We lived in Jarabacoa, nice inland town in the mountains but living on an Island and having to drive more then two hours to visit the coast, wasn't our idea. Besides that, there is little to do in Jarabacoa at least for us.
We lived in Sabaneta de Yasica but further up the road to Mocca. Nice quite place but a hell of a drive to get to the house. Really not worth it if you have forgotten something from the shop and have to drive that awful road again for another hour.
We visited Juan Dolio and the surroundings of San Cristobal. Never had the urge to rent there, to desolated, JD is dead and San Cristobal...well, work in progress so not for us.
No way we want to live in either Santo Domingo or Santiago, to much noisy cities and we have enough of noisy cities, to visit yes, to live no.
We like to visit Las Terenas but we don't want to live there, its an expat enclave with little Dominican residents so not for us, we visit for the beaches and the great food.
We visited a lot of properties and drove a lot around Cabrera, Rio San Juan, Las Canas and its beautiful, no doubt about it but...there is nothing going on there. Most houses are vacation rentals and although all beautiful, it has no vibe to it.
We live now since 4 months between Sosua and Cabarete and we like it very much. Lots of diversity, young and old, ex-pats and Dominicans, the beach close by, good shops and a few good restaurants (still have to discover some other gems I think) but the vibe feels good here. We see lots of potential for this part of the coast for people like us who seek to have a property with ocean view where you can relax with a nice coctail and enjoy the sun setting, have a lot of privacy because its not overbuild if you choose like us not to build in a gated community, and if we feel the urge, just to have to jump into the car and drive no more then half an hour to be at a restaurant because we just felt like having dinner out.
That's my personal experience of the two years we have been renting here.
Acira