Right now my costs look like they should be somewhere below US$30 per square foot, excluding land costs. This value is for a 1500 sq ft house which has an open beam loft ceiling in the Living/dining area and another 640 square feet unfinished in a seconf floor (if I require it later). The house will be with thermopane windows everywhere and above-standard insulation in the roof and walls. Chile has published only ceiling insulation standards so far and I'll be 20% over that. My costs also allow for the extension of the electric line (700 meters) and the installation of a well and septic system. Includes Tempered glass shower and tub enclosures in the bathrooms (very expensive).

This weekend we'll be celebrating the raising of the tijerales (roof rafters). It is a tradition to put on a barbecue for the crew when the first roof rafter is placed.

Looking for land. Started by contacting all the real estate agents in the area telling them what I wanted and asking them to select something close. They all responded by showing me what they had and tried to convince me that it was what I wanted.

There are no licenced agents in Chile, anyone who wants to can set up shop and call themselves a real estate agent. Standards don't exist but there are a few practices which are common. One of these this that both the Buyer and the Seller pay the agent a commission. The amount is commonly 2 or 3 percent of the sales price. Legal expenses are usually shared between buyer and seller but this should be clearly established to avoid surprises or disputes.

I don't particularly like the concept of paying a commission based on the sales price since there is an incentive built in for the agent to look for the most expensive property and keep the price high. (Have an idea for hiring an agent).

Other sources to look for available properties: Watch for signs, very often for sale by owner is possible. Ask in banks, they are required to liquidate any property held in guarantee of loans after a certain time and thus may offer better prices. I recall one property I was considering which had been asking over 6 million pesos per 1/2 hectare offered by a commercial bank for just over 3 million pesos because they were having to dispose of the property or pay penalties for holding it on their books. They dropped the price because there simply hadn't been any movent in this area for more than a year.

Ask people who live in the area you like. In my case, the property I finally bought was discovered simply by asking a person who was out for a stroll if they knew of anyone who might want to sell land in the immediate vicinity. The lady we asked said that she thought her mother might have something to sell so we went to talk to her. In fact, she did want to sell a small parcel but what she wanted to sell was too flat and not what I was looking for, however, I told her what I was looking for and she did have something that she might consider selling. We sent to see it, then started talking over the matter and finally reached an agreement.

There are certain restricted lands in Chile when it comes to sales. One is that lands which belong to or have been inherited from Indigenous lands cannot be sold except to other Indigenous people. Many ingenous schemes have evolved to get around this and while some have been overtuned by new laws, it is still generally possible to purchase indigenous land by trading that land for another property of similar characteristics. For example, you find a pience of indigenous land you like and then buy another similar piece which is not indigenous, perhaps in another ares and trade that piece for the one you want. You may or may not pay extra in addition to the exchange ... that is another part of the negotiation.

Also some pieces of land may not be subdivided below a certain size. Most rural land has a minimum size of 1/2 hectare. Indigenous parcels cannot normally be smaller than 3.5 hectares.
If the piece you want is less than the legal minimum, one way is to purchase a percentage of the undivided piece and write into your agreement details of the part you will use, even though you have an interest in the whole. To understand the concept, think of two persons going in together to purchase a horse. You can't buy half a horse, but you can buy a half-interest in the horse and then decide to have one of the owners use it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the other the other days.

When you purchase a part of a larger piece of land the question may arise as to how you are going to get to your part. This is the right-of-way (in Chile "servidumbre"). Legally you cannot be denied access to what you own, but if you don't establish the right-or-way in the original purchase agreement you may, at a later date, have to pay to have your right-of-way.

As a suggestion, if you are buying a part of a whole, you may want to establish as part of the agreement some agreement as to what use may be made in the future of the other part. For example, how would you like to build your dream home and two years down the road have the space next to you converted into a garbage dump, or a race track, or some other undesirable and obnoxious activity? Put this into the agreement. You might not have any control over what other neighboring properties do, but at least you're protected in the part of which you own an interest.

If you use an agent to facilitate a purchase he should get a certificate which shows if there are any right-of-way registered with respect to the property and also any loans, mortgages, liens or other obligations. This is not always done correctly or completely. You'll want to make certain you have all these certificates in order and to your satisfaction before you complete a purchase and pay out your money.

A great amount of business in Chile is conducted using post-dated cheques. You should know that in Chilean law there is no such thing as a post-dated cheque. As soon as you have a cheque in your hands you can present it for payment and if the date is not expired (but it may be anythime in the future) the bank will process if for payment. If the funds are there, it will be paid, otherwise it will be rejected for lack of funds.

