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In continuing with the post, “why didn’t we buy in the BVI” I will finish off the story with a comparative look at the cost (note: just the property itself, I did not include the taxes or other costs) of purchasing a home or property in the British Virgin Islands. In fairness to the BVI, I decided to evaluate housing and land prices for three of the places Terrie and I had considered making our permanent home, which are the BVI, Nicaragua, and Culebra. Additionally, for those looking to maybe purchase in one of these three places I thought it would give folks a ballpark idea of what the prices are like.

The comparison methodology was very simple and straightforward, I went to a real estate sales website for each of the respective locations and determined the mean cost for all the properties they had listed (both land and homes). READ: I realize this isn’t a rigorous scientific and statistical study but it gives you a general idea of the cost.  Too, I tried to make sure that the websites each had a similar number of properties for sale based on the size of each location (e.g. Nicaragua is much bigger than Culebra so there are more properties for sale there). Finally, to aid in the evaluation and to make it more realistic for the common man I threw out the most expensive property that each of the sites had listed. This was also done because the BVI had an outlier property listing for $10,000,000.

The website utilized for the BVI had 33 properties listed for sale (thirty four if you include the one for 10,000,000). The priciest home available was listed for $3,600,000 and the least expensive parcel offered was $50,000 for a ½ acre of land. When all thirty-three properties were totaled and then averaged, the mean price was $913,242.42.

Next, I had a look at a Culebra real estate site. Remember the island has less land area than the BVI so the real estate site only had a total of 17 properties for sale. However, to stay true to my method, I threw out the most expensive listing which was $2,950,000. That meant the most expensive property was $2,200,000 and the least expensive $375,000, which gave an average of list price of $697,964.71.

The final location for my little real estate analysis was Nicaragua. Terrie and I seriously considered this country as a place to reside permanently. The property is still fairly inexpensive and the Central American nation has a lot to offer, not the least of which is a lot of quality surf. The Nicaragua real estate website had 42 properties for sale and with the most expensive home removed I included a total 41 properties in the calculation. The results were actually quite attractive for someone who is looking to purchase because for as little as $25,000 you could get ocean view property. Or, if you wanted an existing home, the most expensive listing at $575,000 was a veritable mansion. In closing off this portion of the post, I think all three places would be nice locations to call home it just depends on your budget and if you want to work or have a business.

Two other, additional factors affecting our decision (which will be included in longer posts at a later date) was the fact you absolutely cannot apply to be a resident of the British Virgin Islands unless you have lived here for TWENTY years. That means I would be SIXTY by the time we would be legally allowed submit the application. On top of that there is no guarantee you will be approved as they only accept twenty-five applicants for any given year. The other reason we decided to move on is because if you are not from the BVI then it is really difficult to obtain a license to open a business (what they call a trade license). After applying and following through with the submission process protocol a grand total of five times and always getting denied, it just did not seem like it was going to work out for us to have our own business here.

In closing, Terrie and I were not prepared to be disenfranchised citizens for twenty years, only to take a gamble that we might, or might not, be approved as residents, nor did we wish to continue working for other people so, the decision was made.

 Any questions, or comments email: mark_w_hayward(at)yahoo.com
note: next update will be Tuesday morning and it’s written by the first guest writer here at mytropicalescape.com.