DIY Gardening

If airlift is the key to the second home door, then El Salvador is the best bargain on the street. It may look like a fixer upper because of the country’s history with hurricanes, earthquakes, war and poverty but its main airport – now the hub of all of Central America soon will be hosting more than 2.5 million passengers a year – is 20 minutes from the region’s Costa del Sol and some of the finest beaches on the West Coast. If there is one single amenity that drives second half traffic it is waterfront property and El Salvador has 200 miles of Pacific Ocean coastline that few North Americans have ever seen, let alone researched for a real estate purchase.

El Salvador, from the Spanish word “The Savior”, is bordered by Guatemala on the west, by Honduras at the north, by Nicaragua and the Gulf of Fonseca on the East, and by the Pacific Ocean on the South. It is the smallest country in Central America, and has the highest density of population in the region and has the second largest U.S. Embassy in the world. The distance between San Salvador and neighbor capital cities of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua is about the same (4-hour drive). Approximately 70 percent of the regional commerce is concentrated in these four countries.

TACA International Airlines, owned by a Salvadorian family, operates about 65 percent of all the traffic in and out of the El Salvador International Airport also known as Comalapa International Airport. TACA, which is expanding its hub in El Salvador, provides non-stop service to San Salvador from Toronto, New York, Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago and recently purchased a string of regional carriers that will provide additional flights within Central America and the Caribbean. Delta (Atlanta), United, Continental (Houston) and American also provide direct flights to the country’s capital city.

Compared to U.S. coastal communities, homes in El Salvador are an absolute bargain. For example, Joan Rich Mantecón, a San Francisco Bay-area Realtor who specializes in international second homes (www.internationaldwellings.com), had listed for sale a five-bedroom, three-bathroom home on the beach at Playa San Diego, south of La Libertad, in May, 2007. This fully air-conditioned house had been painted inside and out in 2004, had two swimming pools and Jacuzzi, a five-room servant-renter quarters, large gazebo for hammocks, outdoor BBQ and enough room to park five cars in the backyard. This property is 20 minutes away from the airport and also 20 minutes away from Santa Tecla where there is a Costco and various malls. There’s a seafood restaurant on the beach only steps away and the home’s caretakers live across the street. Price? $325,000.