天美麻豆

@atomusiak

I didn鈥檛 actually build my house, but I had one built. My mother-in-law hired out all the contractors and it was built the typical Panamanian style. It all depends on what type of house you want and what specifications you are looking for. Building houses is a very broad statement. You can build a shack or you can build a mansion. Building a house is the same and every country if you鈥檙e building the same house.

I'm planning to build a house in a European style, single-story, with large windows. I already have a construction company, but I'm looking for a reliable supplier of aluminum windows and interior doors. Unfortunately, there are very few reviews of manufacturers online, so I'm looking for someone based on recommendations.

I have had good experiences with Cochez. They seem to have things that other companies do not have. If you can not find it there or Do-it Center then you will need to look for a specialty store of which you might find in David or Panama City. Occasionally you can find these things in the small Ferreterias but they are hit and miss. Panamanian people generally do not comment on the websites like other more developed country people do. Plan on doing some driving around or pay your contractor to drive around for you. One of my favorite places to find things that are not mainstream in Panama is Discovery Center in Panama City. They have a good size inventory of things you will not find anywhere else.聽 Since you are from Poland, I cannot compare to the stores you have there. I am from US and am not familiar with European structures.

@atomusiak

Yes I do. I have built 3 dfferent buildings since 2010, the last one in 2019. For two of them I worked with Panamanian contractors, and each time the experience was bad. In both cases I thought I had made a safe contract, with 10% of total only to be paid after satisfied receipt of the contstruction, but in both cases the contractors dis not finish the contruction because they had consumed the money without reaching the milestones, and preferred to to leave instead of paying their workers more than the remaining 10% to finish the work. My lesson is, although laws exist, suing someone in Panama costs generally more than it's worth, and contracts are useless if one side is not willing to respect them. The big adavantage of building instead of buying is a) that you get the house that you have envisioned and not some compromise. In theory it is often also cheaper than buying a built house as there are no middlemen or extra profits of sellers who try to get the most out of the market.

But this works only if you have an excellent and wiedely recommended contractor.