 Our Real Estate Crew
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Tim Woodruff
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TIM WOODRUFF was born and raised in the Republic of Panama. He first met Brice when they were students at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. In 1984, Tim graduated from Tulane Law School as an Editor of the Law Review. He worked as a trial lawyer at the firm of Gordon and Rees in San Francisco for the better part of 7 years. He was also licensed to practice law in Florida. In 1993, he moved to the Peruvian Amazon, where he led jungle survival trips. He then co-founded Rainforest Health Project, a 501c(3) charitable foundation out of Iquitos, Peru. RHP's mission was to host health care professionals on remote trips offering emergency treatment to river dwellers, while learning from, and promoting, indigenous shamans and their medicinal plants. In 1996, Tim moved to Costa Rica full-time to focus on reforestation. He and Brice had already started planting trees there back in 1993. Later that year, they founded Land Assurance. Tim was married in 2007 to Rosario Araya(see below). He has two children, Jack, born in 2008, and Paloma, born in 2010. His interests, besides hanging with la familia, include writing, reading, surfing, and stand up paddle boarding.
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Brice deGanahl
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BRICE DEGANAHL is from New Jersey but has spent the most time in New England. Between 1980 and 1985, he studied music at the New England Conservatory of Music while earning a Mechanical Engineering degree from Tufts University. After graduating, he wrote engineering software for several firms, and started his own software company. In 1995, he sold his flagship product to Computer Associates. Meanwhile, between 1992-94, he and Tim Woodruff extensively researched -- in the library and in the field -- the viability of tropical hardwood reforestation. In 1994, they turned to the Costa Rican real estate market and purchased Finca San Buenas, which they started to reforest later that year. After repeated trips to Costa Rica to recreate, buy real estate, and manage the new plantation, Brice moved there permanently in 1996. His hobbies include computers, reading, teaching English to local students, and a whole lot of surfing. |
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Nathalie Donahue
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Nathalie Donahue was born and raised in France, where she had a great childhood, playing soccer and enjoying great food and culture.She went as many crazy french people on a 10 years sailing journey.She learned the sewing trade of Canvas and Upholstery etc along the way.She then met her husband Shawn Donahue, US citizen, put away the sailboat for a surf board. Now she is the mother of 2 beautiful kids with triple nationalities.( France , USA and Costa Rica). They moved to Costa Rica,in Pavones where she started to work in real estate 7 years ago. She is fluent in Spanish, English and French, "but Of course!" |
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Rosario Araya
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ROSARIO ARAYA has been with Land Assurance since the summer of 2006. She is from Alajuela in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. In June 2007, she graduated from law school in San Jose, and two years of study later, was awarded her notary's degree. She currently works for Land Assurance on a part-time basis as our in-house legal advisor, personnel manager, and accounting supervisor. Rosario also works as a Project Manager, or Owner's Representative, on a variety of house construction jobs for out of town clients. She has already supervised the construction of 7 houses, and has overseen the building of two large pools, including a 200 sq meter infinity-edged beauty. She and Tim Woodruff were married in Dec. 2005, and have two children, a boy and a girl (see above). Her hobbies include swimming, yoga, and reading.
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Cindy Moya
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CINDY MOYA started working for Land Assurance in August 2007 as receptionist/secretary. She had previously been the receptionist at a local hotel, where she discharged her duties with admirable aplomb. She was born in the mountains of San Isidro del General, and came to live on the coast at the age of seven. She currently lives with her parents in a town close to Dominical. She speaks English quite well, and excels at accounting and computer work. Cindy's hobbies include bicycling and volleyball.
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Our Special Attendants (humor)
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Tibet (the fearless)
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| Before Yoga |
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After Yoga |
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This is our fearless protector Tibet who came to us with Nayarit and two other siblings at age 5 weeks. The poor creatures were abandoned but now serve on our staff with pride and confidence. "Tibbs" has Buddhist leanings -- hence his name -- and is accomplished at the art of meditation (he can fall asleep on his feet). He has totally mastered the "down dog" position in yoga. |
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Nayarit
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Nayarit, Tibet's sister, is the Land Assurance sentry by night, and official greeter by day. If someone comes she howls a greeting; if no one comes she tends to howl anyway. |
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Negro
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Negro came to us an impoverished, skinny, flee ridden and timid wreck. With just a flee bath and a few good meals, he has changed to this good looking chap. He always has a smile on his face. |
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Mr. Coffee
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And finally, our tireless helper who never complains, never argues, always works at the same steady pace, and never, ever runs out. |
Land Use Mission Statement
- To provide our clients with superlative service in every respect, based on our experience, knowledge and integrity
- To work as hard as we can for every single client to help them achieve their dreams
- To ensure that all parties we deal with are treated in a fully transparent and ethical manner
- To help our clients and the public understand, respect, and follow the principles of sustainable land use
- To provide individual opportunity, personal satisfaction and rewarding challenges to all employees
- To offer accurate and up-to-date information, skilled analysis and sound real estate advice
- To continually explore new ideas and technology, to make the selling and buying of real estate safer and easier
- To give back all that we can to the wonderful people of Costa Rica and their great country
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Real Estate Sales in 2008/Current
In retrospect, sales peaked in the latter part of 2007 and early 2008 here in Costa Rica. Prices and sales began to fall steadily through the latter part of 2008. 2009 was very slow all around. Sales were down by over 50%. However, in 2010, sales began to pick up again. 2011 saw a modest recovery in sales, albeit at lower prices than we had seen since the mid 2000's.
