We Found a Lot! What Now?

Posted on by
I’ve been really quiet on this blog for some time because we really thought we were going to have to put our dreams on hold for a while. With the increasing prices of the St. Croix real estate market and our inability to sell our lake home, it just wasn’t looking like a good time to try and buy property in St. Croix.
Well, 2007 started off in a completely new direction. We started thinking about alternate locations to live out our ocean fantasy. As mentioned in a previous post, we talked about Roatan. Then we looked at Belize. Belize seemed to have some advantages over Roatan. Most importantly, it is an English-speaking island. Also, you can live on the ocean without living on an island which can make beachfront living a little more convenient, especially for moving your belongings and that sort of thing. Plus, the prices were so much lower compared to St. Croix. Sounds perfect, right?
We bought a book on living in Belize (after we had booked our annual February trip – pictures to come) and quickly realized that living in a foreign country was not for us. First of all, for me, a lawyer, it appeared that there would be no way for me to practice law without returning to law school. There is no law school in Belize – I would have to go to school somewhere like Jamaica. After practicing law for over 7 years, there is no way I am returning to school! Secondly, being a foreigner presents difficulties for finding employment. You have to have a work permit, and to get a work permit, you have to demonstrate that you have an employable skill that no Belizean possesses. If we could afford to retire at this point, these work issues wouldn’t be a problem, but unfortunately, we are not financially stable enough to retire. (see above reference to law school – I’m still paying for that)

We still took our trip to Belize, and it was wonderful, but we decided with all the obstacles that living there presented, it was not the ocean home we were looking for.

Just before our trip to Belize, a new property came on the market in St. Croix. It was on the North Shore where we wanted to be. Our realtor emailed us the listing on Thursday. The lot was waterfront and relatively in our price range. I told H that I thought it was a sign. He agreed and quickly began making travel arrangements to go view the property – who would make a life-altering purchase without seeing it? Well, apparently that logic was flawed. He was supposed to fly out on Tuesday morning. On Monday, we found out the lot already had a contract on it and had been removed from the MLS. We were absolutely shocked. This property literally sold in one day! Lesson learned: we would not try to view the next property that came up. We would just put an offer down on it. And that’s what we did when the next listing came up.
We took our trip to Belize and were there for two days when we got an email from our realtor – 4 acres on the North Shore! The price was crazy cheap. Instead of thinking, “there must be something wrong with this lot,” we just thought, “crap, we better offer way over the asking price.” So we did, 25% over. Then we attempted to deal with the Third World technology that Belize had to offer. After spending half the day trying to fax the offer back to our realtor, we got an email from her saying that the seller wanted only cash offers or pre-qualifications. No problem – we had been working with a wonderful woman at Scotia Bank on St. Croix and felt like she would help us out. She was happy to help us out, but first, we had to fill out an 8 page mortgage application. So here we were in a tiny town in southern Belize trying to find an Internet cafe where we could print out the application, copy our passports and send them to her. It was about 10 miles into town on an unpaved road – and by unpaved, I mean potholes the size of canyons. We decided one trip per day on that road was plenty so we tried to fax the application from the hotel where we were staying. It literally took three hours! Apparently, their faxes are sent through a satellite server, and it was raining so the connection was very slow. Needless to say, the paperwork was not returned in time, and we did not get the property. It turned out that this was a blessing in disguise. The property had some building challenges, including finding a way to access the property and several drainage “guts.” Getting building approval on this lot would have probably been very difficult and expensive.
We returned from Belize a little dejected – we had missed out on two lots in two weeks. We decided we would not get our hopes up on any other lots. Two weeks later, we broke our promise to ourselves. A lot came on the MLS in the same gated community we had missed out on last summer. We weren’t going to let this opportunity pass us by. It was way out of our price range, but Scotia Bank had changed their mortgage terms, and we figured we could find a way to make it work. This was our dream after all.
We sent in our offer – the seller countered at $10,000 more. What the heck – we were already almost in over our heads so what was another $10,000? We accepted the counter and started the buying process. First, we figured we should get a look at the property. We still had video footage from our trip last summer to the same community, but we weren’t sure exactly where the lot was so H booked a trip to St. Croix.
He just returned this weekend and said the property was wonderful! Even though I have only seen the pictures and video, I have to agree. The property is perfect for us. The streets are really safe for me to run and walk the dogs, it’s located on a beautiful beach, and it’s close enough to town to be convenient, but far enough away that you feel like you’re getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city. (at least as “hustle and bustle” as Christiansted can get!)
Our next steps are waiting on the appraisal which hopefully the property will appraise for more than the purchase price, then the survey, and finally the closing. Luckily all of this can be done off-island, although not cheaply. Every party to a real estate transaction has to hire an attorney so that is approximately $1000 more than a regular transaction. However, with being off-island, an attorney makes things much easier for us.
So that’s what is going on with us – Step One of our plan to move to St. Croix is complete. Now the fun starts – finding an architect, starting the building process, and finally the Big Move!

