Terms describing size of the property in various PR listings

The translation for "Cuerdas" is Acres.

A cuerda is close to an acre, but not exactly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuerda
The most common price for land is 15-20 dollars per square meter. You can get cheaper, but 15-20 is most common. Then add any buildings to determine how good of a deal tou are fetting.
Due to economic situation you can further discount the property before making an offer. Lets say you are looking at a house valued at 70 k, offer 50 or 55k.
PR has about 15,000 homes in the market, most seller will likely take less than what they ask or risk holding out for a year or more. If there is a current mortgage they are more willing to negotiate as everymonth they have to pay the mortgage or risk defaulting and then they lose the property and what they could have pocket.
I suggest you look at properties around 15 to 20 percent above your budget then offer your budget amount. You may loose the property but there is a good chance you will win.

Good information Rey! This is very helpful.

OK thanks a bunch for the great info.

So are cuerdas  (close to acre)  the most commonly used reference for large sections of real estate in PR?  I haven't seen hectares in any listing in PR so I am guessing it is cuerdas and not hectares. Hectares was the reference always used in CR--I think it is plus or minus 2 acres.

The site I gave gives you measurement for hectar.
The most common measurement is square meters, most houses have very little land around them, since they are in urbanizaciones. Next will be the measurement in cuerdas, which are mostly in the country side / El Campo, yes cuerdas.
Given your profession I find it hard to believe that you are planing on becoming a farmer.

Hahaha Rey, not with my hands anyway. But, I live most of the week on my horse farm 1.75 hs out of Centro, and in town on nights that I have to be there in the early morning.

After 15 years of country solitude, I can't go back to living in a neighborhood like I did my formative years on a 25' lot in centro-Centro.

Plus I hate a/c, never had it young and never feel good the next day after sleeping in it, and I know that would be a must at lower levels in PR.

And I love the green mountains, the countryside, and common folk, coming as a city boy with very modest roots who didn't see mountain until I was 15. The last 15 years I travelled to CR, I had a place 20 kms from Manuel Antonio, an internationally top ranked Pacifico playa.  My place was at the foot hills of a 3500' range, at about 900 feet elev. Many mornings in the green (rainy) season 58-62f, nice. But, at the playa, need a/c. Hot and humid like PR I am sure.

The only terms I am familiar with is: "solar" same as "lot or parcel" in English. Then there is, " cureda" a little less than an acre and "hectare" which is larger than a cureda but not sure hoe much. It is usually used when you have large tracts of Land.

Yes depending where in the mountains, you can be rather cool specialy after midnight.
If you like that, there are a lot of places in the center parts of the island. Since PR is only 35 miles wide, you are still no more that 17 1/2 miles from the sea as a bird flies (35 by road, lol).
A large lot like that will cost you and the roosters will wake you up every morning. You may want to get a horse or two to go to town from time to time and not have to drive the car. We can get you a Pava and make a Jibaro out of you.

Saving everyone the bother, I Googled the conversions.

1 cuerda = .97 acre.

1 hectare = 2.47 acre

So rounding off .03 in both equations for practical conversation purposes would give you:

1 cuerda is 1 acre

1 hectare is 2 1/2 acres.

No joke, I know now. Many of the YouTube videos of mountain pueblos have people riding horseback and some at a pretty good trot.

Look up "Paso Fino".

You can always join a Cabalgata, Where you go bar hoping via horse back.

The "Paso Fino"  and no I did not know this, I just googled it, and also "Cabalgato";  Paso Fino is a breed imported originally from Spain to the Caribbean.  The fotos I saw are beautiful. They have branched off to a Puerto Rican Breed and a Colombian Breed, but still the same gene pool with papers. Stateside I read that we have the PR offspring, although I do not ever remember seeing one. I remember now seeing one in one of the YouTube videos from PR that I mentioned. The kid was riding bareback down the local highway and it was spirited but so incredibly effortless by both that I wondered.  Wikipedia also says "known for their natural gait, a light horse that moves smooth. "

Cabalgato comes from the Latin term caballus for horse. Celebration in PR and some other Latin countries including Mexico, annually on Jan 5, to honor the coming of the 3 Kings. Horseback participants throw candy.

From your posts, I gather it has become popular in PR other then on the 5th. Can you get a RWI in PR? Small town cop just gave a DWI to a guy on his lawn mower cutting leaves on the street.  Weird, too much police action for me, but qualifies under my state law--anything motorized.

