I went down a “rabbit hole” (economic deep dive)

Hey guys, Mikkel here,

There is a fairly simple question I ask myself before committing meaningful capital to another country:

Who else is willing to make a long-term bet on this place?

I don’t mean a few real estate investors buying near a growing area and hoping the market moves in their favour.

I mean businesses building factories that will take years to generate a return, multinational companies hiring and training hundreds of employees, sophisticated manufacturers integrating a country into global supply chains, and traditionally risk-averse institutional capital that could otherwise deploy its money into “developed” markets.

When I look at what is happening in Costa Rica, I see several serious signals pointing toward the same conclusion: this is a country attracting long-term confidence from capital, businesses, and families.

The country's citizens are becoming wealthier, its economy is becoming more sophisticated,  foreign companies are investing billions of dollars, existing investors are reinvesting at increasing rates, and international businesses operating in some of the world's most demanding industries are increasingly making long-term commitments there.

In 2025, the World Bank officially classified Costa Rica as a high-income economy.

Now, the classification itself needs some context because crossing the World Bank's income threshold certainly doesn't mean everyone in Costa Rica is now wealthy (nor does it mean the country no longer has its challenges). 

What matters considerably more to me is the two decades of economic progress that got Costa Rica there…

Between 2004 and 2024, income per person increased by an average of roughly 3% annually, helping Costa Rica steadily climb through the World Bank's income classifications until eventually reaching the highest category.

Twenty years.

Economies can produce impressive numbers over short periods for all sorts of temporary reasons, whether commodity prices spike, currencies fluctuate, governments spend enormous amounts of borrowed money, tourism experiences an exceptional year, or a major investment temporarily distorts the numbers… to name a few.

However, sustaining meaningful improvements in income per person over two decades requires fundamental growth.

Productivity has to improve, businesses have to invest, workers have to become more valuable, and the economy itself has to become capable of producing increasingly valuable goods and services.

If your mental image of the Costa Rican economy is still bananas, coffee, beaches and American retirees escaping winter, you're looking at a version of the country that increasingly fails to explain where its economic growth is actually coming from.

Costa Rica has developed a sophisticated advanced-manufacturing economy built around industries including medical devices, precision manufacturing and advanced technology products.

The nature of those industries is relevant for a variety of reasons.

A banana plantation can only operate where bananas grow, and a luxury resort naturally needs to locate itself somewhere tourists actually want to visit, whereas a multinational medical-device or advanced-manufacturing company has considerably more choice.

Before spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, a multinational can compare labour forces, tax policies, infrastructure, political environments, operating costs, access to international markets and the reliability of supply chains across multiple jurisdictions.

…and once it commits, it needs that jurisdiction to continue functioning as a stable base over the long-term.

These companies operate under strict international standards, employ skilled workers, manage complicated global supply chains and build facilities that can require substantial upfront investment before producing a return.

They are placing multi-year bets completely separate from whether the country has beautiful weather or nice beaches.

Major companies need political stability, reliable institutions, predictable operating conditions and confidence that the country will remain a viable place to do business over the long term.

They need enough confidence in the future to make decisions whose economics may not fully play out for decades (or longer). 

Understanding what makes businesses choose Costa Rica is an extremely useful signal for people like us because, although our objectives may be completely different from those of a multinational medical-device company, many of the qualities we're looking for in a jurisdiction are shockingly similar.

We want functioning institutions, reliable infrastructure, access to international markets, respect for private property and enough economic and political stability to make plans measured in decades, too.

Costa Rica is increasingly producing compelling answers on all of those fronts.

Let’s get into it,

For the second consecutive year, Costa Rica attracted more than $5 billion USD in foreign direct investment.

The country crossed that threshold in 2024… and then did it again in 2025. 

For a country of roughly five million people, that's a substantial amount of international capital arriving every year.

…and the comparison with the rest of Central America makes the scale easier to appreciate.

El Salvador has become one of the most talked-about jurisdictions in our world over the past several years, attracting enormous attention for its bullish stance on Bitcoin, President Bukele's security improvements and its international repositioning as a place for freedom-seeking families and entrepreneurs keen to participate in the country's growth.

Yet El Salvador reportedly attracted approximately $475 million in foreign direct investment during 2025.

Costa Rica attracted more than $5.1 billion.

That's nearly eleven times as much foreign direct investment flowing into Costa Rica in a single year.

I'm not pointing that out to criticize El Salvador because I think some very interesting things are happening there, and I want more countries and leaders competing aggressively for international people and capital.

I'm pointing it out because headlines and capital flows don't always tell the same story.

