I've never been able to grasp the concept of real estate in the DR. When I was in the Cibao region looking at property, the shenanigans were like a Monty Python sketch. Everything from cost per meter to who actually had the title to the land was a Gordian Knot no one person was able to unravel.
Every aspect was a Kafka-esque layer that had to be peeled back only to reveal another layer that in the end was going to cost me more and more money than the original quoted price, which was inflated not by demand but by the fact that I live in New York City. My friend and I once stood around as a finca owner ranted about the last person he showed the property to, a Puerto Rican who wanted to negotiate a price he was unwilling to sell for. He then stated he would never sell to "those people", apparently because "ellos son del Diablo". I couldn't help but smile and agree vociferously with him
while explaining to him why we could not do business.
In the capital, one of the funniest meetings I had involved someone quoting me a price for his house including all the furnishings. His wife, sitting right next to him, laughed and called him a "ladron" right to his face. She then went on about all of the difficulties they were encountering living there-everything from jacked up electricity prices, the constant apagones to the rash of inside-job burglaries by the staff who worked in the gated community in question.
Her husband was fuming so bad he just got up, walked upstairs to his bedroom and never returned. The house now lies vacant, and from what I understand there have been no bidders. Now they are trying to rent it for US $3,000 a month. I wish them all the luck in the world.
Not only that, the house next door has been vacant for 6 years for the same reason-the price. The owner, a Dominican who lives in NYC, has been waiting for some sucker to pay his inflated price and from what I've been told every time there is a prospective buyer he tells the real estate agent to jack the price up a little bit just to see how much he can squeeze out of the deal.
