You’ll find regular commentary on real estate markets in Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua and Belize in mainstream press. But it’s Costa Rica that racks up the highest amount of coverage on the blogosphere. Costa Rica has been a destination for vacation home buyers for decades and is now home to an impressive array of hospitality brands. The other markets are newer and at an earlier stage in their development cycles.

The image counts the number of real estate blogs per country according to Technorati.com, the blog search-engine. The results broadly correspond to the relative number of online searches for real estate. It’s a useful proxy for the maturity of, and buzz around, the different real estate markets.

Costa Rica, Belize, Panama and Nicaragua have all come onto the radar of international real estate investors. But there is an information gap that we are planning to fill.

We’re working behing the scenes to provide the hard and soft market information that investors need. Armed with this information, investors can take action with more confidence.

We are in beta at the moment and will provide updates during the second half of 2008 as we start to build out the site. We don’t want to start with global coverage that feels in-complete. So the first phase will focus on Costa Rica real estate, Panama real estate, Nicaragua real estate and Belize real estate.

And don’t wait for one breakthrough launch. We’re going to be adding layers of information over time as we compile and analyze the data and build our network.

Could we be witnessing the beginnings of a green movement in Nicaragua real estate?

On a hillside a few kilometers south of San Juan del Sur on Nicaragua’s Pacfic coast, a green community, completely off-grid, is being born.

A team from Earthship Biotecture (gurus in green building from the US) and a local Nicaraguan crew have joined forces to build the first Nicaraguan Earthship - a house made out of all recycled materials that generates its own energy, recyles its own waste and harvests its own water.

A day-to-day property construction blog is being written and we are currently on Day 24.

If you are interested in the green movement or green real estate of any kind - this is something to watch. In the words of Dave Kniffen:

Developments happen everywhere, so we’ve made a choice on how we are going to develop. If we don’t do it this way, someone else will do it their way. Maybe our way helps the local community, instead of using them to help ourselves. Maybe our way is a little better for the environment than the conventional build. At the end of the day though, it’s a logical decision.

We live in a world, especially in Nicaragua, of limited resources. A sustainable home gives you total freedom and independence. The decision to build or live in an “off grid” home is not moral, it just makes sense. Who you rely on is who controls your life.

Create your own electricity, capture your own water, treat your own sewage, and grow your own food and then you are not talking about ideals of independence or freedom, you’re living them.

Read more about Dave’s vision for this green real estate community and help spread the word.

Download the paper here.

The data does not include Americans still living in the US who have bought second homes and investment property abroad. This number is likely to exceed the number who have moved abroad.

Click here for a Video Tour

Of course there are markets within markets so the graphic provides only a general representation of relative position of the country as a whole. The Costa Rica real estate market is the most mature, Panama and Belize real estate represent classic middle markets - not quite emerging and not quite developed - with Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala at earlier stages of the development curve.  We plan to dig a little deeper and highlight the relative positions and profile of different real estate areas within each country.  More on this to follow…

• The Costa Rica Chamber of Real Estate (CCCBR), Costa Rica Global Association of REALTORS® (CRGAR),
• Camara Salvadoreña de Bienes Raíces (CSBR),
• Asociacion Nacional de Agencias de Bienes Raíces de Honduras (ANABIR),
• Camara Nicaraguense de Corredores de Bienes Raíces (CNCBR),
• Asociacion Panamena de Corredores y Promotores de Bienes Raices (ACOBIR),
• Camara de Corredores de Bienes Raices de Guatemala (CCBRG)
• Association of Real Estate Brokers of Belize
• Federation of Real Estate Associations of Central America and the Caribbean (FeCePAC) - an umbrella organisation that ties the other bodies together with a focus on integration and networking.