Capital tells you where serious investors are placing their bets… headlines tell you where everyone else is looking.

When I'm deciding where to put my own money, I put more weight on where capital is actually flowing. 

Of course, this isn't binary.

There have certainly been times when I've made high-conviction moves based on my own analysis that the macro data didn't support at the time. 

There’s something even more compelling buried inside Costa Rica’s foreign direct investment numbers than the $5.1 billion headline figure.

…it’s the fact that capital reinvestment increased by 26%.

New foreign investment tells you somebody examined Costa Rica from the outside and decided the opportunity justified entering the country.

Reinvestment tells you somebody already inside Costa Rica experienced the reality and decided to commit even more capital.

This is not just new capital being deployed into the country to “test the waters.”

This is the capital already inside Costa Rica choosing to stay, expand and commit more deeply.

Those are businesses and investors that have already dealt with the labour force, operated within the legal environment, paid taxes, interacted with the banking system, and navigated the bureaucracy.

They've experienced firsthand what it actually means to deploy capital and operate inside Costa Rica… and after that experience, they checked “yes” and committed even more capital.

They know what works, what doesn't, and where the frustrations lie, which means they are making those reinvestment decisions with considerably better information than somebody evaluating Costa Rica for the first time from a boardroom outside the country.

Simply put, they aren't betting on what Costa Rica might be… they're reinvesting based on what they've already experienced.

To me, that is one of the strongest votes of confidence a country can receive.

Capital has options - a multinational company doesn't have to reinvest its next dollar in the same jurisdiction where it deployed the previous one. 

It can move production, expand somewhere else, allocate its next factory to another country or hire its next thousand workers in a jurisdiction offering more attractive conditions. When existing investors repeatedly choose to deepen their commitment, it is a major vote of confidence that I pay close attention to.

Across Canada, the United States and much of Western Europe, productive businesses and successful families are being asked to absorb higher taxes, greater regulatory complexity, expanding bureaucracy and governments that increasingly seem to assume capital will simply remain where it has always been.

That assumption becomes increasingly dangerous in a world where capital, businesses and people have more geographical choices than ever before.

Smart governments are competing for the same businesses, investment, skilled workers, entrepreneurs and successful families that have the freedom and means to decide where they want to build their futures.

The people and companies with the greatest ability to move are paying attention to which jurisdictions appear to be moving forward and which ones are making it progressively harder to build, invest and preserve wealth.

Smart money searches for higher ground.

Smart families should be doing exactly the same.

For decades, Costa Rica has occupied an unusual position in Latin America, with political stability, established institutions, extraordinary natural beauty, proximity to North America and one of the longest track records in the region of attracting international residents.

When I evaluate somewhere to establish another base for my family, I'm not willing to accept dysfunction simply because I have the opportunity to buy land or secure residency there.

Stability comes first.

…and by stability, I mean more than just the economic and political makeup of a jurisdiction.

I want stability in the elements of the real world that are becoming far less reliable, and thus more of a real-world, 21st-century concern for informed people like you and me. 

I want enough land, water, energy security and resilience to reduce the number of outside systems my family absolutely depends upon, while remaining connected to functioning institutions, international markets, healthcare, infrastructure and a growing economy.

…and when seeking this combination of elements, the world starts getting quite small…

This is one of the many reasons I have become so deeply involved in building the Veritas Villages communities.

After establishing Veritas communities in Panama and Nicaragua, my partners and I began looking at Costa Rica with a very specific objective.

We wanted to take everything we believe about resilience, independence and long-term property ownership and establish it inside a country whose economic trajectory gave us confidence in where it was heading.

We wanted the independence that comes from owning land and creating greater control over your water, energy and immediate surroundings, without sacrificing access to a functioning economy, strong institutions, international connectivity and everything else that makes a country attractive over the long term.

We were not willing to pick a pretty piece of land and declare victory. 

My partners spent years conducting an exhaustive search across Costa Rica, hiking through remote hills, creeks, and jungles.

That search led us to Atenas, Costa Rica.

…and this is where everything I've spent this newsletter discussing becomes directly relevant to what we're building there.

As Costa Rica continues to attract businesses, international capital, and successful families, demand will grow for well-positioned land in stable jurisdictions that lets people build greater independence without disconnecting from the economic growth around them.

You don't have to choose between greater self-reliance and living inside a country that's moving forward; at Veritas Atenas, we're building around the belief that you can have both.

Veritas Atenas is a 340+ acre master-planned community in Costa Rica's Central Valley, located near the small town of Atenas (approximately 30 or 35 minutes from San José International Airport). 

