What CFA123 said! And more!
Look. This is a very, very difficult environment to "invest" in but a very easy one to dump money in and never see any of it only back.
Most condos and apartments are being peddled with the suggestion and at times even promise that they will generate almost immediate and "guaranteed", sure fire income in double digit percentages.
And then, the country is littered with warning signs... abandoned condos, sometimes whole buildings and/or developments.
While mostly Americans are impressed to find full concrete buildings here instead of the chip board and drywall castles most of them would know from "back home", they tend to overlook the fact that most are poorly build and almost immediately upon completion start to suffer, even decay from the humidity and salinity of this tropical environment. It takes a LOT of maintenance to keep these buildings, of which many have been built with a blatant disrespect of physics and basic construction rules, looking nice and rentable and functioning (plumbing, wiring, etc).
Then, there is the power issue and it's costs.
Finally, most condo buildings turn out to be owned by mostly absentee owners, so the buildings or complexes have to be "managed", often by the same people who peddle them around, again and again for commissions and "arrange" for the rental income and repairs. Most will turn out to be "on the take" at every step, further inflating the costs and diminishing any incomes. Some of these managements have turned out to be downright criminal, not declaring rental income at all, claiming repairs which were not needed or performed in a different unit if at all, etc.
At the end of the day, most who sell, sell because their balance sheet may have a double digit percentage number but as a negative "income".
The only people who seem to have a chance at consistently making real money in this environment, have LIVED here for several years before they got into "investing", know which neighborhoods have potential and which not, and not just from "broker" recommendations but from seeing and are able to manage their properties themselves, even doing minor and sometimes not so minor repairs themselves and handling their tenants directly (often with an own web page in addition to placing ads in rental-web sites.).
Short, it's a job. It takes regional knowledge which your question alone seem to indicate you don't yet have, rock solid nerves, good local connections to contractors and a fine lawyer as well as a good command of the Spanish language.
... J-D.
