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Purchasing a Low Cost House

Our Process

Vivienda Housing and Mortgage Corp. (“Vivienda”) has a simple 10 step process for purchasing an affordable low cost home in Central America and helping others in the world. Here is a basic point by point description of the process we use. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

THE VIVIENDA PROCESS
1. Your Vivienda agent has a list of available lots suitable for the construction of low cost housing in Central America.
2. The Purchaser signs a Real Estate Purchase Agreement and purchases one of those lots and the construction of one of our 2 or 3 bedroom house models.
3. The Purchaser also signs a Property Management Agreement, which allows a trustee to supervise and protect one's purchase for a 3 to 5 year period.
4. Vivienda builds the chosen house model on the purchased lot.
5. Vivienda sells the completed low cost house and lot to an eligible, local family.
6. Eligible families are pre-qualified by Vivienda's affiliate organizations, such as foundations, NGO's, employee associations and labor unions.
7. The property manager collects the sales proceeds and immediately purchases another lot and repeats the construction process.
8. This process allows Vivienda to build from 6 to 10 homes, depending on the property management period, thanks to just one purchase!
9. Once a year the purchaser is paid a capital gain from the sale of the houses of no less than 10% in the first year, and no less than 15% in each subsequent year.
10. Once the property management period expires, the purchaser receives their principal and any outstanding capital gain back.

Vivienda is not a charity. We believe that to ensure long term success projects must be financially sustainable and commercially reasonable. Our process does exactly that, for the benefit of all concerned.

To avoid currency variation problems, Vivienda uses United States of America dollars for all of its pricing. However, to facilitate purchasers, Vivienda will accept purchases in Canadian dollars, European Euro's, British Pounds and Japanese Yen converted at the Royal Bank of Canada's "buy" rate for that currency on the date of the purchase. Vivienda accepts international bank drafts, SWIFT transfers and Canadian cheques made payable to:

Property management services are provided by Costa Norte Trust Company S.A. of San José, Costa Rica. Costa Norte specializes in Land Development Trusts and Project Management Trusts, and assists Vivienda with its syndicated mortgage pool requirements. Costa Norte's CEO is Luis F. Yglesias, M.B.A.

Construction services are performed by Gestores de Vivienda, S.A., of San José, Costa Rica. It is managed by Rafael Hernandez Salas, Master Builder, of Heredia, Costa Rica. Gestores has been engaged in affordable, low cost housing for a number of years now. Gestores works closely with Vivienda to complete house sales to local families, and coordinates those sales with the property management team.

Mortgage financing services are provided by three different foundations. The first is the CIDA funded Costa Rica - Canada Rural Housing Foundation, located in San José, Costa Rica. The second is the Fundación Promotora de Vivienda or FUPROVI, of San José, Costa Rica. The third is the Fundación Fondo Internacional RPC, also of San José, Costa Rica.

Vivienda works closely with its affiliates to sell the affordable, low cost houses and lots to eligible working families. Vivienda also manages the marketing in Canada, Europe and the United States of America. The marketing and promotions staff for Vivienda are Dexter B. Dombro, B.A., LL.B., and Dr. Kochurani Dombro, B.Sc., DDS. Numerous others are helping in this humanitarian effort.