices. You may be amazed to find that the house the Unrealtor tried to sell you for $400,000 can be bought for $250,000, he would have pocketed the $150,000 difference, of course. When you get ready to make an offer to buy, get yourself a qualified real estate attorney and make sure he/she represents you and not the seller. Do not, I repeat, do not use an attorney suggested by the Unrealtor or seller. In Panama there is no such thing as Title Insurance so you must use due diligence to the maximum. There are two main categories of property ownership in Panama "Titled" (Titlo) and "Right of Possesion" (Posesserio Derecho) which is beyond the scope of this paper. There are also many ways of holding title which is also beyond this scope. HERE IS TOP 10 LIKES AND DISLIKES by Panama Neil. of the yahoo group viviendo en panama. here is the link.. but in case it doesn't work i posted the top 10 Likes and TOP 10 Dislikes. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/viviendo_en_panama/message/46631 Top Ten Likes 1) Pensionado program that allows you to receive discounts at restaurants, airfares various services, and no tax on world wide earnings. But note that many Panamanian business will try and not honor the discounts or make you go through a very large hullaballo to use it. Others will simply raise their price to cover the discount. 2) 20 year tax exonerations on the purchase of many properties. (but no local services, paved roads, lighting, emergency services, and watch out when it expires it will make US property taxes seem like a bargain) 3) US Dollar currency keeps it simple for sure. Even for us Canadians 4) Excellent medical services. Although we had to be alert to catch a potential deadly mistake at Paitilla Hospital during the birth of my son, I have found the services here darn good and Paitilla Hospital has one of the more advance diagnostic CTs in the world. It is noticeably cheaper than the US for most services but not the huge bargain that many make it out to be. 5) Cheap restaurants. It is nice to be able to go out and eat basic stuff for cheap and the other day I had two pizzas and a beer for 5 bucks. Panama is not a culinary destination and their local beef is tough as nails but cheap it is. Stick with the Fillet Mignon and buy your own at Price Smart for a barbecue (I call Xostco because it is a Costco clone ). Chicken is great here but watch where your seafood comes from you would not want anything that even swam close to the Bay of Panama 6) Road side settling of your traffic tickets 7) Beautiful country side driving through Portobello, Capira, Chiriqui, Azueros. You can still live here cheap if Ocean front is not required for your dream fulfillment. But you are in the middle of nowhere and there is nothing to do. 8) Family nature of Panama. People love their kids it seems and the poorest of people have their kids smartly dressed in clean pressed clothing. This strong sense of family is really missing in North America these days. Kids seem more respectful here and I don't see the abundance of purple hair tattoos and piercing. Maybe it is because schools require uniforms. Either way my sense is that it is a completely different world in that regard and I like it a lot. I never want to bring up my kid in North America. 9) Beautiful abundant and cheap fresh fruits from roadside stands (never pay Reba Smith or Super 99 prices) 10) Excellent ex pat community (thanks Laura) that allows you to make many new friends, share experiences, help each other out and find new adventures together. Top Ten Dislikes 1) The culture of deceit and cheating that is part of the very fabric of Panama. Especially when they see a Gringo coming, Gringos apparently have a bulls-eye painted on their forehead that says "go ahead and cheat me". Almost everyone will try and cheat you for as little as a few cents to a few dollars or as much as they can. They have a saying Juego Vivo or what is essentially a more polite term for corruption and thievery. But they also cheat each other this way and it is almost standard fair so you have to fight for everything all the time. Your lack of fight is seen as a lack of intelligence or strength. They get away with it because Gringos do not know the language or cannot be bothered to speak up, for so little sometimes, so they keep on doing it. You can never relax and trust here and this spoils the Panama experience more than anything else in my books . 2) The other way they cheat you here is to rob your time. They never do anything right the first time or most times not the second or third times either. They will tell you whatever you need to hear to make you go away from the phone or service counter, in order that they do not have to do any work to serve you. This will force you to return another time and start over . Free time is almost non existent it seems since one spends hours everyday just trying to get basics done. Blatant lies are normal, misinformation almost always and incompetence usually. Even from the large companies. 