How I Ended Up In San Juan Del Sur
It’s a fairly common question. How did I end up here? Coming from a farm in rural Alberta, Canada and now living in Nicaragua for the better part of a decade. So I figured I would give a bit of my story and how I ended up almost 7000 kilometers away on the beach in San Juan Del Sur. Hopefully it’ll help you decide if this is the right place for you!
First I should start by saying I can’t stand the cold. I mean really can’t stand it. More than almost anyone. Growing in up a place where winter temperatures regularly drop to more than 40 degrees below zero is a big part of it. The year I moved here there was a day where my town was the coldest place on earth for a few hours. No bueno.
Our farm is near the town of Ponoka. It’s small town of about 7000 people in center of the province. My parents place is 10 miles northwest of town, and they’re still out there farming today. Recently a second neighbor moved in on our one mile long road. Cows outnumber people 20 to 1. It’s about as rural as it gets.
Growing up I never wanted to be a farmer. Fortunately for me our parents were supportive of doing whatever we wanted. It let us pick out own paths.
As a family we’d generally take a trip every year, usually within Canada. We did get to California twice, both times in the autumn. We were the only ones on the beach in Cali in October and November. Pretty sure everyone could tell we weren't locals.
From then on I thought about living in a place where it never got cold. I couldn't wait to see more. So before university I took a year off to go to Australia and New Zealand for nine months of work and travel. After that I was convinced I wanted to leave Alberta to live and do business in a tropical location.
I studied international business back there in Alberta and ended up with a bachelor of commerce degree. While in university there were brief thoughts of going into the corporate world in Calgary. It’s a great city, lots of opportunity, and definitely a safer route from a professional standpoint. But I knew it wasn’t for me.
While I was in university I ran a franchise of Student Works Painting, hiring a dozen fellow students to paint houses during the summer. That was my first taste of running my own business. One of my employees told me he never pictured me in corporate. He said he saw me running a bar on the beach in tropical country, and that really stuck in my head.
Travels Looking for the Best Location
A week after my final exam I was on a plane to Central America. The idea was to find for the best place to live, invest and do business. Given my limited resources coming straight out of school I was looking for an up and coming destination with the best value for money.
A friend had told me his favorite place in the world was San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua. So thats’s where I started. A different friend and I flew into Managua, grabbed a hotel for the night, and the next morning we were in San Juan.
The plan was to travel the world for a few years, work the other half in Canada to fund the trips, and then settle in the best spot. I was smitten with San Juan from day one. But there were still a ton of places to explore.
From Nicaragua I travelled overland (with the exception of the Darien Gap in Panama) to the bottom of Chile and Argentina. In other trips I travelled all over Southeast Asia, spent six months in India and Nepal, a touch of Europe and the Carribean, and the rest of the Central America.
All told from my late teens to mid twenties I spent four years on the road. The justification was I was location scouting for business and investing, which is about half true. The other half was just wanting to travel.
There were a number of places I loved, that I at least briefly considered moving to.
I love Southeast Asia but I never really considered settling there. For a couple reasons. Travel times to Canada are long. And there are restrictions on foreign ownership and corporate formation. In most South-East Asian countries there are laws mandating local partners have 51% of any property or business. That requirement disqualified the region for me.
For the best combination of property rights, ease of doing business, and proximity to home I narrowed things down to Latin America.
Of the cities I loved Medellin, Colombia, Buenas Aires Argentina, and Mexico City. All of which are phenomenal and I would go visit again in a heartbeat. Those are still my three favorites in the region.
But I’ve never wanted to live in a huge city. I love to visit them, but not permanently reside. My personal preference is the beach - outdoor space, sunshine, palm trees, sand between my toes and waves to surf. My travels confirmed the feeling that small beach towns were where I felt most at home.
Especially ones in developing countries where I saw the future potential poised for growth. Backpackers usually lead the way to popular destinations. And the more traditional travellers and investors come after. so I was looking to be ahead of the curve. There were a few places that made the short list.
The island of Utila off the Carribean coast of Honduras was my fourth choice. It’s is one of the best spots in Central America. It’s where I did my PADI scuba diving course. The reefs are incredible and the island is a lot of of fun, however only with one real main street.
The first downside for me was the size. The permanent population is only about four thousand people. Being on an island also means if you want to see anything on the mainland it involves a ferry and a lot more planning. And mainland Honduras is not great..
The other reason I I never settled in the area hurricanes. It seems like every 10 or 20 years pretty much every place in the northern Carribean gets smashed by one. And they are getting worse. Being in my twenties with limited financial resources I couldn't take the risk of getting both literally and figuratively wiped out. So Utila was out.
Canoa in Ecuador was my third choice. It’s actually a lot like San Juan Del Sur - a funky little beach town with surf, young expats, and lots of potential. And I love Ecuador - I spent almost a month in Quito learning Spanish.
The main downside there for me is that, like the rest of South America, traveling to Canada is a lot longer and more expensive. Meaning less trips home for me and less friends and family coming down to visit.
Plus while there is surf on the beach right in front of Canoa, it’s only OK. And I was looking for a place with great surf most of the year. The idea was healthy outdoor activities available year round. So while a great place it didn’t make my final cut.
That narrowed my final choices down to San Juan Del Sur and Bocas Del Toro in Panama.
The Bocas Del Toro archipelago off the Carribean coast of Panama ended up being my second choice. It’s a spectacularly beautiful island chain with a fun main town. and numerous outlying islands. When the water is calm there’s incredible snorkeling and scuba diving, and the islands are close enough you can rent a kayak and paddle from one to another. Then in the surf season there are some fun surf breaks.
