property developement

Maromija said:

I'm probably going to get shot down in flames here judging by some of the replies I've seen !! 10 years ago I used to live in Santo Domingo, had a bar that was a disaster & a workshop making furniture to order that was doing OK untill a truck drove up to my workshop in the middle of the night & the occupants helped themselves to all my tools & generator. Fed up I took my Domican wife & children & decamped back to England after spending 12 years living in the caribbean. This should have been enough to turn any sane person off living there ever again, however maybe I'm a little crazy!!! My eldest son, who is 16, has been over there for 2 months on holiday to see his grandparents & loves it, doesn't want to come home!!! So I have been thinking of moving back. I buy houses & renovate them & to be honest the way property prices have moved over here ( more than doubled in 3 years ) you'd have to be a complete idiot not to have made money. I have a couple of acres of land in Villa Meja not the best area of Santo Domingo but I was thinking of maybe selling this & buying some land up north & building 3 or 4 houses. From other posts I have seen that construction costs work out about $40 per sq ft. This makes construction pretty cheap. The thing that concerns me is the housing market over there. Some of the websites seem to have had the same properties on there books for years. Really what I would like to know is does new property sell fast or are myself my wife & 2 children going to have a house each for the next 5 years

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Well, as usual, depends on the price, type of house, and location location location.

Here is an example, some of those properties have been in the books for years as you said, but Cap Cana is a new development in Punta Cana (the size of Disney World in Florida) and they had the largest single real estate sales day in the entire Caribbean, over $70 million. And we are talking about projects that are not even built yet!

Then again, there are some really really nice apartments in Santo Domingo (marble floors, beautiful vistas, central a/c, mohagany wood, etc) (btw, the city has changed alot, its not the same place it was 10 years ago though you might still find your old haunts) and they are not selling as fast! Did I mention that these apartments are in spanking new towers pearching the SDQ skyline and their asking prices are pocket change compared what they could have sold for if they were say Miami or New York, we are talking half a million to over a million dollar apartments being sold at a huge fraction of that value. Penthouses that could be sold for tens of millions of dollars are selling for barely a million!

So, location is a huge factor in things and sometimes the most obvious places may not yield as expected. Again, look at my example, SDQ should fare better than isolated and lonely Punta Cana, and yet Punta Cana is booming!

However, don't discard SDQ out of your real estate business venture, the national economy is expect to finish this year with a 1% decline, but its expect to finish 2005 with a 4-5% growth according to world bank, and since SDQ becomes the place to live when prosperity hits this country, you could very well see apartment prices increase as their supply dries up.

Because you own land in Villa Mella, not the best place to own anything, you will probably not get much for the property. I don't know how long it will take to get rid of it, but if some developers sees potential in it, it will be bought swiftly.

You should always buy a house that you are going to live in, for the sole purpose of living in it. Never buy a house to live in with the hope of making a profit on it in the future, otherwise you will most likely settle for something that won't make you 100% happy.

In the other hand, if you are going to buy property for business purposes (renting, etc), the always keep possible value increases and liquidity in mind.

Those are my 2cents.

Others may give you much better advice, but don't forget mine! Its very useful.

Also, if you haven't been to the DR in the past 10 years, you are going to be in for a surprised. The country has changed alot, its not the same DR as you left it a decade ago.

Were I you---

I'd come over for a visit of say 6 months, research the housing market, get the buying pulse of the area best suited for the type of houses you wish to build, then take the plunge if the economics sook right for you.

I'm not in the market for a new house , but the last time I was in puerto plata, i noticed quite a few houses in a half-complete state and a bunch standing empty. There didn't seem to really be a market for them. You might PM Bush-Baby about the matter. He is a fellow 'stiff-upper-lipp-er' and will certainly give yo the straight 'poop-from-group'.

Texas Bill

I'm not sure what Texas Bill means by "Poop-from-group", sounds a bit "iffy" to me bearing in mind our interpretation of "Poop"!!!!

Anyway, I thank him for the other compliments (I think!!) & whilst reading the above posts, thought about the specific needs of a friend in the US who might need property completion/renovating job doing here in the DR. By all means drop me a PM (or better still send me an e-mail so I have an address to communicate with). "She who must be Obeyed" & I have lived on the North Coast for 12 years & although not involved with the property market, might be able to offer a few words of wisdom/encouragement! Any chance of a two week last minute get-away?? An "All Inclusive" might be your cheapest bet, but if you can get "Flight Only" at less than ?300 each, we can book you in to a ?12 a night hotel round this area for you to stay in!!

What part of the Old GB do you come from?? - Grahame.

The Poop from Group--

colloquilism is from my USAF years.

Meaning is the straight 'word from on high'.

Sorry for the confusion.

Texas Bill