Hi Warren, welcome to the forum!
The most foreign friendly bank at the moment is ScotiaBank, which is a Canadian bank operating here. Even so, they are not overly friendly, if you know what I mean.
I went there last week to see about a loan for building a guest cabin on my property. I have been a legal resident since 1995 and was willing to put up 2800m2 property with a 200m2 house on a construction loan for a 50m2 2 bedroom guest house. Once built, I would pay the loan from rental income.
They said they couldn't do it! Since it was an investment property it would have to be a commercial loan with the other property as a guarantee, and they don't do those kinds of loans!
However if I was buying my home, they can loan up to 90% of the appraised value. There are many local banks and companies loaning money for debt consolidation, so they said I could check with them. You can see that as a foreign investor it will be difficult to leverage your capital, without being a legal resident.
All is not lost, however! I would say that you could have the possibility to take advantage of owner financing. See this topic for some rates and links to articles about mortgages in Costa Rica:
Costa Rica Mortgage topicI would advise you to go slowly, but if you came across the right property and the right owner, you could probably come up with a decent amount of short term financing from the owner, which would take you through the time you are establishing your residency.
