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SYNDICATION
Add CommentBy Ivo Henfling for the Easy Times
You surf for real estate in Costa Rica on websites all day and you are asking yourself if you are becoming a Costa Rica real estate website junkie or not. Many people spend hours surfing real estate websites just for the fun of it.
The other day, talking on Skype to my mom in Holland, she was saying that she enjoyed looking at our newest listings just for the fun of it. My mom has lived in Costa Rica back in the 80s and lives in Holland again, but loves to dream about buying a home in Escazu or purchase a beach house in beautiful Costa Rica.
Talking about how much she enjoys browsing our website, my mom remembered an article about Funda, an MLS website in Holland, and the writer of this article who calls herself a Funda junkie.
What is a Funda Junkie
Roaming through the real estate listings in Costa Rica, looking at inviting pictures and even more inviting descriptions seems to be a past time for more and more people, even though they never plan to buy anything.
Nienke Ledegang, a Funda junk herself, is a journalist and investigated this matter and writes in her article that most Funda junks are women, not always looking at a new house, but most of the time are attracted by the possibility of voyeurism that Funda offers.
Interior decoration or voyeurism
Its interesting to see what some people say about this. Carlijn (31) recognizes herself in this profile. Over the past 5 years, she has been on Funda every workday, it has been part of her standard morning ritual: coffee, email and then onto the Funda website. To her it doesnt have anything to do with planning to buy a new home; she just likes to look at what kind of property she can get for a certain price in her town and what kind of property in another town. Its also nice to just see how people have done the interior decoration of their house. Sometimes it gives me ideas for my own house she says. A bit ashamed she adds of course its also nice to look inside the home of people I know or colleagues. When I hear a colleague is putting her/his house up for sale, I look up their address in the phone book and then go to Funda to check it out.
Irene (35), another Funda junkie says A colleague of my husband divorced and put up his house of 900,000 EURO up for sale. I wanted to see how these people lived. Irene says she has a pretty good feel of what the market does because she checks out the Funda website regularly.
Ugly pictures
Others interviewed by Nienke think its fun to check out the ugly pictures taken by some realtors who are too lazy to make a home picture ready when listing it and leave toilet seats up, leave their own car up front every listing they take or leave overflowing garbage cans and unmade beds in their pictures. See a nice sample below.
The rich and famous
Doing some more research, I found some more people have a problem with this addiction of browsing real estate listings most every day, like movie director Sofia Coppola who tells The Oprah Magazine that "My friends and I say it's like online porn for women,".
Seth Ginsberg, co-founder and president of the Global Healthy Living Foundation, says he browses listings at least once a day for 30 minutes at a time. "I like to browse listings at night after a long day, over a glass of wine, while watching TV," he says. "On weekends, like most people, I browse the Sunday real estate section in the bathroom."
Sherry Chris, CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, says, "People are instinctively interested in others' living environments and how they may compare or relate to their own surroundings. As sellers take a particular interest in the appearance of their home when it is on the market for public view, this provides an opportunity for others to see what might work for their own living spaces someday. This could be as simple as décor color combinations or getting ideas for particular fixtures, furniture arrangement or landscaping."
My opinion
At the American European Real Estate Group, we have been receiving no complains about the addiction from users nor are we complaining about the users checking out our website every day.
Surfing for properties in Costa Rica, addictive or not, keeps the dreams alive and gives you the opportunity to think about the future and your retirement. Would you stay where you are or should you move to a tropic location like Costa Rica and what is involved in this dream? Can I use my IRA or 401K to invest in Costa Rica? We have most of the answers for you.Subscribing to our monthly newsletter The Easy Times is really simple and it will always keep you up to date; AND you'll get a HOT LISTING in your mailbox automatically every week.
I hope to see you back soon, junkie or not.
Ivo Henfling, your Escazu and Santa Ana real estate expert offering the best listings west of San Jose.