hurricane maria – Building a House in The Caribbean – Waitiki at Windchime Estates – St Croix

We’ve Bought a House! – A Major Shift Post Hurricanes Irma and Maria

Well I’ve been M.I.A. for quite some time on this blog… and I feel horrible about it. I’ve wanted to write in it so much, but throughout the last few years trying to buy houses, buy land, and move to St. Croix with one fail after another, I didn’t want to write another article until I was 100% sure about the direction we were headed. This last time I thought I was so sure we were building a house… and then TWO category 5 hurricanes landed in the US Virgin Islands. Boy did they turn the island (and our plans) upside down.

So you’ve already read the title of this article and know by now we’ve bought a house – but have no fear, while this blog is going to shift from a “building in St. Croix” to a “completely gutting and remodeling in St. Croix” journey, there is PLENTY to learn here none-the-less. We’ve basically bought, on the cheap after the hurricanes, a shell of a house with new plumbing, updated electrical, a roof that lasted through the storms, and an interior that hasn’t been touched since 1972, after two major hurricanes. Needless to say there is a TON of work to do here. But buying this property has saved us an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 in concrete, electrical, and plumbing costs if we were to have gotten this far (with a property this big) ourselves. In the end, this was the smarter move for building more equity quickly, and getting our dream home done on a tighter budget.

To explain why this worked out, when just a few months ago you couldn’t touch anything we were interested in for less than $750,000 (making building a somewhat feasible option), the Real Estate market tanked immediately after the storms came through. NO ONE was thinking of moving here in the last quarter of 2017 and thousands of people fled the island for the mainland leaving all sorts of deals to be had on cars, houses, and land. At the same time that the real estate market took a hit, construction materials and labor sky-rocketed as everyone on the island scrambled to start repairing their homes and businesses. Today the market is quickly recovering, and we were incredibly lucky to lock a home under contract and close on it as fast as we did. (A special thanks to Doane Dariah from Sotheby’s Realty and Michelle Nose of Leeward Island Mortgage – These ladies can get ANYTHING done!) While the market is recovering, construction materials and labor are still at an all time shortage and high.

The good news is that most of the things inside the home, such as paint, fixtures, light carpentry, tile, backsplashes and refinishing is going to be done by Shaleece and I. We’re still planning on using the contractors and draftsman I spoke of earlier in the blog to do some of the bigger items such as the pool, wrap around balcony, kitchen remodel (requires walls being removed), 2 car garage and 6th bedroom, however we aren’t in a rush to get many of these done which will help us on the costs as construction prices normalize over the next year or so. I’m also still planning to source all the materials myself to save as much as possible and GC the project overall for the most part.

I’ve got a lot to update in the next couple of days to catch you up, and if I wrote everything here this article would be the longest yet – so I’m going to leave you with some hints of topics to be covered in articles to come and some descriptions and photos of the place we’ve bought!

To be discussed in the next few days:

The Story of Windchime and the Change of Our Villa’s Name
$5k Already Spent at Home Depot in First 2 Days Remodeling
Pool Design Sketched & Wrap Around Balcony Plans
New Windows, Doors, and Shutters in the Works!
Tiles, Granite, and Backsplashes Selected for Apartments
Indian Furniture – Safe and Sound All the Way from India!
Paint Colors Chosen and Painting Begun
Meeting the Neighbors – Our First Monthly Neighborhood Brunch!

The House!

The house currently boasts a total of 5 Bedrooms with 5 Bathrooms and 2,950 square feet inside with another 1,500 square feet of living space outside. The main house consists of 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs, while downstairs we have three separate apartments, including two one bedroom apartments and one studio. The plan is to rent these units out via AirBnB, HomeAway, or VRBO when we’re all said and done with their remodel which should more than cover the entire mortgage on the property.

