The Construction and Housing Expo, or Expo Construcción, brought together sellers and would-be buyers of home appliances, construction materials and building related services Wednesday through Sunday in San Antonio de Belen in Heredia. Under the same roof, visitors to the fair could find doorknobs, showerheads, solar water heaters, refrigerators, floor tiles, plumbing materials and even luxury items such as hot tubs.

But in the center of the sprawl of displays sat the most essential stands for realizing home ownership and remodeling dreams: those of the banks. Just off the main entrance to the Expo, several public and private banks, including Banco Nacional, Banco de Costa Rica (BCR), HSBC, Banco Popular and BAC, were promoting their limited-time-only housing and construction financing deals. Of the five banks interviewed by the Tico Times, each claimed to offer home construction financing for at least 80 percent of the cost of the project for terms of up to 30 years, with BCR and Banco Nacional offering 100 percent financing.

“We want to offer premiums to people who are looking to buy or build a home,” said Olman Fallas, the sales and customer service manager at BCR. “We are coming out of a recession year and a lot of people are just starting to regain their footing financially. What we aim to do is offer a plan that will help them reestablish stability over the long term.”

The financing offers are accompanied by discounted interest rates in both dollars and colones. The offerings vary among the banks, but in general include very low interest rates over the first one to three years of a mortgage, with incremental growth beginning in year four or five. The initial interest rates on financing on offer range between 2 and 7 percent in colones and 3.5 to 8 percent in dollars.

For more on this story, see the April 23 print or digital edition of the Tico Times.