The design phase can take 3 months. It might be longer if I have many comments. After that it takes about a month to send the detailed construction plans to several builders, and than wait for their bids and choose the selected builder.

In the current timing it seems that the building can start in October, however October is the the roughest month in the year in terms of rainfall. Since the early stages of construction involve
site work and excavation for footings, building won’t start before November 1st.

From a financial point of view I rather have the design phase take a bit longer and ensure the construction phase takes less, since my loan jumps up when the construction begins. According to Roy (and common sense) having a more solid and concrete design would ensure smoother build process…

I’m putting November 1st as the start date for construction, while mentally noting that in projects like this there are always some shift in schedules.

It’s very exciting to see the lot so luscious and green. Back when I was there there was a lot of green around, but since it was the “dry season” I couldn’t appreciate how green the place is after some rains. It looks like a real jungle!

M25 -- view from the road

M25 -- view from the road – 21-Feb-2010

The cut were talking about is leveling the ground down to the height of the road. When the camera is tilting towards the south (11th second) it’s easy to see that the car is standing about 2.5 meters above the road. The plan is to cut down to that height to allow a bigger building area for the house.

More than three months have passed since I arrived to Nicaragua

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I’ll give it a good look and send my feedback soon.

It’s been three months since I’ve arrived to Nicaragua and first lay eyes on lot M-25. Back when I made my final decision I thought it would be much faster to close the deal, since the contract cover both the land purchase and the financing for both the lot and the build phase I feel pretty good about the time it took the whole thing took.

When I visited Nicaragua back on February I’ve met with a local law firm that would serve as my legal proxy for signing all the legal documents. That would allow me to do almost anything without having to arrive to Nicaragua.

Back in mid April I received the first draft of the documents. Since than I was working with the Nicaraguan lawyer to comment and fix it, and now with the updated lot size everything seems to be ready to sign.

I must add that the developer was very accommodating during this process. I don’t think I had any unreasonable change requests but I always get a feeling from working with Marc and the other people of Rancho Santana that they are genuinely trying to make thing done!

I will have my lawyer to sign in my name and start liquidating some other investments to have the initial payment wired.

I’ve interviewed people for many high tech positions in the past but never for an architect position. I’ve looked around the web for some advice on the matter and equipped with that and my own expectations I talked with both of them.

Both had good English and I was able to have a good conversation with both. After talking to both I decided to go with Mrs. Maria Huezo.I felt our communication was very good, and I felt that her relatively young company would be dedicated to the project and will be able to provide a good quality design in a timely fashion. She has just finished the design on another house in Rancho Santana and Roy said that she was very attentive and provided many excellent design documents.

Maria has already visited the lot prior to our conversation so I was able to describe to her my general direction. I’ve asked her to send me a contract and I promised to write down a “brief” of my expectations.

– 19-May-2010

Comparing this to the way the lot looked when I was there, I begin to understand why they called it “the dry season” back in February…

Rancho Santana, Nicaragua – 21-Feb-2010