real estate agent

I will say drive by the area and talk to the locals. It will be very hard to buy remotely. Most times the owner wants to sell directly. Most transactions are done in person in the island.

I wish I had the luxury of doing it that way, but circumstances dictate that I use an agent to make the deal. A majority of the plots I've seen are listed through a real estate agent and hence the problem
Thanks,
Ron

Most realtors are alergic to Expats. They think you are wasting their time when you may not know what part of the island or what town you want to live in. A lot, not all Expats spend 2 weeks looking at properties and go back to the mainland without ever making a serious offer. Realtors don't like taking the time and getting zero income from it. Some Expats come and go and at each trip they want to see 25-50 properties and may never buy, that represents 6-8 weeks of no income when a local would spend a week and make an offer because they are familiar with what they want and can narrow it quickly.

Many have been burned too many times. Some will only deal with an expat that is looking for 450k properties and up.

Remember they work for 5-6% of the price, if you are looking for a lot or a fixer upper, they are going to get very little for a sale of a property valued at 10k to 50k. So they rather head to the beach and have some alcapurrias and a beer.
Money talks and they don't know you

A lot of the agents are seller agents, they work for the seller. They may have 20 properties in total listed and of those, they may have 1 or 2 only that may come close to what you are looking for. So you have to call many agents and have them respond before you have 10 or more potential properties that you may want to see. So that is potentially 10 different realtors, remember that they can only show you what they have listed and then they are done and have no other way of selling you something else. So they may not be too entuciastic to meet you for just one viewing 1 property. The lower the price the less inclined they are.

Well put !!  I can understand their position and would stay clear of the wolf cries as well. Just makes it hard for us that are ready and serious.

I have recommended a buyer agent in the past but he been burned a few times and only take a customer if he is convinced that you are serious and know what you want. If so PM me, but don't waste his time, I can only get so many favors from him.

Not sure if this will help anyone, but when we were assigned to PR (we are a military family), we looked through military real estate sites.  Military homeowners are typically in a time-crunch to sell, and they are generally quite trustworthy.  Many military real estate sites are available to anyone.  When we were looking we found a bunch in the Fort B area as well as in Aguadilla.

Damn good idea trekrider!!!!!

Thank you for the idea. Will look into that.