Buying a house in the Aguadilla, and Rincon areas, any recommendations

Hi,

Best wishes on your move to PR.  We recently and a very good experience with this real estate broker in the NW area.

http://www.puertoricobeachproperties.com

Robert Jirau at the above web site I can recommend.

JP

Thank you!!

Hi Rey,

Thank you for your comments. We own a home in South Carolina and we are currently renting it out. This will be our fourth visit to the island come this December. On our past visits, we stayed at the Gran Melia' and the Intercontinental Resort. We booked our current vacation stay through VRBO, this time around. We have patronized VRBO several times.

We are in the researching phase and plan to visit several communities during our short stay in December.

Thanks again,

Temirra

Hello everyone,

welcome on board Temirra 

A new thread has been created from your posts on the Puerto Rico forum so that you may get some feedbacks.

Best of luck,
Bhavna

As some of the folks here have pointed out, do your homework and get a local lawyer to handle the legal issues with purchasing a house in the island. Come down, spend time in each area you may be considering, get to know some of the neighbors and ask, ask, ask questions. It is a good time to buy, prices are low and there are plenty of good deals. But at the same time, it will be hard to re sell, so make sure you make the right decision BEFORE you invest any money.

Good luck and welcome to paradise!!!!!

Adlin20, Thank you!! We are planning visiting Aguadilla and Isabela on our next reach in December. We have been in contact with Frank Lopez. He is a realtor, lawyer and a notary. Several listing on Point2Homes, Zillow, and other individual realtors listings have caught our eye but we are not sure of how dated the information is? We read that the Point2Homes website is fairly accurate.

I can surely recommend you houses in the Aguadilla and Isabela  areas.I  live in the area and I am familiar with Brokers and houses ,so let me know how I can be of help

Curarico, we welcome all information and guidance. Thank you!!

Point to point isn't really updated.  Try zillow.  For the areas you are interested in.  It also tells you how many days it's been on the market .  Definitely strongly suggest living in pr for at least a year before buying .  We have lives in pr for 13 months now and have moved 3 times already . You don't want to be stuck with a mortgage of a place you don't want to be . Plus its really hard to sell a house in pr.  And with the economy and market the way it is.  You could loose a lot if you are trying to resell.  Lots of abandoned properties because people can't sell .

You said you have a realtor. It is his job to present you with houses to see and let you decide which you want to see. If you have to find them you should skip him. he needs to earn his commission

Sound advice Sandra, and Rey!!

Retired to PR three years ago and thoroughly enjoy it. Your making a good decision looking at the Northwest part of the island which has the tranquil feel of island living. Rincon and Aguadilla offer some great amenities and have some very nice areas as well as a high density of expats. These are also more heavily populated areas so traffic, people and homes within closer proximity of each other is common place. We built an ocean view home in Quebradillas in the Terranova Cliff area located 350 feet above sea level. Although we have to drive to the beach the trade winds and views are beautiful and a drive to the beach in PR is not very far wherever you live. The smaller towns may not offer all the amenities of a Rincon but you get more house and property for the money and don't have to deal with the heavy traffic of both people and cars of the more surf and beach communities. Selection is a personal preference of what type of living your looking for and the island has a lot to choose from, your selection of the Norhwest area is a good first start.

yes, the north west part of the island is very nice and as a local friend told me it is more "relaxed" than the east / SJ part of the island.  He thinks the crime rate is much lower than the SJ area.

We went to crash boat beach in Aquadilla and it was packed (week end I think).  A couple  of nice restaurants nearby and we had a good trip.

Sitka

How can I contact you?

we will be in PR mid Jan

The real estate sales biz is a lot diff then the mainland. Glad they worked well for you and I believe it.

Me, a different experience with this business. Very recently, Emailed them about 2 listings under their Company name, though I have learned that in PR, that doesn't mean didley. Robert, who I think is the boss emailed me a few days later. Gave me the rough details but nothing that wasn't on the web listing.

OK next step, look into it further for me or other conferables and get back to me and sir please note that time is of the essence. And high end items that you would think would motivate a guy in the R.E. business. Did not hear back. Emailed him again twice within 7 days. Nada. Called his cell twice the next 5 days, left vm's. Nada. Faxed him. Emailed him again. Nada. Funny how your mileage can vary.

