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Existing Real estate is very cheap in Puerto Rico as many people have moved from the island over last 20 years. Some things to watch out for:
1) You MUST buy a house with 100% re-barred concrete construction - including roof. American style wood frame or even metal frame and aluminum roof homes were pretty much kindling sticks after the two hurricanes in 2017. I had concrete house and steel frame and galvanized roof casita (large covered sun room) and the casita literally vanished - just odd parts scattered around the whole neighborhood. The house just lost some windows and doors but was intact.
2) Inheritance laws are old Spanish laws and many homes have horribly unclear title due to long lost youngest grandchild owning 5% of house that must sign off on the sale or feuding families where one wants to keep the house and others want to sell. MUST use a good specialty in real estate lawyer and only give very small earnest money to hold house while title is in doubt. Also many people try to sell after not paying taxes for years or even decades and you must settle before taking ownership.
3) Make sure property is on the property registry CRIM. Many pre-American colonialization parcels have homes built on very murky ownership basis.
4) Regardless, we learned a couple of lessons the hard way but eventually bought and are very happy with our property not too far from the ocean, with great sea views but on a 200' high hill overlooking the Caribbean - so heck with climate change! :-)
Existing Real estate is very cheap in Puerto Rico as many people have moved from the island over last 20 years. Some things to watch out for:
1) You MUST buy a house with 100% re-barred concrete construction - including roof. American style wood frame or even metal frame and aluminum roof homes were pretty much kindling sticks after the two hurricanes in 2017. I had concrete house and steel frame and galvanized roof casita (large covered sun room) and the casita literally vanished - just odd parts scattered around the whole neighborhood. The house just lost some windows and doors but was intact.
2) Inheritance laws are old Spanish laws and many homes have horribly unclear title due to long lost youngest grandchild owning 5% of house that must sign off on the sale or feuding families where one wants to keep the house and others want to sell. MUST use a good specialty in real estate lawyer and only give very small earnest money to hold house while title is in doubt. Also many people try to sell after not paying taxes for years or even decades and you must settle before taking ownership.
3) Make sure property is on the property registry CRIM. Many pre-American colonialization parcels have homes built on very murky ownership basis.
4) Regardless, we learned a couple of lessons the hard way but eventually bought and are very happy with our property not too far from the ocean, with great sea views but on a 200' high hill overlooking the Caribbean - so heck with climate change! :-)
Glad things worked out well for you. I know they speak Spanish there but they are all US citizens; does the overall envitonment feel American? Is there a mainland city/region you can equate Puerto Rico to?
I see some condos are very affordable.... 83 USD/sqft for the below example. Any idea about the past long term appreciation rate?
You must see this in person......there is a slum called "El Fanguito," that faces the ocean, so you need to know what you are getting into......that is the only slum I have ever seen in my life that has an ocean -front setting.....
Glad things worked out well for you. I know they speak Spanish there but they are all US citizens; does the overall envitonment feel American? Is there a mainland city/region you can equate Puerto Rico to?
The best I can come up with is to challenge you to go to Hialeah, Florida for a week or two and start going around and doing mundane things that you would do if you moved to any place...think supermarkets, gyms, drug stores, restaurants, etc. PR would be a tad bit more "foreign" than that, but not a whole lot. The landscape would be prettier too than Hialeah...it´s almost like Hialeah threw up on Hawaii. If you bought property in Old San Juan, then a lot of my comparison goes out the window, given the fact that most buildings in that gorgeous neighborhood are hundreds of years old, and South Florida has NO equivalent.
A person can do a virtual tour of Puerto Rico on Google Earth - Google Street View. It's a nice way of discovering a place before a visit, but nothing beats an on the ground visit.
A person can do a virtual tour of Puerto Rico on Google Earth - Google Street View. It's a nice way of discovering a place before a visit, but nothing beats an on the ground visit.
Yes you are correct. Google street view in my opinion is 2nd best thing that Google gave to us all. Browsing places from my desk is one of my favorite hobbies.
From the infrastructure Puerto Rico looks 100% like American mainland, better than many mainland communities. I'm sure culturally there is a bigger difference.
"From the infrastructure Puerto Rico looks 100% like American mainland, better than many mainland communities"....you have formed the wrong impression of the Puerto Rico infrastructure...in many aspects, it is close to 3rd world quality.
You must visit to gain a full appreciation of how bad it is.
Regards
Gemstone1
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sasie123