 Most people, in my experience, respect the date on a post-dated check but it is important to know that it is only a custom ... not the law. If you want to make certain a certain payment is not made until a certain promise is kept, and the receiver of the funds wants some guarantee that you won't change your mind in the meantime, the funds may be paid to a Notary Public for release on completion of certain acts. There may be a fee you have to pay for this service, but this can often be negotiated.

All agreements and especially large value purchases like land and houseing need to be Notarized and registered for them to be legally binding. All these registrations take time and have fees that need to be paid. Usually a lawyer is used for these transactions because most people have neither the knowlege or the patience to go through them all.

I've yet to find a lawyer in Chile I'm comfortable with and confident will handle my affairs to my satisfaction. Many lawyers I've met here seem seedy and shady, others are very nice in a non-professional setting but don't follow through when a project is underway. Some, seem very well prepared professionally, they make a demonstrated effort to offer solutions which are to your liking, but fall down in putting the plans into practice.

Keep in mind that lawyers fees are also negotiable and I would advise you to have these established clearly from the beginning. When you go shopping you usually know what something is going to cost before you take it to the cash register. Why be any different with a lawyer? Ask him, "how much is this going to cost me?" But don't stop there, ask also, "Are there any other costs, or fees or taxes that I'm going to have to pay in addition to your fees?" You might also want to ask, when you have a fairly clear and detailed break down of all costs, "What changes would cause any of these costs to increase, or to decrease?"

Siding Changed my mind over using stucco as an exterior finish for the walls and will be using vinyl siding. After calculating all the costs just to get stucco installed and painted there is little cost benefit and over the longer term the vinyl will be maintenance free while stucco will require at least painting and perhaps be subject to cracking and breakage that the vinyl is supposedly free from.

Sheeting:   I had used rough 1 x 10 planks for sheeting the exterior. Yesterday I discovered that a lumber mill close by had 1x4 and 1x5 rough planks of second or third grade (with knots and other imperfections) available for less than 1/2 the cost of the 1x10s I had purchased earlier. I'm kicking myself over not having searched a bit further earlier because this second grade lumber seems to be even drier than the 1x10s and the quality is only slightly less and considering that it is being used as a sub layer the imperfection do's even matter.

Also, for some reason, certain native woods are sold in which the pulgada is calcualted on a plank 3.6 meters long instead or 3.2. My rule of thumb is to base my calculations on the 3.2 meter length when I'm buying or estimating, then I may com up needing less or paying less than I planned, but always check before finalizing a deal if any significant quantity is needed.

Freight Some vendors have trucks and will include delivery in the price, otherwise you may have to contract with a "fletero" which is frequently a person who has a pickup or other truck and are generally found parked close to the entrance or exit to the the building supply place. I've found the whole process to be very informal. I have often simply made a purchase and turn the paid bill over to the fletero to have him load and deliver the goods, usually paying him when he arrives at the job site with the goods. I have in many cases entrusted a complete stranger with 300,000 or 400,000 pesos of merchadise on the promise of paying him 5,000 or 10,000 when he arrives. How easy it would be for him to simply take the goods and run. Maybe in a big city, this does happen, but in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, it's unlikely. If you feel uncomfortable, get the licecence number, name etc, before entrusting your purchase to someone and you might even want to accompany the vehicle to make sure nothing gets lost if you have a lot of small items.

Example of siding, I ran out of J extrusions and ordered them the friday 19 december, before Christmas, there were not enough in the nearest warehouse in Temuco and with the holidays and other delays, they were not delivered until after new years. Over Christmas and new years my workers took an extended holiday without giving me any advance notice. In this case they left on new year's eve and didn't turn up for work until Mondays January 5th. It is quite common in Chile for people to "make a sandwich" whenever a holiday falls near a weekend and take off the days between the holiday and the weekend. In this case the concept of "near" was interpreted very liberally: New Year fell on Wednesday.

Extreme differences in prices for similar work. I asked a sheet metal shop(hojalataria) for a price to install my metal fireplace. One bid 210,000 pesos (plus sales tax of 19%), another offered to do the same job, plus some extras for less than 60,000. Sometimes you get the feeling that being a "gingo" is simply a licence for somepeople to charge exorbitant prices, but there are people who will charge those kind of prices whenever they see the opportunity to do so and it doesen't matter a bit whether they are charging gringos or others.

At the same time you have to realize that if you agree to pay such without looking around for other alternatives you have no one to blame but yourself. Just as there are people around who are looking for every chance they have to overcharge, there are also people who will charge a fair price. Just be careful that you also know that you are getting good quality. Sometimes a low price is justified by low quality, and a high price is justified by getting much more value.