The recent activity is a good sign.  The FeCePAC and CNCBR conference held in Managua, Nicaragua last week had a strong turnout with some key action steps to take for more regional integration of real estate approaches and standards.  We were also pleased to see the recent announcement that the Association of Real Estate Brokers of Belize will be working together with the government to establish a code of conduct and general property industry standards.   The US National Association of Realtors (NAR) currently has bilateral agreements with real estate associations in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Panama and is affiliated with the Federation of Real Estate Associations of Central America.

Savvy investors are always on the look out for emerging destinations - especially those with a twist on a familiar theme. The Inland Mountains region of Matagalpa and Jinotega could be just that. The area shares many of the characteristics of Boquete - probably the hottest spot for real estate in the Panama after Panama City - such as enchanted “hidden” valleys, mists that shroud the mountaintops, a perfect spring like climate, rushing rivers, flowers and high quality coffee. 

This is where you come to commune with nature, hike, fish, cycle, kayak and recharge your senses in a setting of peace and tranquility. Prices in the area are still 1/4 of what you will find in Panama and around 1/3 of property on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast. Read more on the mountainous, coffee growing areas of Nicaragua.

According to Wikipedia ”Purchasing power parity (PPP) … is the method of using the long-run equilibrium exchange rate of two currencies to equalize the currencies’ purchasing power. It is based on the law of one price, the idea that, in an efficient market, identical goods must have only one price.”

So the theory behind PPP is that exchange rates should adjust to equalize the price of a basket of goods and services around the world.  In the United States $1,000 is the equivalent of, well, $1,000.  But in Nicaragua, for example, it rounds up to a hefty $4,144, see below.

We have to be careful not to draw too much from these averages as they don’t apply to all product categories.  But for day-to-day goods and services your dollar will stretch further in Central America.

• the aspiration to be in an attractive location or interesting setting
• the desire for a change of scene, to unwind and experience a change of pace
• the motivation to be stimulated and entertained through recreational interests such as diving, hiking, fishing, water sports and so on
• the expectation for rental income and capital growth
• the enjoyment of local culture and environment
• the sense that everything is being taken care of
• the desire to belong to a community of like minded individuals
• the wish to fulfill an escapist dream

When assessing real estate offered in private residential and resort communities, don’t let emotions override your decision making.  Our own starting point is to use the criteria in the box below.  Yes, it may be a bit cut and dry but it is worth pausing to consider these factors as they well help you to determine the overall positioning of the product on offer. Remember, the list of characteristics is longer for real estate products positioned at the luxury end.

Just as Web listings transformed international real estate a decade ago, new Internet tools are making even more information available — and not just from real estate agents.

Increasing numbers of potential buyers and investors are exchanging information in online forums, downloading video and audio reports, tailoring Internet maps to their needs and reading blogs for news and opinion.

And what is in cyberspace today is only the beginning, says Mark Lesswing, chief technology officer and senior vice president of the Chicago- based National Association of Realtors, which recently entered its first international joint venture with its Mexican counterpart.

“What we’re going to see goes beyond listings,” he said. “We’ll see blogs take off, maps take off, research-driven things like trends in the market, more tools on social networks.”

Chatty online forums like those at Internationalliving.com, Yahoo and Google already have had effects on international real estate, but the blogging “gold rush” is just beginning, Joel Burslem, who blogs about the future of real estate marketing from Portland, Oregon, believes.

In the United States, blogs like Curbed.com, started by an under-30 New York journalist chronicling his own neighborhood, started attracting attention just three years ago, Now, real-estate-blogs.com provides a directory of dozens of blogs related to the real estate industry in the United States and Canada, and encourages visitors to vote for their favorites.

Web activity by international real estate professionals and laymen started picking up only last year. Sam Taliaferro, an American developer in Panama, now spends three hours a day on a half-dozen blogs that range from events in his highlands development to general investment trends and life in the country.

“I am reading anyway, and it only takes a few minutes to add commentary and post,” he said.

