Housing question

WHERE you want to live during the short term rental, and WHERE are you looking for a long term rental?

In the capital, San Juan?

I paid $450 for a 1 bed 350 sqft apartment for a year in San Juan,  and I find and bought my house during the first 6 months. ( But I still paid and stayed the whole year because we agreed in that.)

I did arrange an apartment for rent from the mainland, I did all the paperwork and paid for background check, and when I arrived to San Juan the realtor was nowhere to be find! She did not answer to the phone, did not answer to texts, emails, her office constantly said she is busy with a client; that went on for 4 days, finally my 4 nights was over at the airb&b and I had nowhere to  go with 6 suitcases.... I was lucky that I could strike a deal with the airb&b for a year stay, this was walking distance to Ocean Park.

And that is the place I also find my house for 6 months later by walking on the streets; the house was not listed on the internet on any real estate listings, but there was a sign put out  on it with the realtor's phone number.

Where do you live in the mainland? It must be an expensive city... Here rents are much-much cheaper...

I was in an airb&b

We also paid for our apt on-line from the mainland. Scary and frightening, but we had a great realtor that waited 4 hours at our home for us as we were delayed at the airport.

clasificados online is a great resource to finding a place to stay. i would strongly suggest you use a VRBO or a Hostel for when you land and then search on foot. you do not have a huge budget, and can get into financial trouble quickly.

We also ran into an issue with getting a car. Bring your own, or have financing lined up in the mainland first. Puerto Rican banks will not finance without a utility bill. It took over 3 months to get a Utility Bill here. We finally found PenFed to finance, but had to have a huge downpayment. We were not prepared for that.

Thanks very much for these!

The housing rental prices you see online for Puerto Rico have such an extreme range that I was beginning to worry if the lower-end prices might be an illusion. I feel a little better after seeing your posts.

(Of course, prices on the mainland are crazy too, especially post-Covid. So far I've usually lucked out, knock wood, but this is a bigger commitment because you can't just drive away.)

So to answer your questions I was thinking of starting out someplace not too far from San Juan. The only reason I need to be there is waiting for my car, which I plan to ship. I gather that usually takes only ~a week, but with bad luck could take much longer? I'd rather have something stable, which I was sure wouldn't gobble up my savings, even if it meant staying there longer than necessary (sort of like what GHUCY did).

For long term I have been thinking about the south or southwest coast, preferably someplace rural. One high priority is someplace I can swim regularly year-round. Also if possible someplace with fewer English speakers so I am forced to practice Spanish (mine is not bad, but I'm a long far way from bilingual). I haven't looked at inland much because I'm super chicken about driving narrow mountain roads. I'm hoping that this whole "get outside San Juan and don't be too demanding on amenities and you can find a good deal on rent" thing is real and not just another Internet fairy tale.

So maybe ... focus on finding the best deal possible on Airbnb or VRBO or the like, rather than trying to find some other less-than-one-year rental?

Or ... if it is possible to deal from the mainland through a realtor, any tips on finding a reliable one?

Thanks again very much!!!

@wondering9 Hello Wondering9: Oh yeah, definitely doable outside the city area. Your going in the right direction. Good luck!

We used [link moderated] for our annual lease. Scams are real, so be careful. If you decide to VRBO, contact the owner and ask about a long term stay. We were able to get 50% off when we came to try different locations out to determine which part of the island suits us best. Some rentals from Realtor.com are furnished.  Also, it takes about 30 minutes to go 10 miles on most roads. Look for things that are close to your personal necessities. I also used a crime map to avoid potential bad areas.

Swimming all year is easy to do from anywhere on the Island. I suggest a pool. Rip currents have been issued here every day for the last 6 weeks with hurricanes and Tropical storms in the Atlantic.

Shipping your car will cost you an extra 30% import fee. it costs that to buy a new car here too. so, be aware of that. Insurance was also difficult too… we could not get anyone to call us back! Literally took us two weeks to get insured.  Plus, they took the premium for the entire year up front. Driving here is crazy. People go thru red lights, drive on the shoulder and pass on double yellow lines into incoming traffic. It is intense until you get used to the pattern.

