my wife and i have been considering purchasing a vacation property for our use and to offer for short term rental for a few years now. initially we had been mostly looking along the east coast along the ocean and a few lake areas further inland mostly because we wanted our families to be able to take advantage of its use as well.
despite the economic downturn it seemed as though most of the places of interest were still of such a price for a good location that it would be a few more years before we would be comfortable taking the plunge. Also many places wouldn’t be truly all-year-round getaways with the nicest time of the year also being the time we would want to be there…so that would hurt the investment income aspects.
we have been going to mexico every other year for the past several years and have always enjoyed ourselves but buying into the mexican market is hard with ownership restrictions placed on foreigners and their ownership structure is a little weird to begin with.
then we discovered roatan, honduras…
it is a small island off the coast of honduras that has a pretty big expat population and after experiencing a bit of a boom mid-decade it cooled off big time in the last few years and now has some pretty reasonable prices for beach front/access properties. there is fee simple ownership of lots up to .75 acres and corporate fee simple ownership for larger lots- many of which have already been created. their land laws are more or less the same as the US and they strongly encourage expat purchases.
we took a trip down last week to vacation/browse properties with a realtor. the following are a few of the places we checked out.
Palmetto Bay 1 - 2 BR / 2 Bath / 1800sf
needs some touch up work, has a pool, about a 5 minute walk from the beach
Palmetto Bay 2 - 3 BR / 2 Bath / 1500sf
balinese style - meaning no A/C - again about 5 minutes to the beach
palmetto bay 3 - 3 BR / 2 Bath / 1850sf
same style as 2 but a little bit bigger. we actually spent the week in this villa and really enjoyed it.
sunset villas 7 A&B - A = 2 BR / 2 Bath / 1800sf & B = 1 BR / 1 Bath / 1300sf
we took a look at 2 condos in 1 building. the upper is ready to go, the lower would require the addition of another bathroom and bedroom to make it a reasonable rental. 5 min walk to beach.
pod house - 4 BR / 3.5 Bath / 3500
no beach access. very remote. cool design but needed a ton of work.
palmetto bay 3 - 3 BR / 2 Bath / 2400sf
bigger lot, 5 min to beach, possibility of a pool, tons of fruit trees
we saw a few others as well but these were the ones that we were most interested in. one of the condos was very reasonably priced and there was pressure to offer on it while we were there but we are too cautious to pull the trigger so quick. just have to get through our 2012 tax appointment to see what kind of cash we will really have on hand and we will probably offer on one of the palmetto bay properties in march. so hopefully we’ll be traveling down for a few weeks in april or may.