Estimates on the future value by multiple contractors after discussing our plans for the remodel are in the $1.2M to $1.3M range. The property was purchased for just $349,000, on a lot with this million dollar view, 200 degrees from North East to South West. We can see Buck Island, Christiansted Harbor and Round Reef, the North Shore all the way to Sugarloaf Hill and Goat Hill. Point Udall at these hills is the Eastern most point of the USA. The Featured Image at the top of this post is our Eastern view taken from our house. We can also see a large strip of the South Shore.

We’re surrounded by hundreds of acres of undeveloped land known as Windsor Forest in a community called Vista Concordia and Concordia Ridge. We’re located on the North Shore where we’ve always wanted to be, central to everything, on the “Scenic Route” of St. Croix upon the second highest mountain on the island; only second to that of the next mountain after us along the same Scenic Route. Multiple neighbors we’ve met have been on the island for 20 years, have lived everywhere from East to West, and swear this is the best location they’ve found yet. Our drive-way is about 300 feet long. The lot is breath-taking and the views this house has the potential of showing off upstairs are incredible. Most who I’ve taken to the home say that the views are of the very best they’ve seen on the island. We think so too.

Enough with the talk… Here are some photos of this horrendously dirty and out-dated house!

Waitiki St Croix - Windchime Estates - View - Scenic Route — Some of our friends checking out the house right after we closed!

We’ve Arrived in St. Croix, and Our Move is Finished

We finally made it.

We’ve finally finished moving out of our Orlando home, and down to St. Croix. We’ve got boxes upon boxes that should be arriving soon at the post office. But, it wasn’t easy getting here.

After an evening with my parents, and afternoon moving boxes to the post office to ship off to the island, we packed ourselves and the dogs in the car to head to our friend Val’s for a ride to the airport. Unknowingly (since the app wasn’t up to date) our flight had been canceled, but we pushed to head on anyways at the CheckIn counter. Upon arrival at the counter, the gate agent told us we couldn’t take our chainsaw as checked luggage, even though it was brand new and in the box. Val, our angel of a friend and ride, offered to mail it down for us. I’m going to need it in our yard.

The farthest we got that day was Puerto Rico, where the next flight to St. Croix wasn’t until the next morning and on a different airline, Cape Air. We spent the night on the sidewalk under the stars, outside of the airport, with both Tate and Kaden. No hotels were available until November (a month from now) since many reservations were now long term tenants who didn’t have homes to go back to since the storms. A nice man from the NY Port Authority, there to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s airport, gave us a pillow and blanket. He was there with a team sleeping on cots upstairs. Several grueling and tiring hours later, we were almost told that two dogs are not allowed on the Cape Air flights since the planes are so small. Luckily it was a completely empty flight with the exception of our new friend Matt (also moving to St. Croix with plans of building a home), so the pilot made an exception for us. Thank God, because another night in Puerto Rico on the sidewalk would have been a nightmare.

We arrived home to find our friend Rupert in our drivable Jeep. We had a flat tire, and he got it fixed for us while we were gone. What an awesome friend! To top it off, our other amazing friend Virgil drove over to the house to help us unscrew the front doors so we could get in. He had come over the day after the hurricane to nail shut our doors since the storm had blown them wide open and we weren’t around at the time. Did I say our friends are amazing?

Upon opening the doors we found a 20′ long piece of galvanized steel sheet metal roofing that had actually slammed into the doors like a battering ram, opening them to the elements of a Cat 5 storm, before proceeding to spin around in the living room like the blades of a blender. After removing it, we found a ton of leaves, mud, and debris everywhere in the house. It’s literally taken 3 days of sweeping, scrubbing tiles, walls, ceilings, and everything else you can think of by hand, to get it clean. We are almost there though.

Now, back to a semi-normal life, we are only without power. The rains are bringing plenty of water. Our landlord has made it down from Missouri. His plan is to repair a leak in the cistern, clean the yard, and get a “whole house generator” installed so we have power the next few months while the island’s infrastructure gets rebuilt.