Atenas sits between San José and the Pacific coast, meaning you can live surrounded by mountains and nature while remaining within reach of the capital, the airport, hospitals, international schools and some of Costa Rica’s more desirable Pacific beaches.

That broader Atenas location checked a lot of boxes for us… but it was the property itself that ultimately convinced us we had found the right place.

The sheer scale and diversity of the land we ultimately decided to build our Village on gave us an enormous amount to work with: 138 hectares, or more than 340 acres, spread across elevations ranging from approximately 425 to 710 metres, three different climate zones and enough space to eventually accommodate more than 450 homesites. 

The property itself is remarkable, with two year-round creeks, multiple waterfalls, a 25-acre working coffee plantation, open agricultural and equestrian land, and more than 150 mature mango trees already growing throughout it, giving us a considerable head start on the orchards, gardens and food-production systems we will be incorporating into the community.

We're effectively building a small freedom-oriented village in the Costa Rican countryside designed around the same fundamental principles behind every Veritas community we develop: larger properties, greater self-reliance, independent water and energy systems, food production, a real like-minded community, long-term security and enough space to build a home that can become a long-term base for your family.

In addition to the God-given characteristics that make the land itself so special, the master plan adds another layer entirely, with planned amenities including hiking and mountain-bike trails, additional community orchards and gardens, a fitness and wellness centre, padel and tennis courts, restaurants, a grocery store, cafés, a coffee roastery, playgrounds and other community gathering spaces.

If you visit Veritas Atenas today, you'd be arriving at the very beginning of something that will look completely different a year from now, again two years from now, and continue evolving until the community is fully built out roughly a decade from today.

Today, you’re looking at the raw ingredients of what we will turn into a community filled with hundreds of families.

If we hadn't already begun proving that this model can work elsewhere, you'd be perfectly justified in wondering whether we're biting off more than we can chew.

That's why I want to show you what's already happening at Veritas Coronado right now. 

When we first started showing people the blank slate of land we're now well into developing in Panama (Coronado), it took imagination and a fair amount of faith to understand what we were going to create.

Today, 2 homes have been completed, another 15 are under construction, and 70 families have already purchased property inside the original 87-lot community, which is now effectively fully allocated after you factor in the lots that have been reserved by members of the Veritas management team, myself included (I am going to build a home of my own in both Coronado and Atenas).   

When we first set out to turn a large piece of the Panamanian highlands into a livable, self-reliant community, plenty of people thought we were crazy.

Today, the question is no longer whether we can take empty land and begin turning it into a functioning Veritas community.

We're doing it.

That's one of the realities of getting into a development at an early stage: you don't get to wait until every road is finished, every home is standing, the landscaping has matured, and the community has become obvious to everybody while simultaneously expecting the same access and economics available to those who were willing to understand the vision earlier.

Those two things rarely coexist.

…and that brings me back to Atenas, Costa Rica. 

Veritas Atenas is a long-term project with an anticipated development timeline of approximately 10 years.

Different phases will be released over time; infrastructure will be completed along the way; homes will begin appearing throughout the property, and what you see there in five or ten years will look dramatically different from what you see today.

Because of my position as a board member at Autris, the parent company behind Veritas Villages, I was able to secure access to the first release inside Phase One of Veritas Atenas before these properties were offered to the general public.

As I already mentioned, the entire Atenas master plan contains more than 450 homesites.

Phase One contains just 46.

During and immediately following the special presentation I hosted this summer alongside Autris Founder & CEO Patrick Hiebert, 16 properties were reserved through our community.

Sixteen reservations may not sound like a huge number, particularly when many of you are familiar with the other projects we launch in markets that lean more toward the “asset” end of the spectrum.

Inside Atenas, we’re not selling units inside an office tower in Paraguay or hotel-style beachfront units in Brazil that are positioned to generate monthly cash flow…

We’re talking about 16 pieces of land inside the first release of a community designed for families who actually intend to build homes and establish themselves there.

Those reservations represent 16 different families (17 including myself) who looked at a massive project in its earliest stage of development, understood what we are building toward, looked at what this team is already doing through Latin America and said: “I want in.”

Every homesite inside Phase One is different (the map below should make that abundantly clear).

Each is a unique piece of land shaped by the terrain.

That's one of many reasons families from our community moved quickly when the first release inside Atenas became available.

Phase One includes homesites ranging from approximately 1/8 acre to more than 1/2 acre, with prices from $139,200 to $341,020 USD, depending on size, positioning, and views.

