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Free guide

The 5-Day Scouting Trip

How to work out whether you actually want to own in San Juan del Sur — in five days, without wasting one of them.

Most people who come to look at property here spend the first two days doing what tourists do, and fly home without the answers they came for. This plan front-loads the things that actually decide the question — the drive, the neighbourhoods, the lawyer, the water, the internet — and leaves the beach for when you have earned it.

It also tells you when to walk away. There are good reasons not to buy in Nicaragua, and you should find them on a $900 trip rather than after a $300,000 purchase.

Download the playbook (PDF, 5 pages) ↓

The plan we give our own clients

Day 1

Get your bearings, not your hopes up

The town on foot, the ridge road, and what the place sounds like at night. No houses today.

Day 2

The neighbourhoods, in order

Town, the hills, the beach communities, the established developments — and why they behave differently on price and resale.

Day 3

The professional day

Your own lawyer (not the seller’s), the questions to ask about title, the hospital, the schools, and testing the internet yourself.

Day 4

See properties properly

Six to eight maximum. The water, power, roof, access and neighbour checks to run in every single house.

Day 5

Sit with it

Back to your two favourites alone, an ordinary errand, and the honest conversation with whoever you are buying with.

What is actually in it

Managua versus Liberia, and what the border crossing really costs you in time. The questions to put to an attorney about title and the coastal restriction. What to check at 2pm about the afternoon sun, and what the road looks like in the rainy season. Annual carrying costs, and the line item people always underestimate.

And a section called “Nicaragua isn’t for you if…”

  • You need a mortgage — there is no financing market here for foreign buyers
  • You want a US-standard hospital within twenty minutes
  • You plan to resell inside eighteen months
  • You have not checked your own government’s current travel guidance

We would rather say that plainly than have you find out expensively.

Going further than the guide

The playbook is the same for everyone. If you tell us what you are actually looking for, the follow-up is not — and Christina will have read it before you ever speak.

Fill in the Buyer’s Brief →  ·  Book half an hour with her →

Written from trips Christina runs herself. Prices and timings carry the month they were checked; roads, hours and fees move, so treat it as a plan rather than a guarantee.

Ask about any of them

Christina lives in San Juan del Sur and shows these herself. Tell her which one and she will send photographs, the deed position and what the closing actually costs.

Goes straight to Christina on WhatsApp. No newsletter, no drip sequence.

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