Making Your Home in Ecuador: A few options . . .

Today’s post is much appreciated by my better half, Donna. Why, you ask? Well, I wanted to post today about some of the options one has who wants take up permanent residence in Ecuador. Which meant that I would be including some of what we did in preparing our apartment. Which meant I had to take a few pictures. Which meant that (this is the last time I’m going to say “Which meant that,” I promise. Oh, wait! I just said it again! Sorry . . .), good husband that I am, I would clean up the house a little before I took them. So I hope you will appreciate the extra effort put into this post. I’m typing with dishpan hands right now . . . Ha ha . . .(By the way, this last paragraph doesn’t imply that Donna doesn’t do a bang up job keeping things shipshape. She’s been out of action the past few days with the flu.)

If you’re thinking of buying a home here, keep in mind that just like every place else, they are not as cheap as they once were. I’ve included a link to inmobilaria.com, a real estate website that covers countries in South America, Central America, and the United States. The link will take you to the Ecuador section of the site. Select the area of Ecuador that you are interested in. This will give you an idea of what houses are selling for here and what kind of house you can get for your money.

Renting is another option, and is the route we chose. As is the case with buying, rents are not as cheap as they used to be. Guayaquíl, Quito, and Cuenca have become particularly expensive, with some rents approaching Stateside prices. The good news for us is that Riobamba continues to be one of the more economical places to live. Monthly rentals range pretty widely here. What you pay pretty much depends on what level of comfort you are looking for. As an example, we have several friends that live in a conjunto (condominium) called Veletas del Norte located in a nicer area North of town. A very nice apartment, two bedrooms, two bath, with hot and cold running water runs them about $150 a month. Before you get too excited, let me explain that the price they are paying was locked in some time ago. We looked into renting there, but could not find anything for under $200 a month. Still not bad, but not in our budget. Basically, if you are looking to live in a place that is Stateside standard, you will probably be paying from $200 and up.

We ended up going with option B. We found a place with a much lower monthly rent, but that needed a little fixing up. If you are handy, you can find fixer-upper apartments from around $100 to $150 per month.

The first thing we did with our apartment was repaint the whole thing. This was not the major investment that it might seem. Latex paint can be had here very cheaply. We got ours from the hardware store across the street (very convenient) for $5.00 or so per gallon pail. A five gallon bucket cost us about $21.00. There is a drawback to the paint you get at this price, but it’s a minor one. It does not wash well. You have to be extremely careful, even with semi-gloss, if you are trying to clean a stain off the wall. A few swipes, and you’re looking at the old paint. On the other hand, it’s so cheap that we’ve found it easier to keep extra paint and a brush handy. If a stain is too bad, we just retouch. Good as new . . .

Living Room after Painting

Another thing you may run into with a fixer-upper is damaged tile. If I’d been thinking ahead I would have taken a picture of our counter tops when we first got here. Probably about a third of the tiles were broken or cracked. Grout was missing in many places. We were kind of stumped as to what to do about it when, serendipitously, we saw that our neighbor across the hall had had his repaired beautifully. There is a company here that specializes in re-covering old tile counter tops using large porcelain tiles. The end result is quite nice, especially in comparison to how the counters looked before.

Kitchen Counters after repair

Bullnose was hand ground. Not bad, huh?

It was fascinating watching them work. The bullnose, as pictured, was formed with a simple electric hand grinder. We were happy with the bill, as well. The work took them three days. Total cost for labor and materials? $192.00! Hard to beat that price.

You’ve probably noticed the curtains under the counters by now. That was a personal decision on our part. We’re not sure whether it will be permanent or not. When we took the apartment, the existing wooden cupboards had been water damaged and mold had set in with a vengeance. We got the owner’s permission and ripped them out. We put the curtains there as a temporary measure to allow more airflow. We’ll see what we’ll do in the future.

At this point we were quite happy with our humble little abode. Except for one thing . . . whenever it rained, this horrible smell filled the kitchen. We knew it had something to do with the drains, but weren’t sure what. We thought it was coming from the drain in the floor and that there was not much we could do about it. THEN we discovered that the sink drain had been installed without sealing the connection between the drain tube and the wall pipe. That’s where the stink was coming from. We replaced the piping and no stink ever since. Yeah!

A few other thoughts before I sign off. If you find a place you like (cheap rent, needs a little fixing) make sure you have a signed contract before you invest a lot of time and money into the apartment. A friend of ours in Manta rented a place, replaced all the doors, did major repairs, and had the place looking beautiful. The landlord came in, saw how nice it looked and said, “This is a really nice place. I’m not charging you enough . . .” and promptly raised the rent. Nice, huh?

Another thing to keep in mind. While I’m told that this has been changing somewhat over time, our past experience has been that when you rent a place, YOU are primarily responsible for any repairs that come along. It is also a very rare thing to be able to rent a place with appliances. These are generally not part of the deal. You’ll most likely have to get your own.

So, the above gives you an idea of the kind of things you may run into if you decide to rent a place. While rents have gone up in recent years, in general, they are still quite economical compared to what you can find Stateside. For those considering a move to Ecuador, it’s a good option.

Until the next post,

Mike

(Quick update to this post. Another thing you might want to do if you’re looking at an apartment is ask to see the last paid electric bill. When we lived in Manta we looked into renting a place one floor above us for some friends. The previous occupants had not paid the light bill for some time (In fact, we found out that they had been stealing electricity from us, but that’s another story). Fortunately, someone told us that we needed to check down at the Electric Company office how much was owed as they would not hook up the apartment again until it was paid. It didn’t matter who ran up the debt. They wanted it paid. So it would have cost another $300.00 or once the bill was brought up to date. That’s how it was with the Electric Company in Manta. I don’t know if it is a country wide standard or not. In any case, it’s a good idea to check it out first.)

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