By Michael Pollick
Published: Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 3:48 p.m.
SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA — Shielded from the equatorial sun beneath an umbrella, Jim and Carol Lynch reflect on their unusual decision to move from the small town of Fayetteville, Tenn., to a suburb of this Costa Rican capital.
“Look around you, man,” Jim Lynch says. “This place is beautiful.”
They are among a small but growing cadre of baby boomers for whom Latin American countries with communities catering to gringos are becoming the new Florida, or at least, what Florida meant to previous generations.
From the 1950s through the ’90s, for many retirees, Florida was just a given — the place you moved to at a certain age to enjoy a daily dose of sunshine, a cheap house with palm trees and a pool, low taxes, plentiful local food, and a light-hearted sense of adventure.
The Sunshine State is still the No. 1 destination for U.S. retirees, but an analysis of the latest U.S. Census Bureau data shows its market share of 60-plus movers has slid by a third in just eight years — from 19.1 percent in 2000 to 12.5 percent in 2007. Likely leading the retreat to a very different kind of retirement are the 76 million Americans born from 1946 and 1964.
“Florida is still on the decline,” says William Haas of the University of North Carolina, the researcher who is slicing and dicing the Census data. The Sunshine State’s drop from a 16.6 percent share of retirees in 2005 to 13.2 percent in 2006 has been the most precipitous drop that Haas has seen so far. “After the hurricanes, the tax burden and the lack of insurance, etc. may explain the difference between 2005 and 2006,” he said.
Real estate consultant Jack McCabe, who lives on Florida’s busy southeast coast, said, “You can buy what might be an $800,000 condo on the water in Florida for $300,000 in Panama, and you can play golf for 10 bucks and eat for 5.”
For people who want Central Florida with arguably better scenery and fewer bugs, the central plateau of Costa Rica that is home to most of that nation’s 4 million people is filling the bill for the Lynches. Unlike Florida, it offers a more moderate year-round temperature, lower humidity and mountain views. It also is not far from the beaches and marinas of either coast, but has a life of its own. Known as the Switzerland of Latin America, Costa Rica has no standing army, a high literacy rate and a liberal approach to government.
Just as important to the Lynches, it is affordable.
Few people need air-conditioning or heat, rents are reasonable, the mass transit system is good and costs peanuts to use, fresh food is plentiful and prescription drugs are cheap compared with U.S. prices. For most, you do not need a prescription.
The Lynches say they could not afford to live in the U.S. anymore
; the skyrocketing cost of health care was their prime motivation for leaving.
“We’ve got a retirement budget of a little more than thirty grand a year,” Jim Lynch said. “It will work, if we don’t have to spend half of it on meeting the monthly premiums and getting Carol’s meds.”
In the suburbs of San Jose, where the Lynches just moved, the yearly taxes on a $200,000 home might run $400 per year compared with hundreds per month in Florida. Outside the hurricane belt, the cost of insuring a home against disaster resembles that of yesteryear’s Florida.
The cost of medical care is so much lower in Costa Rica that Americans without medical insurance have been heading there for elective surgery.
THE NEW WORLD
Christopher Howard may be the Christopher Columbus of the Americans-to-Costa Rica movement. He discovered his new world and moved to the Western Hemisphere’s second oldest democracy in the late 1980s from San Francisco.
He began his guru career by writing “The Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica” in the early 1990s. “In those days, it attracted a lot of eccentric-type expatriates,” he said of his earlier efforts.
Howard has been updating his book ever since, and using it as a springboard for tours. Seven gringos, including a reporter and the Lynches, participated in one of Howard’s more recent relocation and retirement tours.
Guests spend a couple of days in intensive seminar sessions, learning about everything from containerized shipping to BUPA, a health care plan aimed at expats.
Howard hooked up with a real estate firm specializing in selling property to Americans: Costa Rica Retirement Vacation Properties. One of its key agents is Rudy Matthews, who hails from Tampa.
“Most people who come here, they are looking for a less expensive style of living, which is still here,” Matthews said. “What is driving people out of Florida are the property taxes and the insurance, whether they are going to the Carolinas or to Costa Rica.”
While it was once true that a beachfront home for $40,000 could be had in Costa Rica, only countries like Ecuador or Nicaragua could provide those prices today.
“Those days are long gone, but if you are selected and give yourself time to look around, you can still get a reasonable value,” said Matthews, the Tampa Realtor.
ENJOYING THE ‘PURA VIDA’
The Lynches made their move on Oct. 1. The couple say they are already enjoying what Costa Ricans refer to constantly as “pura vida” — literally, the “pure life.” In context, the Spanish phrase is used to express enjoyment, as in “This is the life.”
The couple’s new-looking abode came with cable television, a high-speed cable Internet connection, phone service, and everything most Americans would want, down to granite countertops, a toaster and silverware.
Their rental, a three-bedroom, two-bath with carport up front and a courtyard out back, is situated on a prosperous-looking street, and there is a nearby college and shops. It is a 15-minute cab ride to downtown San Jose.
Author Christopher Howard lives on the same street in a home he had built for himself and his teenage son.
The price for the Lynches’ slice of pura vida is $750 per month including most of the services. Each month Matthews passes along a bill to the Lynches for the cost of the phone and electric, which brings the total to about $800.
While in Costa Rica on their reconnaissance mission, the Lynches walked into the drug store closest to their rental, prescription list in hand. They found they could pay cash for all of Carol’s 12 prescriptions for the same or less than the co-pays they were making in the U.S. Under the more relaxed drug rules prevalent in Latin America, only one drug required a doctor’s prescription. The rest could simply be requested over the counter.
Jim is 63 and Carol 62, thus two to three years away from Medicare eligibility. They were facing sharp increases in the health insurance premiums they carried over from their last jobs.
“Without any illness or any doctor visits or anything, our basic monthly medical cost would be $1,300 a month, where before we were probably right around $900,” Jim Lynch said. “It is almost like they ran us off.”
