Palmas del Mar

Msarroyo74 wrote:

...but t we are not sure about the communities there and if it's family oriented.  My concern is that it may be a snowbird community with not enough substance for families?  Since I really don't know much about the area; I wanted to get some feedback from anyone that may be familiar with Palmas.

Palmas is a huge gated community and inside there are smaller gated communities.
Many properties are owned by people who use it for vacations, be it for themselves , family members, friends and paying renters.
The area is huge and there are many communities. I would suggest that you plan to come over and spend some time there to see for yourself how it is and try to find a community that suits your needs.

Msarroyo74 wrote:

Pediatricians
Hospitals
House help (babysitters)
Park
Recreational activities
Furniture stores, clothing stores.

Hospitals, there are a couple in Humacao but I wouldn't recommend any of those (and I live in the area..)
Medical care on the island is (very) different from what you're used to. You may want to read this thread about health care: https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=359991
The best hospitals are in the San Juan metro area, a 45 minutes drive  -- two hours during rush hour -- from Palmas.

There are a couple of small stores inside Palmas (Palmanova Plaza) but for groceries and clothes etc. you may want to go to Plaza Palma Real in Humacao, a strip mall with JC Penny's Walmart, Marshalls and other stores.
For a better choice you'd have to go to San Juan (Plaza Las Americas).

House help would be easy to find, there's a Palmas magazine where people offer their services in the classified section.

Recreational: Palmas has great beaches, a golf course, a marina, a tennis club and more. Check the website www.palmasdelmar.com or even better, spend a couple of weeks there before you make your decision to move final.

just limin wrote:

That made me think that it is an area with lots of families, folks going to work and kids in school.  Or it's a ghost town.  But such a pretty ghost town.

Palmas is pretty, absolutely. I don't think that there are many people living full time, at least not in the couple of communities where I've been every now and then. A friend of mine used to live in 'Monte Carlo',  a street close to Palmanova Plaza. Some houses there were abandoned and in a bad shape. Not a lot of people were living there full time. In the weekends it was different. (this is two years ago - my friend moved back to Holland in the mean time).
He told me that the financial crisis hit hard in Palmas. He rented a furnished 3- story 4 bedroom house with pool  for $1,200. The 'normal' rent would have been close to 3 Grand. The golf course was in a bad shape in those days but that changed.
Another community (I can't remember the name right now) where we've been a couple of times to hang out with a cousin from Chicago seemed empty on weekdays.

From what I hear many properties are either owned by people who rent it, most of them are communities with beach access. Then there are communities where most properties are owned by people who use it as a weekend getaway.
Of course there are also people living full time in Palmas but how many and in which communities I don't know.

For us Palmas is a place where we go out every now and then. There are some good jazz concerts in long weekends, a couple of nice restaurants.

Msarroyo74 wrote:

Any thoughts in Guaynabo?

In Guyanabo you will more easily find a community with young families. You would be closer to hospitals, shopping malls etc.
Assuming that one of you is going to work on the island and, again assuming, that that would be somewhere in the metro area I would think that Guaynabo would be a good choice to live.