All in all we are happy to be here and are excited to start our journey. In the interim we’ll be focused on work as we wait a few months to see how the real estate market shakes out. We think we may find a great deal on a fixer upper, to cut down the build process and cost. This blog may turn into “Remodeling in the Caribbean” instead of building from scratch. Only time will tell.

Hurricane Maria Devistates St. Croix, and Our Imediate Plans to Build

Just when we thought we were one of the luckiest islands in the Caribbean to escape the grasp of a Catagory 5 hurricane named Irma, Catagory 5 Maria sweeps through the Leeward Islands, this time further South, devastating our new home town. Two Catagory 5 hurricanes within 12 days. Most every island in the Caribbean is completely devistated.

Earl Morris, veteran videographer is out and about looking around St. Croix on Day 2 after Maria and has sent Channel 8 TV some pictures from his journey

Posted by WSVI Ch8news on Thursday, September 21, 2017

Shaleece and I had finally flown back to the mainland after a 5 day airport delay due to Irma’s path towards Florida before Maria hit. We gathered in our RV after assessing the near $40,000 worth of roof, fence and seawall damage to our Orlando home from Irma and headed out to work in Arkansas for Backwoods as well as the wedding we were attending in Texas of our good friend Erin and Joey.

While on site in Arkansas, we watched and listened in horror how our friends and family on our new home island were in for one of their worst storms in 27 years since Hugo, which also devastated the island.

Since then I have been reluctant to write in this blog. The wind has left our sails momentarily and we are trying to figure out our next move. With the damage in Orlando and not being able to rent it out as quickly, we have some work on our hands before we completely close our Florida chapter. It’s hard though because we are half way though the move with things in both places.

The governer on St. Croix said he may not let anyone fly in to St. Croix for 30 days, which would delay us by almost a month, at which point we are supposed to be in India for work as well as home for Thanksgiving just after.

Our house in St. Croix which we are renting suffered only minor damage, while our friends are missing their roofs. We may even have some of our friends stay in our place. It’s the only way we seem to be able to help since we can’t get there or mail anything at the moment which is incredibly frustrating.

I know we will get through this eventually. The house in Orlando will get fixed, and the island will slowly return to normal. Although power may not be restored in some places there for 6 months or more, our neighborhood there should recover rather quickly since we are close to the hospital and Christiansted. There will be more work there than people to do it in the coming months which is good for the economy. The government confirmed that as they are completely overwhelmed. Help and funds are on their way to rebuild the island.

While we have a lot going on in the interm, we are still thinking about our ultimate goal of owning our own piece of paradise.

At the moment, we are unsure if an immediate build of a new place may be feasible anymore which weighs heavy on our hearts. For one, every month we get behind schedule, and continue to loose rental income, as well as pay to fix the damages caused by Irma, we begin dwindling our cash reserves which will be needed for the build. The second reason we are unsure if the build may be possible as quickly as we planned, is because we fear the cost of construction materials will skyrocket over the next year or two as the islands consume all resources to return to normal and repair the buildings and infrastructure. Skilled labor will also rise as it will be in high demand. This may mean the cost of building will outpace what we can financially spend.

However, all may not be lost. We now may consider a search to buy a home instead of build once more. Although we originally searched for the last two years as prices rose and inventory dwindled, we think now the opposite may happen. There will be few people considering a move to the Caribbean right now. People will still have to sell their homes in some cases. Many homes may get listed as “fixer uppers” now since the storms came through. And we may just get a better deal buying and remodeling or adding on if necessary rather than building from scratch.

I guess the truth is it’s all in the air at the moment. We have no idea what the future holds for us any longer. The only thing we can do right now is wait and see what happens, take one step at a time to repair the lives we have, finish our move, and help our neighbors as best as possible. We will eventually reassess our situation in the coming days and figure out how to proceed.

One thing is for sure though; we are still planning on staying in the islands, and eventually we will find our own piece of paradise.