Book Review – Don’t Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk

Posted on by

I’m sure that I had heard about this book before we started this adventure of moving to the Virgin Islands, but I don’t remember in what context. There was also a musical of the same name by Jimmy Buffett so maybe I had heard the name there. “Don’t Stop the Carnival” is fiction but it is based on real events. It is based on a real Broadway press agent who buys a hotel in the Caribbean and all the outrageous things that happen to him and his family. It was written in the 60s and also based in that time, but the story is timeless.

Norman Paperman buys the Gull Reef Club, a resort on the fictional island of Amerigo. The real story took place in the Virgin Islands and some of the mishaps were similar to real tales told by Virgin Islanders, especially all the problems with the cistern.

Norman possesses some undesirable traits. He cheats on his wife and doesn’t even seem to feel guilty about it. He gets a hair-brained idea and goes off half-cocked without any plans which makes all the misfortunes that befall him all the more humorous. That being said, you still root for him. You want the Gull Reef Club to succeed. The description of everything in the book is so vivid that you are there with Norman. You can feel the beauty, the allure, the pull of the Caribbean so much so that you feel if Norman fails, a part of you will fail as well.

Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but this book is 400 pages, and I flew threw it in less than a week. There is so much character development that you cheer for these people. No one is perfect, and that makes them real. From Lester Atlas, the boorish benefactor, to Hippolyte, the literally crazy handyman, to Iris Tramm, the damaged seductress. You know these people, and you want to see their stories develop.

While “Don’t Stop the Carnival” is fictional, it does provide some insight into living in the Caribbean. There are adventures with bugs, unreliable service people living on island time, unpredictable storms that blow in out of nowhere, and the differences in everyday living that would cause even the strongest person to lose it just a little bit. Anyone considering a move to the Caribbean must read this book.


Bad News? Will Our St. Croix Plans Change?

Posted on by

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

Posted on by
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.


Book Review – A Trip to the Beach by Melinda and Robert Blanchard

Posted on by

Of all the books that I have read about moving to the Caribbean, A Trip to the Beach has probably been my favorite. I was skeptical about reading it for a couple of reasons. First, the couple in the book, the Blanchards, were moving to Anguilla, and I was trying to accumulate information about moving to the US Virgin Islands. I reconciled this difference by realizing that many of the obstacles that exist when moving to islands must be similar on every island. Second, I had read several scathing reviews of A Trip to the Beach on Amazon. The reviewers called the Blanchards arrogant and self-absorbed. One reviewer said that the Blanchards were “quite charmed with themselves”.

I’ll admit that when I started reading the book, I also found them a little snooty. When they were deciding what type of food to serve in the restaurant that they planned to open, Mel contemplated French food but argued, “how much salmon mousse and foie gras can you eat?” I don’t even know what foie gras is so that tells you my level of sophistication. However, as I continued to read, I was charmed by their relative naivete.

Starting a restaurant in any location seems to be a daunting task, but starting a restaurant (or any business for that matter) on an island where challenges await you at every turn seems almost insurmountable. Where do you get your food? Where do you find good help? How do you train them where their way of life is so different from your own?

The book spans approximately ten years. It shares an intimate view of Anguilla, both of its landscape and its people. One of the reviews I read claimed that the book did not conjure up images of island life. I disagree. Despite the odds facing the Blanchards, Mel’s descriptions of the island made me want to pack my bags. Even the story of Hurricane Luis made me realize that even with this threat to placid island life, the trade-off is worth the risk. Living everyday on the laidback pace of island time with the beautiful scenery as your backdrop more than makes up for the possibility of damaging weather.

Another aspect of the book that I found to be an added treat was the addition of several of Mel’s recipes. What better way to sell their Caribbean cookbook than with inclusion of tempting recipes like the one for Banana Bread? (Okay, I haven’t bought the cookbook yet, but I will one day!)

A Trip to the Beach is a success story. Not just financial success (even though Blanchard’s is one of the premier restaurants in the Caribbean) but also or personal and emotional success. The Blanchards found a way to turn a trip to the beach for a vacation into a lifetime of happiness. Good for them, and their story gives me hope that we can do the same.


Our Second Trip to St. Croix (Days 3-5) in July 2006

Posted on by

On Saturday, we decided to spend the day getting a second look at some of the properties that we were most interested in buying from what we had seen Friday. But before we started that trip, I decided to give the roads of St. Croix a try with a morning run. I started out just by running around the Carambola Resort property, but soon realized that the property was not as large as it appeared. So I decided to venture off onto the North Shore Road. What better way to get a feel for living on the island than by running on the roads where I might be living and running all the time.

Running in Texas had not prepared me for running in St. Croix. The roads were much steeper than I was used to and it was very humid. Still, the backdrop of the ocean as far as the eye could see more than made up for my burning quads. There are no shoulders on this road (or many other roads on the island from what I saw) so I had to jump in the ditch a few times to avoid being hit by oncoming cars. They probably thought I was nuts running out there anyway.