The good news is that we never had a sub-prime or a prime problem in CR. That's because credit was never easy to get here, not even at the height of the international real estate boom. What has affected us of course is that many US buyers had liquidity problems back home. So their numbers went down substantially.
On the other hand, with the euro being close to a buck fifty, we are seeing an upsurge in Europeans. This is also true of Canadians, who have always been big in CR even going back to when their dollar was low vis a vis the greenback -- but now that their dollar is sitting pretty, lots of them are filling in the slack left by the vacuum of Americans.
And speaking of which, Americans have definitely come back to the bargaining table in big numbers. On average, they seem to have less money to spend than they did a few years ago, but interest among them is still very strong. Costa Rica continues for many reasons to remain an attractive vacation and retirement destination for folks from a wide variety of countries and backgrounds.
Real Estate Sales in 2006/2007
In 2006 we got up to eight full time agents, including Brice and Tim. It was a great year sales-wise, even as prices have continued to escalate in the region, in anticipation of much-needed infrastructure coming in soon. But it was not until 2007 that we began to witness a real sea-change regarding infrastructure, both financial and physical. Banks for the first time began to offer good financing terms to foreign clients here. In addition, an international airport for the region was decided upon, the gravel road from Quepos to Dominical was prepared for imminent paving, the huge marina in Golfito started to be built, and ground was broken for an 18-hole golf course in the area.
Real Estate Sales in 2005
Land Assurance closed on over more than $10M worth of properties in 2005. It was a good year. As of 2006 we had six full time agents as well as a new office manager/secretary, and a number of workers in the field, for a grand total of about 20 full-time employees (along with another 20 seasonal workers).
Real Estate Sales in 2004
2004 was very productive for the side of our business that markets and brokers the sale of eco-real estate. During that calendar year, we helped our clients find and safely close on over twenty choice properties (not counting pending option contracts and other future deals).
Many of these sales consisted of fincas over 100 acres, with the smallest a lot of 2 acres. All but one had great ocean and mountain views. They all had in common streams or rivers; natural water springs; cleared land to reforest; areas of primary or secondary forest; abundant flora and fauna; and last but not least, reasonable selling prices! The grand total of Costa Rican real estate sold through our office that year came to over 1000 acres.
In every case but one, the sellers had the publicly registered Costa Rican real estate titles to convey to our purchasers. It goes without saying that proper titles are a key issue when buying land. After all, as any Costa Rica investment handbook will warn, you should never consider buying from an owner with only possession of, and "private title" for, a piece of land. Right?
Well, not always. That rule applies to novices, for whom it is indeed very sound advice. On the other hand, if you know what you are doing, you can buy untitled land at lower prices without much risk. The strategy is to make the closing contingent on the current owner getting public real estate title within X period of time. It is not hard to find owners with rock-solid legal rights to the Costa Rica real estate they live on. Factors include: that he or she has lived there decades, paid taxes on it, farmed it, has registered survey, or plat map, and that no one else claims it.
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Recent Reforestation
We were hired to plant trees on four Costa Rican properties in 2004, on another four in 2005, and on three more in 2006. Total number of tree saplings planted by the end of the rainy season for each year has exceeded ~50,000. We are fast closing in on a lifetime total of over half a million trees planted -- and we are just warming up!
The majority of the different species were native to Costa Rica; and many are on the government's endangered or threatened (with extinction) list. They include:
- terminalia amazonas (white oliver), planted in mixed stands with its two closely-related companion species;
- swietenia macrophylla (mahogany);
- dalbergia retusa (rosewood);
- cordia alliodora (laurel);
- astronium graveolens (goncalo alves);
- aspidosperma Spp. (peroba rosa);
- and over a dozen others.
The only "exotic" (non-native) species we planted was a small minority of tectonis grande, or teak. This fast-growing, highly esteemed hardwood just so happens to grow superbly in plantations here in Costa Rica.
Note: on the one hand, it is our practice to champion the use of native species to all our clients. We think they are more eco-friendly in plantations, as well as likely to be at least as valuable as teak, over the long run. However, we will plant and manage teak for clients, upon request. We believe that we can plant and manage teak stands in a way that remains true to our core philosophy. That requires that the plantation be truly sustainable, which in turn requires that the applied methodology help restore the soil over the long run. It's not so simple with teak, for many reasons, but we do believe we can manage it ecologically.
Of the jobs we have done in Costa Rica, most have had some teak in the mix. One of the teak-less projects was a pure reforestation play - which we loved executing. The owner wanted to bring back the natural forest, and had no intention of ever harvesting or even culling a single tree.
We also provide ongoing management of reforestation projects by referring clients to a well-known local reforester in order to save them money.
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How to contact us
Click here for our Contact Information
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