For years, Costa Rica was an island paradise enjoyed by Costa Ricans but in the last 15 years, it's become a favored haven for foreigners across the globe. Increased interest in real estate has certainly played its part in that. But the effect that the construction of Liberia International Airport had near the Northern Pacific coast certainly can't be denied.



Before Liberia International Airport came along, Juan Santamaria International Airport was the only major airport in all of Costa Rica. Take a minute to imagine that. Costa Rica is about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont put together so before the Liberia International Airport, the environment was that of all the flights going in and out of both Vermont and New Hampshire?domestic and international?leaving from that one airport. Can you say ?congestion??

Well, the Costa Rican government could. They also said, ?opportunity.?

When Liberia International Airport in opened in 1995, the government and real estate investors had high hopes for the facility. They hoped that more interests in tourism and development in Costa Rica's Guanacaste region would come with the new airport. It did. Since 1995, the real estate market has been phenomenal along the North Pacific. Tourism has literally more than doubled since the airport has opened, tourism is now responsible for more than half of Costa Rica's economic growth, and the additional tourist traffic has attracted significant real estate investment all along the Northern Pacific coast and the inland Northern Pacific coastal regions. That was the Liberia Effect and that is what both real estate investors and what Costa Rican government officials hope will happen in the Southern Pacific coast region when the nation's third international airport is built.

Currently, Costa Rica's Southern Pacific coast is more undeveloped than it is developed. There is tourism traffic, there is land being developed, and there are people living in the area but at present, it doesn't compare to the activity in the North. However, with the Guanacaste Costa Rica real estate region becoming saturated, it's inevitable that interest in the Southern Pacific coast will pick up. Plans are already in place or in-progress to make the region more tourist and investor-friendly. Once Costa Rica's third international airport is operational in 2010 near Sierpe, it's predicted that the region will indeed experience the ?Liberia Effect? as well; and if the recent hikes in Southern Pacific coast real estate values are any indication (which they are), Costa Rica's Southern Pacific coast stands to be an even more enticing lure for foreigners than the Northern Pacific coast.

by David Lovendahl, Developing Paradise TM