I also ran along a trail that was cut through some brush at Davis Beach. We had looked at some properties there the day before, but because the road was not completed, we could not get a very good idea of what the lot was like or where the boundaries were. Running along the trail made me realize that these lots were probably too expensive for the building challenges that they presented. They seemed to be fairly steep and the beach appeared rocky from my vantage point, but with so much brush it was a little difficult to tell. I finished out the run back at Carambola. I decided not to tackle “The Beast” on this trip even though it was clearly marked and I ran past it. The Beast is one of several obstacles facing competitors of the St. Croix Half Ironman. It is a 600 foot climb with an average 14% grade and up to a maximum 18% grade. It was fairly difficult making it up the incline in our rented jeep. I couldn’t imagine the trip on foot.

After breakfast, we started out to explore the island and look at the vacant lots that we were most interested in a little closer. We took pictures and videos of some of the locations so we would be able to remember them after we got home.

We stopped in Christiansted for lunch at the Fort Christian Brew Pub where they actually brew their own beer. We ate outside on the dock and enjoyed watching the boats coming and going in the harbor.

We continued our drive around the island and attempted to drive out to Point Udall, the easternmost point of the United States. When we turned onto the road heading out to the point, we were stopped by the police. Apparently, the point was closed for a private event and were told we would have to come back the next day. We turned around and started down the Southshore Road. We had never been on the southeatern side of the island, and were a bit surprised at how undeveloped it was. Of course, the Divi Carina Casino is on the south side as is the Hovensa Oil Refinery; but otherwise, the south side is bare compared to the very populated north side.

Another reason for traveling this direction was to get back to the center of the island where the animal shelter is located. I had hauled down a pet carrier filled with lots of different pet items for an organization called Pets from Paradise. This is a great organization that is trying to do its part to correct the island’s pet population problem in a humane way. The shelter rescues animals and then transports them to sister shelters in the states where they have a better chance at being adopted. I was able to bring the carrier filled with treats, toys, bowls and other items needed by the shelter as checked baggage. Unfortunately, because of our return travel arrangements, we were unable to fly an animal home with us, but I hope to be able to do so on future trips.

We finished out the day by the pool and had dinner again at the resort. Of course, I had not learned my lesson from the day before and had two more banana coladas. As a result, I was only able to eat French fries for dinner. I really learned my lesson this time though.

We started out Sunday by diving with Cane Bay Dive Center. One reason we chose this dive center was that it was right across the street from the beach at Cane Bay and they offered beach dives. On our previous scuba diving trips, H got a little seasick so this dive was going to be a beach dive. I had gotten us seasickness patches which are supposed to be really effective in fighting seasickness, but H thought we should give the beach dive a shot since it was so convenient.

The beach dive was probably not a very good idea for me though. It took me so long to swim out to the reef because we were swimming against the waves that I was exhausted before we ever went underwater. (I’m sure my hilly run the previous day didn’t help either.) The reef was incredible though. Cane Bay is on a “wall” that runs along the north shore. It drops off to 3200 feet so there is a lot to see. I saw an eel which I had never seen before. It looked very menacing, but it didn’t pay any attention to me. We also met a very friendly sea turtle. The divemaster that we dove with tickled its fin, and it seemed so happy. It didn’t even try to swim away.

The dive was beautiful and it just reinforced our decision to move here. We would be able to dive or snorkel any time we wanted to, especially if we decided to live on the north shore. Getting out of the water was not very easy for me. During the dive, I had become buoyant as I used up my air. The divemaster had given me extra weight during the dive so getting out of the water was a major chore. I not only had all the heavy equipment strapped onto my back but I also had an additional 18 pounds of weight. When a big wave washed onto the shore, I was knocked completely over. Not very graceful, but it was a fun and exciting dive nonetheless.

We decided to have lunch in Frederiksted that day. On our previous trip to St. Croix, we just made a quick drive through the town. I wanted to see it from a closer vantage point and at a slower pace. Of course, I forgot that we also learned on our last trip that nothing is open on St. Croix on Sunday. The town was shut up like they were expecting a storm. At least some of the restaurants weren’t closed. We ate at The Sunset Grill which is just north of town. It was on a beautiful beach at Sprat Hole. We had heard that the beaches on the west end were amazing sandy beaches and we were not disappointed. We enjoyed the food, and the atmosphere was very laidback with two guys playing reggae/jazz music.

We finished up the day again at the resort by the pool. H laid in the hammock on the beach. I only had one drink that day so I was able to actually eat dinner that night. I had a really flavorful pasta dish, but as is classic island service, it took probably thirty to forty-five minutes to receive our meal.

On Monday, our last day, we checked out of the resort after breakfast and drove into town. We walked around Christiansted for a little while just to see what the city was like on a regular workday. It was fairly busy, and we had a little difficulty finding a place to park, but not overwhelming like a metropolitan area.

We had lunch at Luncheria. If I was going to live on this island, I had to know that I would not have to give up Mexican food, my favorite type of food. Luncheria is a restaurant that you would never find if you did not know that it existed. It was down a little side street and then tucked away in a little garden area. The ambience was very relaxing, but the fact that little chickens were running around influenced my menu selection. The food was very cheap – something we had not found anywhere on the island. Of course, in exchange for a lower price, you gave up some of the nicer things like silverware and real plates. The food was really great though and it would serve to satisfy my weekly cravings for Mexican food.

We finished up our trip armed with a lot of information and pictures of our future home. We were determined to make the move – now, how to pay for it.