Costa Rica Investment Property - Your IRA CAN buy real estate!

Does the stock market or slow US real estate market have you looking for alternative investments? Costa Rica offers the investor many good opportunities. You can buy income producing investment property. You may finance property at high rates to locals or foreign residents who don't want to disclose financial information to the banks, or jump through all the hoops banks here burden the borrower with. Your Costa Rica investment might be pre-construction property in solid developments in order to cash in on the built-in appreciation of the early stages in the development. Or cash in later as the area continues to grow.

Although not many people know this, the IRS lets your IRA buy real estate as an investment. This property can be in the US, but it can also be an investment in Costa Rica. The procedure is straightforward, but there are a few necessary ingredients. You need:

• An IRA custodian that offers self-directed accounts and allows real estate purchases within those accounts.
• Real estate that you wish to purchase. The kind of property isn't really important: raw land, condos, office buildings, single or multi-family homes, apartment buildings and improved land.
• You have to be aware of the limitations, such as you can't use the real estate as your residence or vacation home, unless you are 59.5 years old.

This is a great way to diversify your IRA investment portfolio and to take advantage of the opportunities in the Costa Rican real estate market.

**Article from the archives of the American-European Real Estate Group**