And their web site is unnavigable. Has links for various sub categories like price, type, style, etc--none of them work. They function but the info returned is not what you asked for. Alot of time wasted, eg if you are looking for x,y,z and you enter the parameters and it comes back with numerous properties of the wrong category on the wrong side of PR, inland, commercial, whatever, not just what their name expressly puts in your mind.

I'd give him and his Co a -F, his website worse, completely dysfunctional and only has the same listings as Point2 Point or Zillow. But that's just me. Try him, not trying to discourage you, maybe it was an anomaly and he's super. YMMV. But that was my recent experience and I'm done with Roberto and his "business".

In my experience the best option is to search classificadosonline.com....I wouldn't even waste my time with those other websites.  Most if not all Realtors post their listings on classificadosonline.com and don't even bother updating their websites. When you find a property you like then make the contact with the Realtor or Owner.

My opinion will be that if you find a property yourself, contact a lawyer and save the realtor fees. In PR a lawyer will be the one doing all the paperwork for you anyway. I am by no means putting down the realtors but if you are doing most of the work, may as well save that fee.
If you are working with a good realtor, there should be no reason for you to be having to find properties. That's his or her job.

So I am clear I was referring to the puertoricobeachproperties company linked and referenced a few posts above my post and I apologize for any confusion.. Rey and Sitka were kind enough to refer me to their favorites.

Remember that there are seller agents and buyer agents. A seller agent will limit itself to their own listings. A buyer agent will show you his and listings from other agents and arrange to visit the oroperties even if not his.
The one I gave you is a buyer agent that I used and became friends with.

Ok Rey, thanks for that important clarification and for your referral.

Using seller agents forces you to deal with multiple agents which is a headache when pressed for time. Also things get confucing (assuming they call you back), dealing with multiple agents.
A buyer agent is free, they will split the fee the seller pays, so it cost you nothing either way. The seller has to pay around 5% to have his property listed/sold and does not care what percent which realtor gets as long as it does not exceed the 5 percent.
Before you go, get your paperwork together for the bank loan, the realtor should let you know what to bring. First stop should be the bank to get pre cleared for a loan up to a ceirtain amount. The bank will later do a value check on the house / apprasial to ensure that the property is worth at keast that amount. Check with the bank before you make an offer with money so that the money is not tied up. Having an appraiser of your own is beneficial also. Dont forget to contract a house inspection, to ensure there are no hidden problems with the structure of the house, specialy the roof.

I believe everybody has offered some sound advise based on their own experiences. It's important to understand that outside of the cultural and sometimes language barrior that most real estate transactions are similar to the mainland. Doing your due diligence is important here as it is in the mainland, you will find commission whores and self serving agents which you have to be on the lookout for. If your unsure be upfront with each agent and only agree to view their listings to ge a feel for their guidance and by no means sign anything. There are no representation agreements in PR unless you enter into one unknowingly, which you don't want to do. I would personally suggest working with multiple agents that focus on a specific areas and making that clear upfront. That way your guided to the specific type of property you want and not fire sale homes. Once someone understands that they are competing for a real sale on a specifically outlined property they will understand the importance of the transaction and that your a serious buyer. There are too many people that travel to PR and from PR that make looking at homes a weekend pastime, cut through that with a specific outline of what you expect from the agent and if he or she can't deliver move on to the next one. Good luck with your search and take control of the process.

If I can be of any help please reach out to me.

I agree with Hector. Take ownership of the process you will be the one living with the outcome and payment if you let a realtor take full control. After all they are in for the sale and you are stuck with the afternath. Not sll realtors are like that but how would you know? It is hard to do dealings from afar. We just finished our home, dealing with contractors and between one and the next we have found night and day differences. Just like in mainland the more you are involved the less likelihood you will be shortchanged.

I agree with Hector. I looked at over 80 properties before purchasing the home we are in now.  I didn't stick with one realtor.  If I saw a house I was interested in, I called the realtor who had the listing.  I would also research their websites (if they had one) and would make an appointment to see as many properties that interested me as possible in one day.  Sometimes realtors called back, sometimes they didn't.  A lot of times I would leave a message, and it would take 2 days for them to call back.  I used classificados, Zillow, trulia, point2point, and did a lot of driving in areas that I liked.  It took 6 months, but we have had no regrets!  Take ownership in the process, let the realtor know what you want and areas you are interested, and print out or save anything you find on the Internet that may be of interest to you.  I had a realtor that I would hand a stack of listings to, and because he was familiar with the areas, we would be able to eliminate many of the listings.  Good luck to you.  If you need anything, don't to hesitate to let me know.