I came across these forums when I was searching for info for my mom who wants to retire to somewhere with a lower cost of living. Just to give you an idea what kind of person she is: She's a nurse who spent her entire life helping people get well, holding their hands while they died, etc and she worked from her 20's until 70's so she's earned every penny of her retirement and deserves the best life can offer.
At first Costa Rica was all the buzz, then Panama, and here we are down to Ecuador. When I went searching for info there was a million and one ripoff realtors trying to misdirect me to buy overpriced property. I now know that you can buy land in Ecuador for $10k for about 15 acres which is $666/acre and maybe even less than that for crappy land. I also know the materials and labor for a house cost about $10k. So there you have it people, $20k is what it costs for a house and land.
All the ripoff realtors are asking for $100k to $200k for the same thing. Well you know I can't even sell a house in the US where I live for that much and I'm not a complete idiot so I know it's a ripoff.
If you're already in Ecuador, you might be thinking "Well I got ripped off so I don't care if someone else gets ripped off" or maybe "hey my house value will go up if people keep getting ripped off" or "hey maybe I should get into real estate cause you can make so much money".
If you're stateside you might be thinking "Oh well I can sell my house for $200k and get this one in ecuador" or "oh that's too expensive".
Well here's the way I see it: you can either join together and run these ripoff artists out of town or you can end up like Costa Rica and then you'll have to pack up and move to Peru because you can't afford to live with all the rich gringos moving in next door and raising prices so much that all the locals leave and the only shops left are overpriced.
Right now, I'm going to advise my mom to take a pass on Ecuador. This means one less nurse in your community, and leaves one more opening for another ripoff artist who couldn't hack it in Costa Rica or Panama.
What you all could do instead is post photos of the ripoff artists here and point future expats to reliable realtors who charge a standard percentage within reason. Or do nothing and just let people get ripped off. Up to you.
If each person in ecuador made one blog post about "Ecuador Real Estate" and then told their story and posted a link to this thread it would have a real impact on the search engines and start steering people in the right direction away from the ripoff sites.