considering moving to ecuador

Greetings from Ecuador
1. $2100 is enough for the two of you to live on in ecuador, once you are settled. You can rent a nice place for $500 - $800 a month, less if it is not furnished. Plan on spending a month or two looking for it.
2. the permanent visas in ecuador are another question. The rules here change on a day to day basis. We have been working on ours for 8 months? That is with having all our documents in order. Find a good lawer to help you walk through the process that will cost a couple $1500 or so.
3. for a place to live, look at villcabamba, beautiful, quiet, your kind of people. medical facilities are about an hour away. Cuenca has much more to do but the air quality really sucks.
4. Getting a drivers licence is much like getting permanent visa,not easy. They are also putting hugh taxes (green tax) on cars not sure about scooters and motor cycles. They should try taxing the real problem desel busses and trucks.
5.believe nothing you read in international living or from realestate companies in ecuador. rule of thumb tripple what you think it will cost. that being said great country!

thanks a lot for the feedback.
vilcabamba you say? I think it was 5000 people living there right? would imagine not a lot of houses over there for rent? I saw lots of websites "selling" ecuador yes. according to them I can rent a castle for this money ha ha.Im told vilcabamba is one of the most exspensive places to stay according to some forum postings so we where a bit hesitant to go there.

thank you for the straight replies.

Joshua and Irina

Hello Josh,

We have been researching Ecuador for about a year and have found all kinds of interesting information about it.  We definitely like Cuenca. Yes, downtown, the air quality is not that great, but you don't LIVE downtown. Outside of that area, it IS healthy,and the cost of living is very inexpensive.

Your lifestyle indicates to me that you might enjoy Vilcabamba, where you can get a nice villa/condo/apt for rent for around $300/month. That is for a two bedroom, two bath. Try going to Vilcabamba.com for information on the community and the things you need to know.  Also, we checked on Loja, just south of Cuenca. A smaller city, and 2,000 ft less in elevation. You can find a beautiful place to rent for about what you could find in Vilcabamba. It is a quieter community and the people are more spiritual than most towns.

There is a man who lives in Cuenca who puts out a daily newletter about what to do and where to go in Cuenca, but he might know about the two towns we told you about, since he has been traveling around the area since February. His website is: accessecuador.com.  You can live like a king your monthly income.  We talked to a couple in Cuenca and they live very comfortably on $11,000 a year.  They have two teenage daughters, two dogs, one cat and they spend about $950/month on rent, entertainment, the internet, utilities, taxis, food and travel. To me, that is a great way to live.

We are moving to Cuenca in November and are now in the process of putting together all of the documents needed..and then to get them translated into Spanish..and THEN ! ! to drive 8 hours to Miami, FL (we live in Jacksonville, FL) to the Consulate to have them approved.

There are a lot of sites to you might want to check.  One is: CuencaHighLife.com where there is all sorts of info for you. Connected to that site is one called "The Gringo Tree". There are people on there all the time who are wanting to rent their apt for cheap; or have furniture they want to sell. All kinds of neat things you can rent or buy.

Then, just go into Cuenca.com and that gives you information about the city and surrounding areas.

Let me know if you need anything else, ok? We will try to help you with whatever we have learned over the past year.

Carole and Ray Walter

villacamba is pricy if you are buying, renting is not so bad. The reason it is pricy, is how nice it is and the weather is great. Cuenca can be cold.  You can rent very cheeply, 200-300 a month, but you will not want to live there. This is a very poor country and people live in some very substandard housing.  Also  there may be security issues with a house, vs a condo with a guard. I would suggest a trip and travel around the country to see. Best of luck.

tom

sundancer wrote:

Hello Josh,

We have been researching Ecuador for about a year and have found all kinds of interesting information about it.  We definitely like Cuenca. Yes, downtown, the air quality is not that great, but you don't LIVE downtown. Outside of that area, it IS healthy,and the cost of living is very inexpensive.

Your lifestyle indicates to me that you might enjoy Vilcabamba, where you can get a nice villa/condo/apt for rent for around $300/month. That is for a two bedroom, two bath. Try going to Vilcabamba.com for information on the community and the things you need to know.  Also, we checked on Loja, just south of Cuenca. A smaller city, and 2,000 ft less in elevation. You can find a beautiful place to rent for about what you could find in Vilcabamba. It is a quieter community and the people are more spiritual than most towns.

