'Cuenca Expat - Be Careful!' Retirement

Cuenca Expat - Be Careful!

Mary (190.2.30.153) - 10/27/09 14:46

My husband and I visited Cuenca last September. We loved the city and the great weather. Living expenses are low and people are very friendly. However, we found a lot of especulation in the prices of homes and land. Agents are friendly but have the tendency to show you very high priced property the minute they realize you are a potential expat. We requested to see homes around the $120, 000 to $180, 000 and by the end of the day the agent was showing us overpriced $280, 000 homes and 1/2 acre lots for $160, 000 and $190, 000 dollars.

In a city were the average wage is $250 per months, a taxi is a few dollars, $1 dollars buys you 24 tangarines, $15 per month is your normal water bill, high prices like $280, 000 for a small home is totally a ripe off.

I'm afraid that expat like us may overheat the market or lose money investing in overpriced properties if we don't do our homework. Costa Rica, Panama and San Miguel de Allende are a perfect example of how expats inflated the Real Estate prices in a very short period of time.

A doctor in our flight back told us that in the last 4 years the real estate prices in Cuenca have doubled. Main reason for the increase is because expats and other outside buyers are willing to pay high property prices based on how expensive is to buy in their native localities.

Please make sure you become well informed before you buy property in Cuenca. We all could change this great oportunity of living in a nice, affordable and friendly city by over paying for properties. We could create a false price appreciation in their local market. We visited Panama last June and it was alarming how prices were dropping in the local real estate and how entire buildings were sitting empty. This was the result of price especulation of the prior years.

I hope this will help all potential residence of Cuenca.

Reply #1 Chris (77.250.154.7) - 11/11/09 11:16

"Ecuador Property Finder"

I found several houses listend on different expat-brokers websites with price differences of up to $70.000

A house that has been listed, with a seriuos flood problem(not mentioned offcourse) And the list goes on and on

Be very carefull when buying in Ecuador and be very very very careful wjen dealing with expat-brokers

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