Only of couple countries pop up on Google when Searching "Cheap land in a tropical country". For us the 3 countries were Borneo, Philippines , and Nicaragua. For us as Canadians, we chose the closest spot Nicaragua. Also for us, Nicaragua seemed like the best choice of the 3 countries. We were noticing that a lot of beachfront properties were priced online for 20k-50k for big parcels. We had to go see for ourselves.
We booked a flight and we found ourselves in Nicaragua 2 weeks later
!
First thing we did was contact the people that we had found online who sold real estate in the area. We went to Real Estate Company who had been established for only a couple years at the time, and were given a tour to a few properties around the area. It was a great experience to not only see the properties that we wanted but other properties too . What we began to noticed was that the properties we were shown were double or triple the price than what we had seen online.
We continued to search with other companies but could not find anything for the price we wanted. Our last night in the area we ran into a guy from California building a restaurant with his crew, he asked us what we were looking for and told him what we wanted. He said don't go to the real estate companies, you have to talk to the locals. We took us around to a couple local families he knew selling property, and it was the same property we saw with the real estate company but 1/2 the price if we bought with the family. They said they offered the same amount to us as the real estate companies.
We were very happy and decided the make the purchase with the family for a fraction of the cost!