Links to his blogs can be found at Primapassport.com, a marketing organization that he founded in 2005 to encourage North American and European investment in Panama. Housed in one of the new towers in Panama City, Primapassport also publishes a glossy magazine, produces video commercials, conducts surveys and offers travel incentives, all available through the Web site.

Taliaferro is working with the National Association of Realtors in North America and with Overseas Property Professionals in Europe to expand his marketing and blogging activities throughout Central America and Mexico in the coming year.

Kunle Campbell started blogging from Oxford, England, almost two years ago while researching his master’s thesis at Warwick University.

Campbell’s study — carrying out an e-marketing strategy for Property Frontiers, an international real estate consultancy — led him to set up an international property blog, www.overseaspropertymall.com, a kind of “news diary,” to help himself understand market dynamics.

After graduation from Oxford, he began a more specialized blog — bulgarianproperptyblog.blogspot.com — because he had been bitten by the real estate bug.

“I was priced out of the U.K. and looking for a Bulgarian ski apartment as a first step on the property ladder, and also as an investment vehicle to jump-start my entry into the U.K. property market,” said Campbell, 26, who was born in Nigeria.

He found a place, but then decided it was not a good investment. Now he is looking for a French leaseback or an apartment in Berlin, but he remains bullish on Bulgarian real estate.

His blogs only recently started earning money, what he describes as “a pittance” from Google advertising, but he is redesigning them this month to make room for banner advertising. He also plans to include commentary from a real estate researcher.

Podcasting, a format that has skyrocketed in the past couple of years thanks to the popularity of Apple’s iPod, also are proving popular for information related to real estate.

“Podcasts are a huge medium at the moment for many media consumers who like to digest their information in other ways than reading,” said Felicity Quigley, property editor at Buy Association, www.buyassociation.co.uk property. The site was started in September as “an impartial buying guide,” featuring fact sheets, articles and surveys as well as podcasts.

“A podcast, being audio, is quite personal. You can do other things on our site whilst listening or take it away to listen at your convenience,” said Quigley, an Australian journalist who ventured into international real estate herself six years ago, buying and reselling a Florida condo to pay for her wedding.

“It’s about gaining your information the way you want it, when you want it, all to suit your needs, rather than the needs of the media provider,” she said.

Podcast topics range from Cyprus to South Africa and run for 30 to 45 minutes.

The host is Adrian Mills, a British broadcaster who owns property in Thailand and Dubai. He interviews international property experts, often agents or developers, but Quigley says topics are based on consumer demand rather than plugging advertisers.

The audio programs also are syndicated in an online network that includes Aol.co.uk, Tiscali.co.uk, Rightmore.co.uk and PropertyFinder.com.

Quigley says the site plans to add forums, blogs, competitions and polls in the next few months; video will be added during the summer.

Video has started appearing on professionally designed real estate Web sites, offering a kind of virtual walk- through, but many people around the world are excluded from making or from playing such videos by a lack of technical resources and English proficiency, according to Tony Grey, a former Microsoft group manager.

For some months now, he has been developing software to make narrated videos available in several languages and to expand a multi-lingual Web site called Forsalebylocals.com, which he bills as a “new real estate approach.”

“We are building a Web engine that can create personalized user experiences in multiple languages across dozens or hundreds of Web sites,” he said on a blog associated with the site.

The number of videos narrated in English, Portuguese and Spanish on Forsalebylocals has been increasing steadily since the Beta version of the site was started in October.

The downloadable videos often have a YouTube home-video quality to them, but the accompanying commentary lets visitors know about the neighborhoods, whether a house roof can support a second floor, what amenities are included and agent contact information. Few of the residential properties on the site cost more than $100,000 and some are priced as low as $20,000.

To date, most of the featured properties are in Bolivia, where Grey owns property, but the site is to expand to Costa Rica this month. Anyone with a miniDV tape can post interviews and narrated videos on the site, which does not charge for video titles, digitalization and conversion to Internet format.

“We’re not trying to be agents,” Grey said in a telephone interview. “It’s really about building community.”