3) The complete lack of efficiency, thinking or planning in advance by Panamanian workers. How come there is never time to do it right the first time but always lots of time to go back and fix it later ? I have never seen so many construction people walking around with out levels or tape measures or other necessary tools. Things get installed wrong, crooked, sloppy, or damage other things while being installed and it is acceptable and they are surprised when you complain. If you think you are going to build something here be ready for a nightmare. I have been trying to complete a renovation for a year and a half, using one of Panama top builders, Have lost thousands of dollars and the place is no closer than when I started because they keep doing everything wrong. 4) The blatant lies. You will seldom get the truth here. Often from incompetence (they do not know so they invent a story). Many people invent a story to suit their purposes and it seems acceptable to do so. Real Estate web sites manipulate "sold prices" and publish sales that happened often more than two years ago to artificially represent the opportunities and get you to call so they can scam you into something else (bait and switch). Others charge you hundreds of dollars to give you real estate tours and then show you properties they own or are flipping themselves. They pressure you into buying and then if you do not, they call you tire kickers or otherwise insult you and threaten to have you black balled by other realtors. Some pose as an MLS service when they are not and they lie about roads being built or hotels investing in the area. If I was to believe what I have heard then The President has thousands of houses all over Panama they are building roads too and The Decameron Hotel has bought most of Panama to develop new hotels 5) The total lack of competition. Think things are cheap here? Wrong guess again. The retail market is blocked and many product lines are exclusively held by one company often from an old rich Panamanian family. Want a Toyota ? Shop around ? Not. Ricardo Perez is it. Looking for a deal ? Good luck. When you talk about buying it from the US and saving thousands of dollars they will tell you they will not honor the supposedly international Toyota warranty. Same thing on many other products. Things most often sell here for "more than US MSRP". What happened to the supposed lower cost of living here ? It is essentially a myth. Car insurance costs more, electricity costs more, electronics cost more, name brand cloths cost more, cars cost more, computers cost more, the only thing you might save on is the restaurants but the quality of the food will often disappoint. Panama is not a culinary destination by any stretch of the imagination 6) Total lack of safety. There are no handicapped access ramps, limited crosswalks, general disregard for pedestrian traffic and emergency vehicles. Forget it in a condo fire as not only can they not evacuate you above the seventh floor, the fire trucks cannot get there as they will be stick in the traffic gridlock. There are no roof top heli pads and limited safety provisions for your escape in a fire. The Busses and Taxis are unsafe, with bald tires and worn breaks. I have never seen so many corpses on the street or Trucks overturned on the highway. My whole life I never saw a dead pedestrian in Canada . Here I am at three and climbing it seems Safety inspection can be bought for a few dollars in "Propina" or a tip to the inspector. Trucks and Busses run red lights at top speed. Kiss your ass goodbye if you are T-boned while riding in one of those taped together little Corolla taxis 7) Construction quality is painfully bad. Buildings leak and are not properly ventilated , so they grow molds and fungus and we all know the heath risks associated with that. They are made cheap and fast and with little concern for those that have to live in them. They are build only for profit to the builders since a quality reputation seems to be of little value in Panama . Often, and in the case of my building in Punta Pacifica built by the "Berm " company they sell the parking spots n front of the elevator access so you do not even have clear access to bring things up and down from your suite. They (not in my case) often make parking spots so small your door cannot miss crashing in to the neighbors car. They under provide storage and guest parking and care not about maintenance and repair costs after they have sold. That is why monthly fees are often so high. Buildings are painted, in Panama , which has incredibly high humidity, and where one rainy season will ensure it needs to be repainted within a year at owners association expense. Panama is not known for earthquakes but one can imagine the devastation if these cinder block buildings received a sharp left- right jolt. 8) Traffic. It is almost intolerable now. The noise, the car