NYSpeed House Hunters International - Roatan Edition

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
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/526567_10103906060395544_1525939029_n.jpg

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/150941_10103905998644294_383446266_n.jpg

Palmetto Bay 2 - 3 BR / 2 Bath / 1500sf

balinese style - meaning no A/C - again about 5 minutes to the beach

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/11420_10103905999772034_544281521_n.jpg

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/28916_10103905999672234_451768922_n.jpg

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.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/539566_10103906586690844_514388205_n.jpg

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/563578_10103906586945334_480024102_n.jpg

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.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/555784_10103906001308954_1738451750_n.jpg

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/549180_10103906000540494_2119796042_n.jpg

pod house - 4 BR / 3.5 Bath / 3500

no beach access. very remote. cool design but needed a ton of work.

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/555965_10103906003299964_933320186_n.jpg

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/557785_10103906001703164_1672412654_n.jpg

palmetto bay 3 - 3 BR / 2 Bath / 2400sf

bigger lot, 5 min to beach, possibility of a pool, tons of fruit trees

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/603984_10103906008873794_110450999_n.jpg

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/600839_10103906008145254_454363646_n.jpg

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.

I would stay away from most or all of these. It’s obvious in numerous photo’s there’s no insulation in the ceilings, which leads me to believe they probably have none in the walls either. Your heating bills will be outrageous.

…some don’t even have windows…just screens with shutters…

Cool stuff! I don’t know if it would make sense to buy unless I planned on spending more than 1 month there a year. Using it as a rental, maybe? Who knows.

<- waits to see what Fry says about the place since he’s probably been there 3 times already. :slight_smile:

initially it would be predominately rental. the place we stayed was basically $1100-1200/wk for 5-6 months out of the year and maybe $900-1000 for the “off season”. it had a pretty extensive rental history that was shared with us, so we felt good about that. some of them haven’t been rented frequently or recently or at all so that represents some concern since at least for a few more years it would need to pay its own way until we are able to get down there for extended periods of time. right now we figure we’d be able to go down for a couple of weeks every 3 months perhaps.

the other issue is that it is more or less an all cash market. you can get a mortgage from the bank down there for 20-30% interest or owner financing in some cases for 50% down and 5 years at 5% but usually nothing longer or better terms than that

how many becks are we talking about here?

All I have to say is that I like Roatan. I’ve been there twice, maybe three times all just for the day while on a cruise. A family member lives down there, and built his own house. This is probably one of the nicest or will be the nicest houses I have ever seen. Here are some pictures, hope you don’t mind.

Living Room View:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7029/6765929935_3e41719cce_b.jpg
IMGP1475 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Master Bed Room:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7163/6765929055_5db8191531_b.jpg
IMGP1460 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Back Door View:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7031/6765928563_81a91d3ed0_b.jpg
IMGP1453 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Ceiling (shitty picture) :

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7173/6765927097_95a8ffc28b_b.jpg
IMGP1445 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Deck View 1 :

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7141/6765926635_0a04fd8735_b.jpg
IMGP1443 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Deck View 2 :

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7029/6765926189_5b2ba358e5_b.jpg
IMGP1442 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Another view off the deck :

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7165/6765925687_a395246df2_b.jpg
IMGP1440 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Another Deck Shot :

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7171/6765922899_56cbdd8b92_b.jpg
IMGP1421 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Living Area :

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7023/6765922437_1357e1b234_b.jpg
IMGP1419 by lorge1989, on Flickr

“Worst” View :

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7141/6765921211_9ff64efbc7_b.jpg
IMGP1413 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Driveway (super steep) :

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7153/6765920065_eebd7b3176_b.jpg
IMGP1409 by lorge1989, on Flickr

Some suggestions that I may give…

*Learn how to speak Spanish
*Make friends at the local resorts, because they are unbelievable
*The island like most in the Bahamas has plenty of poverty, so make sure you pick a suitable area. Obviously a resort/well know vacation spot would seem to be fine
*Labor is super cheap, like pay a maid $10-15 USD a day to keep up the whole house, similar pay for carpenters etc.
*Avoid going to the beach on days when there are cruise ships docking, ha.

Good luck, this is a dream for you both I’m sure!

cool i think i know exactly where this house is…just a little ways west down the road from the pod house i posted. the house we can see beyond the driveway is on the main road right? has a wind turbine?

other than that…i’m decent with spanish but need to brush up. usually after hearing and using it a bit for a week i do alright…then forget it all again. i like roatan because you can get by with the islanders (non hispanic) with english pretty well.

we drove through pretty much the entire island and villages. got a good sense of each part of the island and feel like i know where i’d like to end up. palmetto bay which is about half way down the north side of the island is what we liked best from a rental perspective. if we were going to live there we would definitely go way over on the east end which is hardly populated at all.

we were also impressed by the cheap labor…but i do think you get what you pay for in some cases. there were 2 big houses being built nearby our place so i spent some time watching the construction from the beach. looked like a lot of trim to size, pound to fit type of craftsmanship going on.

ships show up pretty much every tues/wed/thurs this time of year. we pretty much stayed away from the west end and west bay those days and never really ran into any crowds while we were there.

Whats a house like these run?

the small condo was about $109k. the pod house one was around $240k i think…which would come down a bit as it has been on the market for a while. we are currently looking at it with a $250k max and hopefully somewhere closer to $200k if not below.

there were 2 houses we looked at that were probably 50’ from the water that were both around 250. you can get a great location for not too horrible a price down there right now…compared to other places.

Its on a hill top, and beside that I don’t know too much. Its been a while since I’ve been there, and frankly I don’t know the area because I wasn’t exactly paying attention to street signs. I think I do remember the wind turbine you were speaking of though and it is on the East end of the island.

Yeah, you can get by with english for sure, its just nice to have the flexibility. If you know any you will be okay.

I’m also unsure of the quality of work and cheap labor, but what you say seems right. But I imagine if you spend ‘top dollar’ down there for labor you probably will still pay significantly less than in the states. The coolest part of the capentry I saw was the native woods they used that you would NEVER see around here.

Its fine when one or two ships show up, but when I was there, it was like 5 or 6 and it does get a little crazy. If you can avoid the area where they dock then you’d be fine like you said.

I’m excited to see what you decide on.

How does hurricane insurance work outside the US?

:poke: Tropics…

I’ve never been to honduras. Looks nice though. I’ll keep it in mind…

Tropics? Oh…I didn’t notice.

lol I’m just saying these houses may not even have heating, much less a need for insulation. Though your sarcasm may have been too subtle for me.

This island is right on the edge of the Hurricane Belt:

There’s no such thing as hurricane insurance :wink:

Damage from a hurricane would be covered under flooding and wind insurance.

insurance rates aren’t too bad…for frame construction it is like $7-8.50 / $1000 and for concrete it is maybe half of that with mixed construction somewhere in between.

Wow i love all the open ceilings … very cool

street signs…haha…i don’t think there are too many of those. there is basically 1 main road that runs from end to end with smaller roads going north or south. i’m just about certain this is just off the main road on the western edge of what is described as the “east end” of the island…maybe 10 or 15 minutes from the blue pod house i posted.

for example this is what the road to the place we stayed looked like…

the day we arrived it had rained for 10 days prior…this was maybe a 30-35 degree slope that we basically just slid all the way down…fun times.