Alexandra Bentley – St. Croix Realtor

Hey, my first post. I usually let my wife write these entries, but I wanted to take a moment to recognize and recommend an excellent Realtor in St. Croix, Alexandra Bentley. I figured she deserved her own post. My wife mentioned throughout this blog’s short life we started looking online at properties in February 2006 after a trip to St. Croix and the rest of the Virgin Islands. We stumbled upon “the board” shortly after and found Alexandra replying to posts with super detailed information without every trying to blatantly sell her Realtor service. So we began emailing her for information regarding certain real estate we had found online, and of course she provided detailed information along with her opinions of the property (ie “those lots are quite steep and would be a challenge to build on”). We then scheduled a trip for July of last year to look at vacant lots (both waterfront and non-waterfront lots) and were pleased with what we found but frustrated with the prices. At the time they seemed pretty high especially because we were carrying two mortgages. Alexandra spent an entire day driving us around all parts of the island.

Things didn’t work out last summer (read previous posts) but in January we started seeing some listings show up that were “interesting”. Alexandra would email us the listing the day they came on the market. The first one was a “too good to be true” lot in which I purchased a plane ticket to fly down and see, however, the next day the lot already had a contract on it. Trip canceled.

The next week while we were in Belize for vacation we got a call from Alexandra telling us about a large waterfront property with some issues. The struggles we went through to get contract offers signed and faxed would have made for some good “third-world technology” jokes. I am sure Alexandra was as frustrated as we were when 5 offers came in on the first day. We raised our offer price to 25% above listing. They didn’t accept our offer. In the end this was probably for the best.

At the end of February Alexandra emailed a listing to us. We had an offer in by noon on the first day of the listing at slightly under listing price. The listing price was high but after missing out on several properties (including one that we really wanted last summer) we were at the point of “just pay it”. Anyway, after a trip down to St. Croix and meeting with Alexandra and the listing agent, I flew home happy with the lot. The appraiser was not as happy with the lot and appraised it for 5% less than our contract price. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, however, we were approaching the final day of our mortgage contingency period and needed to figure out a way to come up with the additional 5% down payment because the bank would not finance the full amount, only the appraised amount. At this point our lake house hadn’t sold. Alexandra went out of her way to make things work out with the listing agent and seller, but in the end the seller wouldn’t budge even 1%.

We found out Saturday that the sellers wouldn’t help out and had until Tuesday to cancel the offer or risk our earnest money. Monday morning is where Alexandra truly shined. She knew we were stretching our budget and when a different property seven lots away and almost 15% cheaper came on the market Monday morning she did not hesitate to send the listing our way even though she knew her commission would be reduced and it would take much longer for her to get paid. By noon we had rescinded our previous offer (if the seller only knew all he had to do was come down 1% to make it work) and had an offer accepted on the other lot. Thank you Alexandra Bentley.

Alexandra was great throughout the whole process and I cannot recommend her enough. She was available at all hours of the day answering our calls and our emails. Hopefully it was worth it for her.

Dealing with Scotiabank who changed the terms on us at the last minute (a 15 year loan to a 5 year loan) is a story for another day.

Thank you Alexandra.

We Did It – We Now Own a Piece of St. Croix Property!

We finally closed on the land. We got an email from our attorney the day before we were supposed to close saying that they had not yet received the deed from the seller and the closing would have to be pushed back one week. Then a couple of days later, we got another email asking us to wire our money to our attorney because we would be closing on Friday instead of Tuesday. No explanation why, but we didn’t care. We were just glad to get this first step out of the way.

Now that we have finally closed, the realization is setting in: what are the next couple of years of our lives going to be like? Will we be able to survive building a home over two thousand miles away? Will we be able to survive building a home on “island time”?

These are hard questions to answer. We’re not even sure if we are going to have to sell our home in Texas before we build in St. Croix. We would like to keep it and rent it out, but things seem to have a way of costing more than you have planned when you build in the Virgin Islands (according to some other blogs I have run across.)

Nevertheless, this is a really exciting time for us, and we are one step closer to living our island dream.

Where Are We Now?

I mentioned we had a backup plan, but since I have now become a little superstitious, I have delayed in sharing any details. (I have to get over this fear if I am going to continue to post on our future move!)

Our Realtor did the most incredible thing: while we were still in the option period for the lot with the difficult sellers, she told us about another lot that had just come on the market in the same subdivision. It was right next to the lot we wanted this summer – we couldn’t believe our luck. We rescinded our offer since we could not get financing for the purchase price on the first lot, and immediately put down an offer on the second lot. It was quickly accepted, and if all goes well, we close on it this week. We will be St. Croix landowners!

Just to address a couple of the comments that I have received – H and I have never lived on the beach. When we came down to St. Croix this summer, we looked at properties all over the island, including properties that were not waterfront. We decided that for our first home, we wanted to be on the beach. We want to be able to walk out of our back door right down to the water. We have 2 big dogs that love the water, and we want them to be able to easily enjoy the beach as well.

