Well I booked a flight to go to PR and look at a few places. I’ll be down there the 16th-18th. It is a short trip because we have a few properties that we’ve narrowed down our search for.
I’ve learned my lesson about flying to PR and do not want to be near San Juan. I can’t stand the drive to the west side of the island. Instead this is the first time I’ll fly into Aguadilla. The flights all arrive at 1am which is somewhat inconvienient but worth avoiding San Juan. I hope to visit, inspect compare and offer in one fell swoop!
Cassie is going to stay behind in order to save money. I’ll be the eyes and ears with lots of pics/videos and blog updates.
Britton and I have been having a lot of hardcore discussions that get to the heart of “what do we want to do with our lives?” Then we laugh and think, do other people have these strange conversations as often as we do? I have no idea, but I know that we’ve been having them a lot lately.
While our plans and ideas can change on a dime if an opportunity pops up (like a property with acreage in Colorado or a smokin’ deal on another rental), we think we have some semblance of a plan. So here goes. I think we are going to stay in Colorado working and saving for as long as possible (with the uncertainty of my job, that is one of the unknowns) until we have saved up enough to pay off another of our rental properties. At that point we believe we will be more financially secure. With all the news coming out of Puerto Rico talking about lack of employment and the consolidation of most of their banks into Banco Popular we think this would be wise. Plus, if everything, including housing prices, drop through the floor in Puerto Rico we’ll be better poised to jump on those opportunities.
So we’re not sure still on the exact ETA, but we do have an exact number in our head of how much we need to save up. And in this lanscape of unknowns, something exact is comforting.
We are getting another roommate here in Colorado and we really think we could make something similar (like a guesthouse) in Puerto Rico work out once we have our safety net of outside income locked in. We like meeting new people and know how to run rentals, so we think this would be ideal. Heck, if we can get people that want to live with us in Greeley of all places, you’d think Caribbean paradise would be a snap! So, onward and upward we go. Slow and steady and all that.
We have a lot of options and decisions right now. That is both good and bad. The good is that it is usually better to have many options than few, the bad is that we kind of have a deadline to make some decisions on them. The funding for 3/4 of my job at the county will end on July 30, 2010. We had hoped that during this last trip to Puerto Rico we would have found something that “spoke” to us.
Another house we saw
We saw some properties that we liked but were either too expensive, weren’t situated on the lot very well, were too far from the west coast, were just land with no house, or had virtually no land (the Goldilocks story without the “just right”). We also didn’t see as many properties as I would have liked to. You would think a week is enough, but it really wasn’t. So now we are back and we are trying to figure out our best course of action given some assumptions:
A) Britton hasn’t been cleared to work remote yet, so we would have to plan on moving with very little income
B) I won’t have a full-time job come August 1. I need to either start looking for another job now, or plan for our move, or ??
With these basic assumptions, we have a variety of options:
1) Buy one of the larger places in PR and create a guesthouse. With this option, Britton would probably have to stay in Colorado while I got the place up and going, but if it works, we would have income. But because of Britton not being able to be there with me, it is not ideal. We are kind of a package deal. It would be hard to be apart for very long.
2) Buy a smaller property, but low-ball it so that we would be able to move there more quickly without much income. None of the smaller properties were exactly our “dream house” so this is not ideal either.
3) Buy another rental here in Colorado to provide more income potential for when we are in PR. We are comfortable with this as we have done it before, but it will take a chunk of our savings that we were hoping to use in PR to do it.
4) Buy a house here in Colorado that has a little bit of land (around an acre or so) and rent out our house. Then we could have a hobby farm here in the spring/summer/fall without much grief from the city and we could spend our winters in PR renting a house and looking for our ideal. I could do some part-time work as an instructor or possibly work on starting up an Internet or consulting business that could be done in PR as well. So, far, this sounds the most promising, but it puts our PR plans on hold which sucks.
So this is where we are at: a crossroads. I feel like I am in limbo and it is driving me nuts. I am a planner and right now I don’t feel like we have a solid one. And I hate pushing our dreams back farther. These life decisions are tough! But I am thankful for the options!
During this trip to Puerto Rico in addition to looking at some properties, we had the great opportunity to meet up with some people we had been chatting with online but hadn’t yet the chance to meet in person. On our last trip to PR, we had met Nick and Miri and so it was wonderful seeing them again this trip. We also met the Kruses at their finca, and Jim and Cynthia of PCH to 413 at Rosa’s (one of our favorite blog commenters 🙂 ) great party. We were also planning on meeting up with Summer and Stefan of CA2PR, but our schedules conflicted a little.
At Rosa’s House in Rincon
Some people wonder why we would blog and put our lives out there for so many people to read. Well, I have to tell you after meeting all of these great people, it has been more than worth it. Sometimes you put yourself out there and see what will come of it. In this case, so far, the benefits have greatly outnumbered any problems. We have also had the opportunity here in Colorado to meet Claire and her family at her wonderful farm.
Blogging takes a lot of effort and sheer tenacity to stick to doing it, but the rewards are worth more than gold. Of course, the Internet should never be used as a replacement for your other relationships, but is a great way to expand your friendship circles especially in finding others with your similar interests and outlooks.
For all of you with blogs of your own, all of our commenters and even you lurkers (you know who you are 😉 ), out there reading this, this one’s for you!
