After months of searching the internet for information about retirement in Ecuador, my husband and I decided Cuenca might be the most suitable for us. We have just returned from Ecuador and have decided that it may be right for some, but not for us.
We contacted an attorney and 2 real estate agents beforehand. I specifically chose agents who charge an hourly fee to show us the homes so I would not feel obligated to buy because they spent so much time with us. We met with the attorney on day 1, Grace Velastegui, who I would highly recommend. Grace speaks perfect English. For a $40 per hour fee, she met with us for well over an hour andswering every question we could give her and some we didn’t think of, about buying real estate in Ecuador. Grace also explained visa requirements and printed out all of the information we may need to apply for a visa for retirement in Ecuador. We also asked her if we had found property on this trip, could we handle the paperwork from home. She assured us that we could through her.
On the 2nd day, Saturday, we had our first appointment with Michael Berger, www.cuencasbestproperties.com. I contacted Michael a week before we left and he set the appointment with us. My email explained that we were looking at Cuenca for future retirement, but if we found something we liked on this trip, we were willing to buy to use as a family vacation home. I also gave him a wishlist of items I would want in a home and the fact that we would be there for only 8 days.
When we met with Michael he told us that he interviews his clients first. After our interview, he made an appointment with us to show us some homes on Wednesday. He kept suggesting that we should have given him more time and that we should come back for a longer trip. We felt that this was just a “feeling out” of Cuenca and at this time, it was not possible for us to stay longer than 8 days. Michael asked us to let him know as early as possible if we changed our mind about Cuenca. We gave him our number at the hotel so he could contact us. So we cancelled our 2nd real estate agent we had on Monday since Michael was sure he could find us close to what we were looking for.
My husband and I spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, taking a tour and seeing Cuenca on our own. I received an email Monday evening from Michael, but unfortunately our hotel internet connection was very poor. I finally had a connection by Tuesday and saw the email below from Michael late Tuesday night.
Sent: Mon, Jun 27, 2011 2:18 pm
Subject: Re: Visitng Cuenca next week
Hi Geri,
After looking over all the notes from the interview I am afraid that I have nothing to show you and therefore am canceling our appointment for Wednesday. There probably is a property or two that would work for you but it is very unlikely that I could find one by Wednesday. You may check with other realtors to see if they have what you are looking for. Here in Cuenca relationships between clients and agents are non-exclusive. If you do not find what you are looking for while you are here then my advice would be to make a longer trip next time, maybe about 3 weeks long, to have more time to find what you need and give a heads up so that I have more time to try to find what you are looking for in your price range.
Here is the map that I was going to send you Saturday. Sorry for the delay, things are pretty crazy around here. The red represents the organic coop http://www.coopera.fin.ec/ and the large green are represents the largest indigenous market.
Thank You,
-Michael Berger
Unfortunately, I did not keep that appointment with the 2nd real estate agent because I may have had time to see at least the style properties I was looking for. As I said, this trip was only about future retirement. If we found something it would have been our vacation home for the next several years.
We felt that Michael made the decision for us on whether Cuenca was for us or not. Although we came away knowing we would not retire there, it was still a consideration for a vacation home.
I choose not to go through our reasons for not choosing Cuenca for retirement as I have seen on this message board the arguments that can ensue over differences of opinion. I do implore anyone considering retirement in any country other than their home to not do it site-unseen or based on what someone else tells you. We met people who were happy they moved there but there were others who were not. You need to see the environment, cost of living, cost of items you buy regularly, etc., first hand. Hope this helps someone.
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