We’re talking about individual homesites ranging from roughly 544 square metres at the smaller end to 2,371 square metres at the larger end, with different topography, positioning and views throughout the first phase.

So when you're choosing a property here, you're not simply deciding how much land you want… you’re choosing the actual piece of Costa Rica you may eventually build your home on.

For those 16 families, the first step was relatively simple.

They placed a $10,000 USD reservation deposit to secure their place in line (the order in which they will be called upon to select their choice lot),  after which the Veritas team began working with each family to determine which available homesite best suited what they were looking for. 

The objective is normally to have the sales agreement signed within approximately 30 days, but we're dealing with unique pieces of land and families making a significant long-term decision, so we have some flexibility built into that timeline.

As long as everyone is moving forward in good faith toward executing the sales agreement, the team won't force anyone to decide simply because 30 days have passed.

You don't necessarily have to pay for the land in one lump sum either.

Buyers inside Atenas can spread the purchase price across monthly payments for up to 12 months at 0% interest; however, if you opt for a longer payment period, the team will work with you on an extended payment schedule at an agreed-upon interest rate.

Once you've purchased your property, you also aren't required to start building immediately.

You have up to two years to begin construction, giving you time to work through your home design and determine exactly how Costa Rica fits into your family's plans.

Maybe you want to build relatively quickly.

Maybe this will become your retirement home several years from now.

Maybe it's the place you eventually spend six months of every year.

Or maybe you simply want to secure the land today, continue living your life exactly as you are, and know that another option is sitting there if and when you need it.

Right now, we're at the beginning of Veritas Atenas, inside a country attracting international capital and becoming considerably more economically sophisticated at the same time we're building something specifically designed to give families greater resilience, independence and control.

We're not building this community for people who want to buy a plot today, leave it sitting empty for six years and sell it for a profit when the value rises. 

Will the underlying land appreciate over time as Atenas develops and the village takes shape?

I certainly think so. 

Atenas already has one of Costa Rica's more established real estate markets, with consistent demand from foreign retirees and international residents drawn to its climate, accessibility and lifestyle (particularly for the kind of detached homes we're ultimately building inside Veritas). 

…but that's not the purpose of this project.

We're selling land to families who intend to build homes and use them.

Atenas is for families who want another place in the world where they can establish themselves, whether that eventually means living there permanently, spending several months each year in Costa Rica, retiring there, creating somewhere their children and grandchildren can visit, or simply knowing that another home exists if circumstances back home ever make that option considerably more important.

Once you decide Veritas Atenas is something you want to explore seriously, the process to get the ball rolling is straightforward.

First things first: send an email to my partners at [email protected] with your name, phone number, and a few times that work for you to speak (we ask that you do this so you aren't spending the next week going back and forth trying to coordinate schedules). 

They'll walk you through the remaining Phase One inventory, property map, current pricing and characteristics of the individual homesites, then help you determine which available piece of land makes the most sense for your family and your vision of the future. 

Once you've selected and reserved your property, the conversation shifts from choosing the land to creating the home that will eventually sit on it (you have two years to begin construction, so you aren't being rushed into making every decision immediately). 

Plus, purchasing inside Veritas Atenas doesn't lock you into one or two predetermined designs.

We already have a vast collection of Veritas home models available, including new models designed specifically for the Atenas site. 

If one of our existing models fits what you're looking for, fantastic.

If you want something completely different, you can work with our architects and design team to create a custom home, or bring your own architect and develop something specifically around your homesite, your family, and how you intend to use the property.

Regardless of which direction you take, we're talking about high-quality permanent homes designed to become genuine long-term residences, with the same emphasis on resilience and independence that runs throughout the entire Veritas ethos.

Are you planning to live there full-time?

Will this be somewhere you spend three or four months every year?

Are you building for two people or an entire family?

Do you expect children and grandchildren to visit?

What matters most to you in terms of space, privacy, resilience and how the property functions?

The home should reflect the life you're actually planning to live there, and we have a range of home models designed to accommodate very different answers to those questions.

That's ultimately what we're trying to create here: a freedom-oriented community filled with people who deliberately chose Costa Rica as part of their family's future and who share many of the same concerns and desires that brought us there in the first place.

The economics I've discussed in this newsletter explain why I believe Costa Rica deserves serious attention…

Veritas Atenas is our way of giving families just like ours a place inside it. 

If you want to see the remaining Phase One properties, current pricing, property map, home models and exactly how the process works, send an email right now to [email protected].

My partners will show you what remains and help you determine whether one of those properties makes sense for your family.

We're early, but that's precisely the point.

Speak soon,
Mikkel