I have been looking into what it takes to get a residency visa in Ecuador and it appears to be pretty straight forward. Here is a good article over at escape artist. http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/75/Ecuador_Investing.html The article was printend in October 2005 so I am not sure what has changed between now and then.
Essentially you need $25,000 that can be used to purchase property or deposited into a bank.