When we bought our lakefront property (that we sold very quickly this spring now that the lake level is back to normal), we had very specific ideas about what we wanted. We wanted open water, H wanted a sunset view, and we wanted to be close to town. We looked at close to 50 houses before we found one that met all these requirements.

We also had never lived on a lake before. Some of these things that we felt we could not live without required a bit of an adjustment. Open water means that your dock is not protected when the strong winter storms blow in from the North. Shortly after we bought our jet ski, one of these storms blew in, and the strong waves knocked it off the lift. Luckily it was locked with a cable, or we would have lost it, but you would not believe the superhuman strength that it took to get that thing back up on the lift while the storm was beating down on us.

A sunset view was beautiful in the winter when we bought the house, but by summer, we were miserable. The entire back wall of the house was glass facing the sunset view. There’s really nothing like having the 110 degree heat pounding through your windows for most of the day. We quickly adapted with both sun-blocking shades and curtains.

I guess the point of this long story is that until you experience something yourself, there’s not a lot that people can say to talk you out of that something. H and I are dead-set on living out our beach fantasy. We know there will be a period of adjustment, just like there was at the lake, but we are determined to make it work. We’ve done the research – we know that our appliances will rust, our electrical equipment may not make it a year, and our clothes will likely mildew. We also know that plenty of people make it work, and there are trade-offs to living just about anywhere. We would love for this property to become our forever home, but if it’s not, we will find the place that is.

St. Croix Property – I Jinxed Us!

I should have never posted about finding a lot. The appraisal came back below the purchase price. I won’t say “way” below, but we were already at the extreme limit of what we wanted to pay, and to have to chip in this extra amount would have been really hard on us. The ironic thing about the appraisal was that the lot we had wanted this past summer sold for a really low price (or really low for an acre of beachfront property). Once again, we were kicking ourselves for not finding a way to purchase that lot, but with a large portion of our disposable income tied up in a lakefront property with a dried-up lake, it would have been nearly impossible to buy it.
We tried everything we could think of to make this sale work – the sellers just would not budge on the price. Apparently, one member of the selling couple really didn’t want to sell the lot, and he or she was happy to leave it on the market until the price was right.
Don’t worry though. We have a back-up plan, but I will not jinx it this time!

Bad News? Will Our St. Croix Plans Change?

We recently got some bad news. The vacant lot that we wanted in the gated community now has a contract on it. Several of the other lots in this community also now have contracts on them. It definitely seems we’ve missed our chance for this area. You may be asking yourself, if they want the lot so badly, why don’t they just put an offer on it? Well, that’s easier said than done. If you’ve read my post about financing the lot, you know how much money we’re talking about just for a down payment. Unfortunately, most of that down payment money is tied up in another property. The other property is on a great lot on a lake in East Texas. Also unfortunately, there’s not as much of a lake left after this summer. Texas has been going through a really rough drought so if anyone is looking for a lakefront home that is really more of a beachfront home right now, just let me know. In the meantime, I’m going to keep playing Mega Millions and hope for the best.

Financing Our St. Croix Real Estate

When H and I got home from our second trip to St. Croix, we were so excited. We had found a couple of vacant lots where we could definitely build a home, and the experience on this second trip had totally convinced us that St. Croix was where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives. Then we got a shock that we had not been anticipating. H began calling banks to find financing to purchase one of the lots. Unfortunately, we are not independently wealthy and do not have the means to buy one of these steeply priced lots outright.

H could not find any stateside banks that wrote land loans for the Virgin Islands. He did find some that would write a combination land/construction loan, but we were not planning on moving immediately so we could not afford to begin building right now.

The rates and terms for the Caribbean land loans were quite daunting. Following is a summary of his research. While these rates were obtained two months ago, I doubt the information has substantially changed or become more affordable for the common man.

First Bank VI – 35% down, 8.5%-9.5% ( I believe 7 yr loan)

Banco Popular – loans up to $125K (8.5%, 10% down, 15 years), over 125K 9.5%, 7 years, 35%-50% down

Scotia Bank – 6.99 5 yr arm, 10 years, 25% down ( I believe 1-1.5 points)

Bank of St. Croix – 25% down, 7 years, 9.75% (adjustable rate)

Virgin Islands Community Bank – 50K max land loan (didn’t get any other info after that fact was stated)

Liberty – Homes only, no land and no construction

Schaffer – Homes and construction, no land

Flagstar Bank – no land or construction

Coastal Financial Co – No land and no construction

Allied Home Mortgage – no land and no construction

Family First Mortgage (STT) – no land loans

We were so depressed after he made these calls. The lots we were looking at were in the neighborhood of $350,000, much more than we had spent on our home in Dallas. With these terms and rates, we would be paying close to $100,000 as a down payment and a $3000 per month payment. That kind of money would be difficult for most people, but especially for me with the student loans that I was paying and will continue to pay for the next ten years. Scotia Bank seemed to be the best option for us, but of course “best” was all relative. Our options now included selling vital organs or winning Mega Millions. We just bought a ticket for this week’s drawing.