Who writes this guide
Amy Prisco
Licensed in Ecuador since 2010, resident since 2007. These guides exist because most of the questions that decide a move are the ones a listing never answers.
Why this site is not a property catalogue
I moved to Ecuador from New York in 2007 with two suitcases and a one-way ticket, and I have worked in Ecuadorian real estate since 2008. In that time I have watched the same pattern repeat: someone falls for a view, a price, or a photograph, and only afterwards discovers the road, the water supply, the altitude, or the distance to the care they actually need.
Those discoveries are rarely dramatic. They are ordinary — a steep walk that stops being charming in the rain, an appointment that turns into a half-day round trip, a house that is colder inside than the weather suggests. They are also entirely findable in advance, by anyone willing to spend an ordinary Tuesday testing them.
That is the whole purpose of this site. It is written for the part of the decision that happens before a property is ever worth looking at.
What my background does and does not qualify me to say
My finance background — an MBA and years working in compliance and operations in New York — shaped how I read a transaction: verify the record, understand who is representing whom, and be precise about what has actually been confirmed. My licence and years in the country mean I can tell you how a process usually works in practice, and where foreign buyers are most often caught out.
It does not make me your lawyer, your doctor, your accountant, or your surveyor. Ecuadorian law changes, medical needs are personal, and every parcel of land is its own case. Where those matter, this site tells you what to ask and who to ask, and then it stops.
Verifiable credentials
- Ecuadorian real estate licence
- No. 166-G, issued 2010 and current
- Resident of Ecuador
- Relocated from New York in 2007; working in Ecuadorian real estate since 2008
- MBA
- Finance
- Network membership
- Leading Real Estate Companies of the World
- Earlier career
- Financial services in New York, including FINRA Series 7, 63 and 65 (no longer current)
Languages: English and Spanish. Licence status can be confirmed through Ecuadorian authorities; please tell us if anything listed here is out of date.
How to hold this site accountable
Every core guide carries a named reviewer, a review date, and a source list. If a figure is stale, a procedure has changed, or a claim is wrong, that is a correction we want to make and publish — not an argument to win.