any foriegners got experiences on buying property/land in DR

ade

Member
Jun 14, 2005
112
0
16
Has anyone got any good advice and bad experiences of buying land and property in DR? I'd like to avoid any pitfalls when setting up home there!
 

Timex

Bronze
May 9, 2002
726
0
0
Hola Ade

Welcome to DR1.

Have you read thru these?????
http://www.dr1.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23103

Do a simple search, and spend hours enjoying the results.

Also, search by name is an option, search ESCOTT.
One of the smartest guys around, when it comes to Real-estate.

Tim H.:smoke:

Rob beat me to the post button.
 

Bob K

Silver
Aug 16, 2004
2,520
121
63
Land

Bought land near Sosua as well. Did so this past October and it was a piece of cake. Make sure you deal with reputable agents and get a good lawyer. Set up a corporation with the sale.

Bob K
 

Aguayo

New member
Oct 11, 2003
152
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0
Buy by Dominican proxy, if you have any good Dominican friend, surely he can get better prices than you.
My humble opinion is that is best to avoid all realtors oriented to foreigners if you want to get a dominican price (that means a lower price).

Ben
 

Ken

Platinum
Jan 1, 2002
13,884
495
83
Aguayo said:
Buy by Dominican proxy, if you have any good Dominican friend, surely he can get better prices than you.
My humble opinion is that is best to avoid all realtors oriented to foreigners if you want to get a dominican price (that means a lower price).

Ben

It is this kind of thinking that will get you in deep s..t, ade. Sure you can find Dominicans selling what looks like choice property for a better price than you might have to pay for what appears to be comparable property offered by a realtor. But after you buy, congratulating yourself on the good deal, the wall is going to fall on your head. What you thought was a title is in the name of a long dead family member, and all the heirs are going to come knocking on your door for money. You will curse the day you ever tried to save a few bucks by doing it on your own.

Most important is to get an honest lawyer to assist you. When you know what area you are looking for property in, ask the board which lawyer, lawyers are recommended in that area.

And have your own lawyer. Don't try to save a little money using the seller's lawyer. Remember, you want somebody looking out for your interests, and only your interests.

As has already been mentioned, most foreigners buying land form a company. The company owns the land and the foreigner owns the company. There are a number of benefits from doing this, some similar to those of being incorporated in the US.

Keep in mind that there are almost no exclusive listings in the DR, no matter what your realtor tells you. Any realtor can show almost any property.

Check with the board about the realtor you are thinking of using. A lot of people go into selling real estate so that they can make money, and don't worry too much how they do it. That isn't the sort of real estate agent you want to be dealing with.

See the three "buying real estate" publications listed on one of Fabio's web pages. This is information you should be familiar with. http://www.drlawyer.com/txt/articlesreal.html
 

Escott

Gold
Jan 14, 2002
7,716
6
0
www.escottinsosua.blogspot.com
Aguayo said:
Buy by Dominican proxy, if you have any good Dominican friend, surely he can get better prices than you.
My humble opinion is that is best to avoid all realtors oriented to foreigners if you want to get a dominican price (that means a lower price).

Ben
I actually did this once. I have a real good friend who is a very savvy guy that I invest money with. We were having lunch and I used him to negotiate a property I wanted real bad and figured Dominican to Dominican I would get this deal done.

Finally made the deal after two weeks of going back and forth. The piece of CRAP we were buying it from tried to sell a different piece of property than the one we discussed. I know this because my friend who most people on this message board know and even invest with his company had never seen the property before he negotiated on it by the description I gave him and NO way was it in another town!

My friend Alberto wanted to smack the guy also. He knew that the guy was trying to screw him/me.

Escott
 

yasmin

Member
Jun 16, 2005
81
1
18
We bought a piece of land from "Kuky Silverio", it's a well known company who buys huge pieces of land in the Santiago and Puerto Plata area, they make streets and divide it in little pieces off land, to sell. You can decide if you let them construct the house, it's ready in 3 months. Or you can build the house with your own architect, it might take a little bit longer...
They have also a website: www.kukysilverio.com
 

Aguayo

New member
Oct 11, 2003
152
0
0
Ken said:
It is this kind of thinking that will get you in deep s..t, ade. Sure you can find Dominicans selling what looks like choice property for a better price than you might have to pay for what appears to be comparable property offered by a realtor. But after you buy, congratulating yourself on the good deal, the wall is going to fall on your head. What you thought was a title is in the name of a long dead family member, and all the heirs are going to come knocking on your door for money. You will curse the day you ever tried to save a few bucks by doing it on your own.

Most important is to get an honest lawyer to assist you. When you know what area you are looking for property in, ask the board which lawyer, lawyers are recommended in that area.

And have your own lawyer. Don't try to save a little money using the seller's lawyer. Remember, you want somebody looking out for your interests, and only your interests.

As has already been mentioned, most foreigners buying land form a company. The company owns the land and the foreigner owns the company. There are a number of benefits from doing this, some similar to those of being incorporated in the US.

Keep in mind that there are almost no exclusive listings in the DR, no matter what your realtor tells you. Any realtor can show almost any property.

Check with the board about the realtor you are thinking of using. A lot of people go into selling real estate so that they can make money, and don't worry too much how they do it. That isn't the sort of real estate agent you want to be dealing with.

See the three "buying real estate" publications listed on one of Fabio's web pages. This is information you should be familiar with. http://www.drlawyer.com/txt/articlesreal.html

I just bought land on a hill in Maimon paying about 6500 pesos by tarea.
The realtors oriented to foreigners (and many dominicans) are asking prices far higher than that and frankly I see no reason for wasting my money.
If I paid what the realtors were asking for the land I surely would be in hot water, financially speaking.

I think the important thing is having a good lawyer to check the title validity, mine is Graciela Fermin (search for that name in DR1 and you will see that she is really good), and I have already the "Certificado de T?tulo" from the "Registro de Titulos", so no doubt my title is valid.

Speaking fluent Spanish also is good, specially if you want to bargain hard with the locals.

Ben