tell this newbie the very, very worst!

Wild, wild WEST.

Great place. North coast has more available. Punta Cana (bavaro) nice beachs but Higuey (1 hr away) is where you would shop.
Do not start a business! DO NOT BUY A HOUSE! Go there put your money in the bank and live off the interest.
And forget working your husband can't (wouldnt work) work for these wages.

While we can answer some of your questions we certainly can't answer them all. The only people who can do that are you and yoru family.

With any place you live there are tradeoffs! For weather you trade off earning capacity maybe. Plasterers won't make much here. Your skills - not sure what you might earn. Crime - live smart and it isn't any worse then many many other places.

I have to agree, do not buy a house. Come down here first for a visit. Have you even been here? Read DR1 threads, lots and lots of them.

Then if you are still interested move down here, rent a house, settle in for a few months, see if your boys like it, see if you like it. Look at what kind of business you might like to run. Things are very very different here. Try it on for size first.

Building a house as a newbie will likely be a nightmare.
The advice about investing the money and living off the interest, rather than going into business here, is good.
However, real estate can be a moneymaker for you, as long as you really know what you're doing, and you are hooked up with good folks.
If you get mixed up with the wrong people and get bad advice, it could be costly.
So you would have to rent, live here for awhile, before purchasing.
It would give you time to establish who you trust to do business with, to be able to recognize a decent deal, and also, to find out if you like it enough here to want to invest.

Rule number 1 - don't tell anyone how much cash you have available. I would bet that you have at least 10 pm's by now telling you how can spend it.
Rule number 2 - check everything out for yourself first and get at least five different opinions.
Rule number 3 - don't believe anything you read on DR1 or on any other online service.
Rule number 4 - You don't have enough money to make this change with the size of your family
Rule number 5 - Work through what is dream and what is reality. To do that, you will have to spend a lot of time in a destination of your choice. Take some money and come and live here for a while. 6 months, 8 months and check the place out in reality.
Rule number 6 - don't ever depend on the DR's economics to make money.

Chris said:

Rule number 4 - You don't have enough money to make this change with the size of your family

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I'm glad you said that Chris because I was just about to type 'ok I'll tell you the worst:160k is not enough'. And the reason vin, is that you have to allow for a 12 month period of no earnings at all here, while you find your feet, learn the language etc etc. During that time you will have to live, pay rent, pay school fees if the children are of school age etc while at most your bank interest is getting you around 14% if you change your money to pesos or 4% if you leave it in dollars (those figures may not be exact but approx.)

Plastering here is often done by Haitian labourers earning what? 300 pesos a day? Something like that.

If you had no children & wanted to take the risk maybe it would be different. But you have. I can foresee a lot of stress if you have money worries on top of everything else.

Lambada said:

Plastering here is often done by Haitian labourers earning what? 300 pesos a day? Something like that.

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Whot? We have plastered houses here?

if you whant to know me come live.......

dont move lock stock and kitchen sink till you have come here and tried it with all the family staying in an apt not a hotel and by then you may be able to see if its for yall or not.believe me family of 4 and mom and dad do you speak spanish_could be a nightmare rather than a dream for yall.
try it before ye buy it,good luck......

Chris said:

Whot? We have plastered houses here?

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Originally Posted by Lambada
Plastering here is often done by Haitian labourers earning what? 300 pesos a day? Something like that. :bunny: What lambada means plastering with cement not plaster as in other country,s

vince1956 said:

:bunny: What lambada means plastering with cement not plaster as in other country,s

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What Lambada meant Vince was what Lambada wrote. Had she meant what you interpreted, I am sure she would have used a sentence that I (& probably others) could understand - what do you mean by your comment "....... not plaster in other country's"? ~ Grahame.(who knows better than most what Lambada means when she speaks!).

:laugh: :laugh: Now I wonder would vince be talking about lime plaster, gypsum plaster, cement plaster, earthen plaster..............& I bet he knows that when using plaster of Paris retardants are used to slow the setting time........... It's called pa?etes here vince. Make my day, bablefish it......

P.S. The labourers still don't earn more than 300 pesos a day, whatever you call it.

and around our neck of the island they make 200 pesos per day....
which is not even enough to feed one North Americano for a day.......!

Lambada said:

:laugh: :laugh: Now I wonder would vince be talking about lime plaster, gypsum plaster, cement plaster, earthen plaster..............& I bet he knows that when using plaster of Paris retardants are used to slow the setting time........... It's called pa?etes here vince. Make my day, bablefish it......

P.S. The labourers still don't earn more than 300 pesos a day, whatever you call it.

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:bunny: in the uk we use lime plaster gypsum plaster, cement and lime are called render in uk we use render outside and lime plaster, gypsum plaster inside
we use plaster of Paris if you break your leg etc

Give it a try!

is there hope for us? And just as important, how will our 4 young sons like it over there? Is it really that crime ridden? I'd rather pay taxes than be eaten by a shark or get mugged every day!

The taxes paid are small as a percentage of your income. Land and other properties except vehicles are relatively low. A car bought in DR however, will cost you roughly twice what you'd pay for a similar one in the US.