You should consider arecibo mountain area. It is close robutuda and its 1 1/2 from San Juan airport and a little less to pounce airport .Also arecibo mountain area is about 25 mins to towns and beaches also Sam's club is in hatillo about 30 mins away .Arecibo has a lot to offer. Cuevo venta, Rio planta waterfalls , arriba forest with trails and caves. Arecibo telescope. Indingo caves. Rio Camuy caves not far away either. Utuado has lago dos bocas and a Indian museum as well.  Arecibo// hatillo has 2 malls and 2 movie theaters as well .Prices are pretty cheap in this area considering all it has to offer. We lived there before moving to Rincon. The climate in the arecibo mountains is generally 5 to 10 degrees cooler then the rest of the island .But still so close to every thing .Please feel free to contact me privately is your have more questions and we can also chat via phone or Facebook

Thanks SRD. Odd, I have been focused on Arecibo the last week for one of your very reasons. Can get up to 1500' pretty fast with a direct, fairly straight road straight to the north and west coasts. And I noticed it was in the "normal" range on the drought monitor thru out. Have read and viewed everything I could on the town. Shop owners are gone, surrendered to the big box stores and malls, complaining about how the highway took them directly there and not to town. I suppose you can visualize that.

I was a little surprised by the frankness of the mayor's comments about the debt issue. He was quoted as saying he has 50 employees, or something like that, a large number anyway, but he said I only now need 1/3 of them. But won't lay them off for human reasons.

Thanks for your offer. I'll take you up on it.  Let me get my q's together.

Paso fino horses originated in Peru. The Spanish brought their horses and this particular gait developed from the horses navigating the soft desert sand. The are a lot of them here in a Ponce area.

I bet you wind up with one or two Paso Fino, dgdlaw!
I never rode one, but I seen many of them. Paso fino or not a lot of people do use their horses in town and in their farms, going bar hopping, etc. At night some of the riders, may had had one or two too many to drink.
Other than the economic situation, PR is a small paradise if you want to get back to nature and most of the people are simple and very accepting of others.
Hope we both end up in the island soon.
Yes a lot of people ride bareback

sandrarduncan wrote:

You should consider arecibo mountain area. It is close robutuda and its 1 1/2 from San Juan airport and a little less to pounce airport .Also arecibo mountain area is about 25 mins to towns and beaches also Sam's club is in hatillo about 30 mins away .Arecibo has a lot to offer. Cuevo venta, Rio planta waterfalls , arriba forest with trails and caves. Arecibo telescope. Indingo caves. Rio Camuy caves not far away either. Utuado has lago dos bocas and a Indian museum as well.  Arecibo// hatillo has 2 malls and 2 movie theaters as well .Prices are pretty cheap in this area considering all it has to offer. We lived there before moving to Rincon. The climate in the arecibo mountains is generally 5 to 10 degrees cooler then the rest of the island .But still so close to every thing .Please feel free to contact me privately is your have more questions and we can also chat via phone or Facebook

Very interesting to hear your comments on this area  - - we are moving to Hatillo in a few days and we are looking forward to the change in latitude!   

10-4 us on getting there asap.  I am doing a Recon mission for 10 days very soon. Haven't been there in a very long time. 3 days based in Ponce so I can explore it,  the southern slope,  et al. 3 based in Cabo to explore the western slope and those playas, et al; and then 3 based somewhere in "The Corner".  Need my boots on the ground to start narrowing my decisions. Looking from the Internet is like a kid in a candy store but the cabinets are locked.

You should also check the east coast. Rio grande, luquillo, Fajardo, Ceiba, Naguabo, Humacao. Those towns surround the Rain Forest and are close to the Viequez and Culebra Islands.
Nice farmland also in Las Piedras and Juncos.

Arecibo doesn't have drought issues .Especially because you are located near Lagos dos bocas . Land is fairly cheap there a lit in arecibo.  It was just to far for us because I have a 6 year old that we home school and it took us 22 mins to get to Carr2 . If you arent planning to go out eveyday or have an efficient vehicle then it's a good place to live. My husband insisted on getting a jeep liberty and that thing sucks up gas.  If you had a mirage .It gets 44 miles per gallon. I certainly wouldn't have hesitated continue living in arecibo .  Another beautiful area is quebradilla it has one of the best views in Puerto Rico .You are close to isabela which has a lot to offer .However if you aren't bilingual many places can be difficult to adjust to if you want to have friends .  That's why I love Rincon. We live in the mountains 10 mins from grocery store ,town center and beaches.  Only 25 mins to Sam's club Kmart and the vs hospital.  90% of the people speak English and everyone here is friendly and easy to make friends with natives as well .  We live in a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom with water and pay $500 a month. We have a cistern and solar water heater and have views of the ocean and mountains from the front and back of the house . We love it here.  We are 30 mins from bqn airport
Better then any of the other places on the island. Please feel free to private message me   I would be happy to give you a tour here

Cords = cuerdas
Strings = hectares

Wooooo, that changes my viewing. Thanks.

Watch the car you get for mountainous areas, may save gas but it may not make it up the hill and never mind any off road driving. Even if not doing mountains you want a car with good clearance, too many pot holes, ditches, and dead men on the road can tear the underside of your car including transmission and oil pans. It can get rather expensive if you are not too lucky. My last rental did not do too good with the pot holes, and ditches, it scrapped underside quite a few times, but it was a rental.