Seeking a New Home in Latin America

Maeven Barry gets her first riding lesson at the ranch of Marco Quintana in Vilcabamba.

Dear International Living Reader,

I’ve got an interesting problem. We just sold our house in Cuenca, Ecuador, and are trying to figure out where our expat life is going to lead us next. Don’t get me wrong. We still love it here, and still believe that Cuenca is Ecuador’s most beautiful city. But we’ve never really been city people, and now we would like a more rural setting. (That’s why we’re keeping a home for the long term here, in Vilcabamba.) Selling the house in Cuenca was a means to raise the capital to enable us to branch out a little.

But where should we go? The debate has been ongoing, and has included everything from northern Portugal to southern Chile.

After weeks of deliberation, the following plan has started to look good.

Firstly, we want to keep a main home in rural Ecuador. Secondly, we’d also enjoy having a place in the historic center of a large city, with access to all the things that make a large city enjoyable. (At the moment, Montevideo, Uruguay looks good for a city venue.) Thirdly, aside from the country home and city apartment, a beach home would be nice, too, wouldn’t it? For this one, we’re thinking of the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua.

Why these locations? Because in my opinion they offer the best of what I want each of them for, at prices that I can afford as an early-retiree with little income. Ideally, we’d like to buy three Latin American homes for the same price we could afford to pay for one home in the U.S.

Ecuador has perfect weather, with low-cost properties and inexpensive labor for building a nice home. We don’t need heat or air conditioning, and we pay no income taxes. Property taxes on our house in Vilcabamba are less than $10 per year. In short, we can afford to build and maintain a large home here.

Montevideo has a European ambiance and old-world charm. Its old historic center is my idea of a perfect city environment, with sycamore-lined streets, open air markets, fine restaurants, and sidewalk cafés. Property prices are reasonable, and the day-to-day cost of living is on par with Ecuador, if not a bit less. They’ve even got a jazz festival.

Nicaragua’s beaches enjoy real "beach" weather all year. There’s no cool season, no gloomy season, and even in the rainy season the sun shines most of the day. It’s a place that you can go to anytime of the year to enjoy the surf and sand. The living costs, again, are on par with Ecuador.

So, how to get started? We’re spending the month of July in Uruguay (mid-winter there) to have a really good look around and see how we like its off season.

But first, I’m off on a 10-day trip to Nicaragua, during which I intend to explore the coast from San Juan del Sur northward. To be honest, I’m on a tight budget. But I’ll take my checkbook, and see what happens.

Lee Harrison
For International Living

Editor’s Note: Click here for a roundup of Lee's discoveries and insights from his search for the perfect (and perfectly affordable) beach house on the coast of Nicaragua. And watch this space for updates from his trip to Uruguay.