If they're provided for with good housing and all the basics, your sons will love it. The weather, beaches, mountains and other fun things plus the slower paced lifestyle will make for an idyllic stay in DR.

The DR is not "crime ridden", but crime has, over the last few years, risen exponentially due to ( many say), the number of Dominicans convicts being repatriated back from North America and Europe.

You won't get eaten by the ocean-dwelling king of sharks. It is the many ones that inhabit every strata of DR society that you need to beware of and learn to avoid. Don't trust anyone, especially, with few exceptions, lawyers. They have a keen sense of smell when it comes to greenbacks!

You have to first travel there and spend a month or so to make absolute sure that you know what you're getting into. Prepare a list of expats that have lived there many years and will agree to see you. Take advantage of their vast experiences. Nothing is better learned than that which comes directly from the horse's mouth. Buena suerte

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vin2216 said:

Hi everyone
My name is Vivienne and my husband Nick & I want to move over to the Caribbean - but the question is, where? Every place we look into seems to have either no tax but a hidden levy / no crime but no activities / no sharks but no deepsea fishing or diving.... sigh!! So come on you lot, tell us what's wrong with the DR and why we'd be in trouble if we tried to start a business over there with our (admittedly not huge, @ $160k) amount of cash! Nick is a plasterer in the construction industry and I am a graduate administrator - is there hope for us? And just as important, how will our 4 young sons like it over there? Is it really that crime ridden? I'd rather pay taxes than be eaten by a shark or get mugged every day! :ermm:

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All the advice I've seen so far here is great in my opinion for coming to the DR. You might also want to think about Puerto Rico, as it has more american style conveniences and a lot of people there speak Engish as it is required in school.

"Taxes" Are Are "SMALL" As A Persentage Of Your Income!???????

What "Dominican Republic" do you live in "Don Juan"????
Nearly EVERYTHING is taxed here! EVERYTHING! And at high rates that just keep getting higher!!
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As to my opinion after living,working,raising 4 children,and paying LOTS! of taxes in the DR for well over 10 years,Don't Come HERE!!

"Juan",check out the "Boquechivo" cartoon in today's "Diario Libre" (If you live in the DR?)
Caption is: " In the DR we pay taxes like the Swiss,but recieve benefits like Nigerians!"
IN THE DR: "When a person with experience,meets a person with money,the person with the experience ends up with the money,and the person with the money ends up with the experience!!"

What other country has locks on all the inside doors,closets,and drawers in the house to keep family members from stealing from eachother???

Criss Colon said:

What other country has locks on all the inside doors,closets,and drawers in the house to keep family members from stealing from eachother???

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I couldn't agree more. My aunt locks all bedroom doors, closets and even the food pantry. While I am visiting if I leave the door to my bedroom open it is like an eternal SIN. She yells at me and says "i won't be responsible if something is missing" and I argue "but auntie the only people that come here are family" then she proceeds to give me that look that says "exactly" lol

I have a few cousins that are not TRUST worthy.

My advise to the OP is that you go down to the DR and rent a place for a year. Don't invest any money in case that if you don't like it you can leave without any worries. You can just pick up and leave.

I am Dominican and have always yerned to go back home to live. But I won't live there without certain things I have to accomplish first. And even then I won't just go there and buy a house. I'd rent for 6 months to a year. I haven't lived there since I was 10 years old. I don't know if I am going to like living there even though I'm from there. When I go on vacation it's all peaches and cream because I am spending US Dollars with a US Dollar mentality. But when you live there you have to start thinking and living in pesos. One thing that baffles me is that in the DR 500 pesos is considered a lot of money to poor and SOME middle class people. 500 pesos is 15 dollars. That is breakfast and lunch for me for one day here in NYC. While in the DR you can get a very descent lunch consisting of the Dominican flag (rice, beans and meat) for 100 pesos and sometimes less depending on where you go. 100 pesos in dollars is 3 dollars. Try getting anything here in NYC for 3 bucks. Maybe a bagel and a coffee. When I think like that (converting pesos to dollars and dollars to pesos) is when I can understand why 500 pesos is a lot of money to someone there. And even like that if baffles me.

You get the idea???

El Tigre said:

Try getting anything here in NYC for 3 bucks. Maybe a bagel and a coffee. When I think like that (converting pesos to dollars and dollars to pesos) is when I can understand why 500 pesos is a lot of money to someone there. And even like that if baffles me.

You get the idea???

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And the other part of that is tourists or very new expat residents seeing long term expats bargaining like crazy over the price of an item to get it reduced by 500 pesos and thinking we're real cheapy cheapies. :laugh: We're not, but we have a reputation for streetsmarts which needs to be maintained.

I think we scared vin2216 away. Only has two posts. Perhaps vin got the picture.

But you know what. Let me scare you a little bit more.

When you get a chance read this:

http://www.dr1.com/forums/trip-reports/58680-my-first-trip-report.html

Very scary stuff. And what is even scarier is how much $$$ it cost me.