Working remotely also took us on a course for double taxation. If you have a PR address, but your work is based out of the US, you will pay all US tax, plus PR tax. So, for us, an extra $1000 less out of our paycheck! All of the sudden having $2000 less a month was a shock. Fortunately, my husbands Employer has a PR office, and switching offices fixed that, but it was still a financial shock.

Spanish is spoken everywhere, so no worries about using it. My dialect was too off for people to understand me… go to U-Tube and start watching videos. It will help with slang terms and common words that were taught as proper Spanish in class are not used here. Its hard, but even the people we have spoken to have said you just have to be here to get it!

We have been on the Island for 4 months now. The above things are what we have learned. We would also be devastated if we had to leave. Puerto Rico is a very happy place! People are genuine and nice. It is beautiful, peaceful and a lot less violent than where we moved from in the mainland. There are still multiple people getting shot each week in Norfolk VA… they have crime here too, but at least no one has shot up a grocery store or office bldg.

Good luck, and i wish you well! Follow your dream, its worth the effort to get here!

Thank you so much 

Sounfs like patience is the name of the game  I would like to live in a neighborhood in Ponce where I can do all my errands and also have museums and restaurants within walking distance 

I will not be bringing my car 

thank you so much for the details 

Im concerned about the double taxation  i will have to look at that further 

Elizabeth

Having lived there for many years in the past and currently in the process of returning that price range is definitely doable!

There is no double taxation in Puerto Rico!!! It is an agreement between the US and its commonwealth.

If you earn money in PR and pay taxes for that locally, it will be credited on your IRS return and vica versa. The only thing you have to do for the IRS is adjusting your standard deduction  to less amount by a percentage you will get by dividing your taxable amount without the PR income with your taxable amount including the PR income (the world-wide taxable income.)

Make sure you get a good tax professional who knows and works with BOTH tax systems.

For Wondering9,

It is still within your budget but worthy for the higher price for the short term rental; years back I rented a studio apartment for a month in the heart of Old San Juan, on Calle San Francisco.

The name is Navona Studios. Look it up and contact with them, maybe they will give you a good deal. The longer you stayed there the more discount you got... I was very happy there as a tourist. I LOVED that location, it was like a dream. I was in the middle of everything, I could explore the whole Old San Juan, and I could swim every day in a mile distance to East at Playa Escambron.

@GHUCY

yes, you get credit, but you have to pay it in first!

So each check, Federal and PR tax is taken out, each paycheck. (Not talking FICA and Soc Security) Then you file annually in one entity, get a refund from the other…. but you don't get to do that until you do your taxes.  That equaled for us, $24,000 a year extra in taxes until we could file.

So, for us, we had an EXTEA  2,000 a month taken from our paycheck, because we did business in the mainland and NOT PR.

Yes, we even hired a tax consultant!

It”s just something to be aware of, because not a lot of people can afford to do that.

Wow, that is brutal...And it seems like against the tax agreement between the US and PR.

Luckily, I only deal with passive incomes from both places, no drastically reduced monthly paychecks. But they can also make mistake on payrolls, misinterpret laws. I would burry myself into tax codes on my own until I see the very sentences myself which require this procedure on paychecks ahead of time. Because if they keep back THAT MUCH MONEY they should pay interest on it. The IRS pays interest on your reinbursement if they delay the payment by a couple of week... How about holding on to your 24,000  dollars for a year??

Agreed. it was a horrible 6 weeks! We had very little income to live off of.  But, we were able to switch his base office. I just wanted people to know this, because we were blindsided.

We had 3 tax attornies involved with this, and it was accurate and no mistake!  His employment office was on the mainland, not in PR. His office did not do business in PR, so switching to the San Juan office fixed our issue. That was the catch. Not everyone will have that luxury.

Yes, it's  a very important info...

Cheers and enjoy your life in the Caribbean!

@wondering9

How has your search for property sobfar? Have you found a short term rental property? I have one currently available in a very nice neighborhood in Ponce. It is a small two bed one bath in a second story. You can reply by message.

@ElizabethPR

Saludos Elizabeth

Have you found a short term rental property? I have one currently available in a very nice neighborhood in Ponce. It is a small two bed one bath in a second story. You can reply by message.