There is a man who lives in Cuenca who puts out a daily newletter about what to do and where to go in Cuenca, but he might know about the two towns we told you about, since he has been traveling around the area since February. His website is: accessecuador.com.  You can live like a king your monthly income.  We talked to a couple in Cuenca and they live very comfortably on $11,000 a year.  They have two teenage daughters, two dogs, one cat and they spend about $950/month on rent, entertainment, the internet, utilities, taxis, food and travel. To me, that is a great way to live.

We are moving to Cuenca in November and are now in the process of putting together all of the documents needed..and then to get them translated into Spanish..and THEN ! ! to drive 8 hours to Miami, FL (we live in Jacksonville, FL) to the Consulate to have them approved.

There are a lot of sites to you might want to check.  One is: CuencaHighLife.com where there is all sorts of info for you. Connected to that site is one called "The Gringo Tree". There are people on there all the time who are wanting to rent their apt for cheap; or have furniture they want to sell. All kinds of neat things you can rent or buy.

Then, just go into Cuenca.com and that gives you information about the city and surrounding areas.

Let me know if you need anything else, ok? We will try to help you with whatever we have learned over the past year.

Carole and Ray Walter

Hi Carole and Ray

Thank you so much for your reply. very informative and I think we are getting really close to ordering our ticket now thanks to your feedback as well.
Sounds like no matter what we will be ok over there finacially. safety wise as well. We can not do paperwork from our homecountries as it would cost way too much to fly there, stay there, go through the process etc. I hope we can do what we need to do IN ecuador and get documents etc. send via our embassies etc.
We just signed up for the vilcabamba yahoo group. lets see what happens
Thank you so much and we wish you also the best of travels in november.
Josh and Irina

tmac1949 wrote:

villacamba is pricy if you are buying, renting is not so bad. The reason it is pricy, is how nice it is and the weather is great. Cuenca can be cold.  You can rent very cheeply, 200-300 a month, but you will not want to live there. This is a very poor country and people live in some very substandard housing.  Also  there may be security issues with a house, vs a condo with a guard. I would suggest a trip and travel around the country to see. Best of luck.

tom

Hi Tom

thank you for feedback. Much appreciated.
So you think finding a western quality house in vilcabamba is out of the question as its all substandard? Is there no gated communities or something over there for a decent price? 500usd or so?
Its really this area we are interested in but if we can only find low quality houses and its not safe over there without a guard for security is a bit of a problem I must say.

thank you.

Josh and Irina

there are a few gated communities, with good housing, the good rentals are taken quickly, you may be lucky and get one. You can buy an american style home for 150 - 300k. there are very good deals here but they don't grow on trees. As for as security, things will dissapear if left unattended.

so if you got your house locked up and go somewhere you will come home to a broken home? unless its in a gated community?

I thought ecuador was very little crime. maybe I have been reading the websites that wants to paint a more rosy picture.

Hmm

all of latin america uses bars on the windows, there is a reason.
that being said, i see little difference between here and the us. however one must be carefull. Cuenca highlife and gringo tree is owned by david morrow, who ownes cuenca realestate, do the math.

I see. ok. got it.

We live right now in Thailand. also have bars for the windows. you get used to it. if we lock the door and there is bars on the windows we are pretty safe leaving the house.
Would you say robbery is also a issue there?
violence?

You here all kinds of stuff, who know if any of it is true? I have witnessed several situations with drunk indian that were very dangerous and had a friend robbed late at night,all in Cuenca. Like anywhere you must use some common sence. Overall I feel safe but I pay attention to where I am and who is around.

To put it in perspective, there are many places in the states that are very unsafe, day or night.

tom

I have been many places and the only place I felt unsafe was in los angeles.

yes its all about just be a bit sensible and do not go certain places at night etc.

Another area you might consider is Montanita on the coast --  you can rent a place there -- depending on what you require -- from $200 on up. 

You'd probably be best off getting around by bus to start and then pick up a cheap used car from someone who is heading back out -- lots of back pacers who chose to hang out for a few months there so there is a turn over in rentals and cars and such.

Very lay back, lots of fols from around the world backpackers and surfers.

It is my understanding that if you can show you are a legal resident of the United States, then you can apply for an Ecuadorian Visa at the Ecuadorian Consulate near where you live. It would be a real hassle to try to get all your documents and papers notarized once you get downt there.

Good luck and we will see you in Cuenca.

Carole and Ray Walter