alarms and incessant honking. But imagine when they complete all the towers in Punta Pacifica, SanFrancisco and along Balboa Ave. It already takes me 20 minutes just to get to the Paitilla traffic circle from Punta Pacifica. Quicker to walk if I wasn't going further and didn't mind showing up soaked in sweat or rain with a lung full of diesel fumes and dust. Imagine what it will be like to go across town to Albrook for instance, when these towers are finished. To go anywhere for that matter. Balboa is already gridlock, what will happen ? Bottom line you will have to walk if you want to get anywhere. Rain heat, lack of traffic safety, notwithstanding. Or get in a cab only to sit in the same traffic. Have you seen the taxis taped together, smashed everywhere. This should tell you about the safety – there is none. 9) Sanitation. This they are allegedly going to fix but when ? and meanwhile where ever you go, including the posh restaurants in Amador, your beautiful open air meal is interrupted with the lovely smell of the open sewers dumping millions of tons into the bay. Hmmm mmm mm don't you love the fresh seafood from Panama Bay ? The vultures picking at the effluent on the garbage strewn beaches along Balboa. Better out than in I always say. Now imagine that combo with the beautiful Panamanian Diablo Roja (Red Devils) or hundreds of smashed taxis sitting blocked in traffic spewing tons of Diesel and gas fumes into the air. Sure is good we saved all that money coming here. 10) So lets leave the city and go to the Beaches,. Thank God for the beaches. Too bad they are an hour or two away and well, not so pretty after all. If you think beach and Hawaii, Cancun, Turks and Caicos or Brazil come to mind. Then do not bother here because it is not the same. If the above are tens then the beaches here are largely a 6 with a few exceptions like Farallon, two hours out from the city. Here you get to drive down a dangerous, garbage strewn highway to come to what is most often an unpaved road, surrounded by ramshackle houses, to get to a place you cannot leave alone without being ripped off. Notice the razor wire fences, fortified compounds, and realize they are there for a reason. Most people I know want to travel from home base here in Panama, back to families in the US or Canada or to world adventure. So know this. You need to hire a full time guard unless you are in a gated community. If you leave your house unattended say goodbye to your Plasma TV, stereo and air conditioning units etc. And now that you are here two hours from the city , what will you do ? Shopping is a long drive away as is medical care, entertainment, and most things we have come to appreciate. And you will pay pay pay for this privilege now. Before it was so cheap you lived with the down side. Now it is not cheap at all , so do you still live with it ? Only you can answer that question. I think Panama has priced itself out of the market and it is time to stop overlooking the blemishes because it was such a good deal. It is no longer a good deal and following the late bloomers here will only leave you with the quintessential appropriate view one gets from far back of the herd.
2. Bocas del TOro in Panama...It is a partially touristical place, where many americans and europeans are living right now. check that Option...
3. OH MY GOD, I feel like I live in the zoo and everybody is observing us. What is this? This is very insulting.
4. Hermanas,everybody is flocking to Panama now.The day I was coming back home to the states,I saw this old dude in Calidonia with a t-shirt that said "I rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than go swimming with Ted Kennedy." It depends on what you like really.If you want quiet-beach go to Bocas del Toro.I, myself prefer to be close to the city.I would buy one of those houses in Balboa or Ancon.Amador beach is just a hop,skip,and a jump away.I'm too lazy to write a novel about it.
5. good idea im from panama n if u move to here u will have allots of things closely panama is one of the most beautiful country in the world the best place to live u can go to bocas del toro or coronado or altos del maria or playa blanca if u wnat more information u can send me a email
6. You have the basics in previous answers, though there are now two real estate associations in Panama and the major player has just signed an agreement with the U.S. Realtor Association formerly known as the "National Association of Realtors®." If you would like details and/or more information please don't hesitate to contact us by phone or via our website. http://www.movetolatinamerica.com/ Wishing you the best. MovetoLatinAmerica, Corp.
7. Stick with Costa Rica. Less worries in the end. Panama has too many middle-men who want a piece of everything you do. Don't expect a perfect world either. There are plenty of negatives to go along with the positives. The cost-of-living situation makes this very attractive and worth considering.