The main reasons I didn’t chose to live and invest in Bocas were related. The first was my fear of island fever as mentioned above about Utila. Also islands are always more expensive, everything has to come in by ferry. Prices were higher than San Juan for property when I first visited, but not dramatically higher. So it was a close choice.
So on my final scouting trip to Central America two years later I split my time between San Juan and Bocas. I scoped out property, business opportunities, and the community. Unfortunately in the intervening couple years Bocas had been “discovered” and the prices on property had almost doubled. Great for the owners there, not so great for a 27 year old looking to get started.
San Juan Del Sur was then the clear choice. Nicaragua was emerging from it’s troubled years, infrastructure was improving at a rapid pace, and yet values hadn’t yet exploded. Plus it had a number of super attractive benefits from an expat perspective.
Foreigners can buy property with the same rights as locals. No local partner or complicated trust, like Mexico, required. Corporate formation was equally attractive. Foreigners can found corporations with the same ease and rights as locals. Residency is also one of the easiest in the world to get as an investor. With my plans trending to the hospitality industry it was an easy choice.
Doing Business in Central America
Plus, as chance would have it, even though it was my first stop among the 15 Latin American counties I’ve visited (so far) it had the best physical attributes as well. The beaches are beautiful, accessible, and public. The huge geographical feature of Lake Nicaragua, the largest freshwater lake between the US and Bolivia, means there are offshore winds 80% of the year. If you’re a surfer you’ll know thats both rare and means fairly consistent surfing.
As an investor the value for money in San Juan Del Sur was, and still is, the best in the region. I ended up buying land within my first six months of permanent living. It was the first of many profitable property investments I’ve made here.
Then I was looking to do business. Again those low costs, nascent competition, and ease of corporate formation meant my partners and I could do things we never could have in Canada.
In my first few years I was a partner in a successful bar and restaurant here in San Juan. We ran a small spot that was packed out the door most nights of the week. Then we opened another in Costa Rica.
Excessive tax and regulation mean Costa Rica is a hard country to do business in as a foreigner. The country has it’s great points - the ecological protection and tourist infrastructure are fantastic. However the regulatory environment is not among those strong suits. It definitely made me realize I like doing business in Nicaragua more.
Here in Nica I also started a motorcycle rental company, ran a weekly boat charter and opened a thirty seat cinema. Some of the ventures were super successful. Other’s less so. But we could do things here we never could have back home, especially as young guys in our late 20’s. I wouldn’t change those decisions for the world.
Those experiences allow me to help clients avoid common pitfalls of getting involved in Nicaragua as a foreigner. So both the success and failures I’ve had now both let me help people. Local experience matters in this region. All of that helps both the real estate and consulting sides of the business.
Then, as a lot of stories like this go, I met my lovely wife and much better half. Meli (now Dr. Melida Maria Manzanares) was in in medical school at the time. She was studying at the best teaching hospital in Central America, the Military hospital in Managua.
Since that’s a 2.5 hour drive away, while I was a managing partner in San Juan Del Sur, our hours were hard to sync up. As you might imagine with someone running a hospitality business and the other studying to be a doctor. We needed a better set up.
Plus three years of operating a busy bar, while incredibly fun, had started to wear on our ownership team. Hospitality is a challenging industry. Especially here in Central America it requires an “always on” style of management that is hard to sustain.
So we made the decision to divest of those hospitality assets. We found buyers for the bars in both Costa Rica and San Juan Del Sur, and sold both on New Years day 2017. I also sold the other assets and operations. Just like that I was out of hospitality and moved into real estate full time.
Back in Canada I had previously sold my home on my own. During my time in hospitality I’d also been referring real estate clients to my friends at Century 21. A few of them had anded up investing.
Century had asked me to join and it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve made here. As an unexpected bonus the years of running the bar meant I knew everyone in town. In a place without an MLS system that local knowledge is gold.
It was an easy transition. It also meant my weekends were now free for my (now!) fiancé. If wanted to take off for the weekend I could, without having to worry about who was looking after operations.
Since then I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have helped tons of people invest in Nicaragua. I’m really proud of that those investments have provided a lot of benefit for the local community as well. The direct and spin off jobs from those people buying, building, investing and starting businesses have great for the community.
Foreigners moving and investing here have dramatically improved the standard of living in San Juan. Now the trend of expats moving here permanently to work remotely will create a much more stable local economy long term. It should also make San Juan more of an upscale town rather than just a budget beach destination.
That’s huge as we come out of the Covid related tourism recession. It’s a win win as those remote workers can earn North American salaries with a fraction of the cost of living up North. For a lot of people it can mean early retirement.
So that’s my story so far. Since you made it this far thanks very much for reading. If you have any questions about real estate, residency, investing, or anything else about life in Nica I would love to help you out.
Nicaragua isn’t for everyone. As you can see from my decision process I’m a little more on the unconventional side than the average farm boy. But this is still my favorite location in all of Latin America!
So if it sounds like what I talked about might be for you, reach out to me. You can catch me any of the ways below.
Joel Stott-Jess
Cell / WhatsApp: (+505) 8176 8624
US Number: 1 786 753 8743
Skype: joelstottjess
Joel Stott-Jess is a New York Times featured agent / broker in San Juan Del Sur.
Originally from Alberta, Canada he has been doing business in Nicaragua since 2014.
An investment consultant, serial entrepreneur, surfer, and outdoor enthusiast he is an expert on the real estate and business markets in Nicaragua. He also operates The Central Investor, a real estate and investment blog focused on the entire Central American region.
