Monthly Archives: July 2009

Puerto Rican Property Considerations

So we’ve been looking for properties in Puerto Rico online for a while now. We’ve found a few that we are pretty interested in, but it really depends on what we are looking for in a property.

1) On the one hand, I could see buying a property that we could both live in and use as a guesthouse to earn income. It would be fun to live in the same place that you work! A gorgeous tropical guesthouse with a pool, ocean views and a couple of acres. Most of these are very expensive. In fact, they are between 2 and 3 times the cost of a single family home (like the second example).

front of house
A Guesthouse Possibility with ocean views (thanks Nick and Miri for checking it out!)

2) On the other hand, I could see just a single family residence with about 1-2 acres of land that is about 5-10 minutes from town and the beaches. I would like to have enough land that we could grow fruit, have a vegetable garden and some chickens, maybe start a CSA or small farm.

Aguada house
Small House with about 1 1/2 acres near beaches/town

3) Then, there are beachfront properties which are about as much as an inland guesthouse (double to triple the cost generally of the smaller houses). They are pretty cool, but never have much land (usually less than a 1/4 acre) and I’ve heard the maintenence costs are higher due to the sea salt and higher levels of hurricane and tropical storm damage. Plus, they are not usually set-up to be used as guesthouses and we wouldn’t be able to afford them just to live in.

Beachhouse
Beachhouse -Beachfront property

4) There are also other properties like the one we put an offer in on in Lares that is very remote in the high mountainous jungle, but with quite a bit of land. For example, for about the same price (approximately $150k) as the second example -a 1 1/2 acre 3 bd/2 bath house in Aguada that is 10 minutes to the beach like the second picture, we could buy a property with between 6-15 acres, two dwellings and natural springs or wells. The downside? About an hour to the beach and the rest of civilization.

Country House
Country House on 6 acres

At this point we really need to hone in on our “dream house” or goal because if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s hard to know if you’ve found it. With our houses here in the Greeley area, we knew what we wanted; for our personal residence: a single family home, two car garage, 3 bed/2bath (that is now 4 bed/3 bath due to basement finish), AC, fireplace, walk-in closet and a view. When we bought it, it didn’t have AC, a fireplace or even a yard, but it had the basics to make it nice (and now has everything we originally wanted). Same thing with the two rentals. Small, nice single family homes, two car garages, 3 bed/2bath in town.

I just recently finished reading Ben Stein’s book called “How Successful People Win: Using Bunkhouse Logic To Get What You Want in Life” and the very first premise is very logical.  Know what you want. Then, ask for what you want and work to get it.  Our idea of what we want is still fuzzy and vague.

After the Lares deal fell through we contemplated whether or we would have enjoyed living there or not.  I was reading XN’s blog, and noticed that she wants to live in the San Juan area when she moves to Puerto Rico from the New York City area. It made me think that maybe what we are looking for in Puerto Rico is similar to the life we know here, because we are very certain that we don’t want to live in the San Juan area, just as we are certain we don’t want to live in the Denver area–it’s just too big.

So, I’ve also lived in a super small town growing up (300 people) and I think I would be more comfortable in a remote area, but Britton has always lived in Greeley, a mid-sized (~90,000 people) city. I think for that reason, I loved the Lares property more than Britton did/does. However, I also like living in Greeley, so I think I would like something similar to what we have now: a mid-sized agricultural area where we could ride our bikes, garden, and raise chickens but would like a little more land, and a lot less cold in a totally new (Puerto Rican) culture. Not too close, not too far away, as the real estate agents like to say. That is getting closer to knowing what we want, but still is pretty vague.

Maybe it means taking another trip out there with the sole intention of finding another property that just feels right, putting in an offer and taking the dive…What do you think? Did it take you a while to find the perfect spot? Do you think finding a mirror area (similar size, amenities, lifestyle, etc) is smarter than finding something dramatically different? What’s your story?

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Poudre River Mishawaka Reggae Music Festival

After our exciting hiking and biking, we went down the road to Mishawaka for their 5th Annual Reggae Music Festival.  We had never been to a concert there but had driven by enough times to know that it is a hippie hang out and we were interested in finding out what it was like. From the road it doesn’t look like much, but there are always a lot of motorcycles and cars pulled off to the side. When we walked in, it was apparent why it is such a cool and popular hang out. The stage is about 5 feet from the Poudre River!

They have an outside seating area where you can have food and drink, or you can stand right in front of the band. A lot of people were playing hacky-sack and dancing to the different reggae bands. There were a lot of people with dreadlocks and Jamaican colored outfits.

We also saw quite a few river rafters floating down who would pull off to the side of the river to sit, watch and listen to the bands before floating away. It was a neat experience. Even though Mishawaka is a much smaller venue, I’d have to rank it up there with Red Rocks in terms of the cool factor.

Mishawaka Reggae Band
One of the various bands with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop

River Rafters
River Rafters Near the Mish

Cassie, Stage and River
To the Right you can see the River

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Hiking and Biking up the Poudre

Colorado Mtns

Yesterday Britton and I met up with our friends Matt and Jamie to go hiking (Jamie and I) and mountain biking (Britton and Matt) up the Poudre River Canyon before we went to the Mishawaka reggae music festival. Colorado is so pretty in the mountains in the summer. Jamie and I hiked up a trail at Young Gulch and  saw a variety of things including butterflies, fields of purple flowers, bees pollinating flowers AND a rattlesnake.

That was really exciting and scary. He was all coiled up, shaking his rattle and ready to strike. I wanted to get a closer picture, but didn’t want to get too close. We had to warn all the people with off-leash dogs. She and I also walked up to Mishawaka as we were waiting for Britton and Matt to get done biking. We saw a dead bat and were offered to get picked up by a couple of guys on motorcycles. We said we weren’t too good at hitch hiking and that we’d just walk. 🙂 Here are a few pictures:

River and Mountain

Britton and Matt Mtn Biking
Britton and Matt Mountain Biking


Me and Jamie hiking

Jamie and Me, Hiking

Field of Flowers

Fields of Flowers

Butterfly

Butterfly on a flower

Dead  Bat

Dead bat by the side of the road

Rattlesnake in the grass with circle
Rattlesnake in the Grass

This rattlesnake is so well camouflaged that I had to circle it to show you where it is in the grass. Unfortunately, all I have to work with is MSPaint on this laptop, so it looks like a little kid wrote this! 🙂

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Garden Mystery: Solved (somewhat)

I think we have solved the mystery plant puzzle. I believe it is a pumpkin/gourd. Here is a picture. What do you think? We have a few of them springing up everywhere in the greenhouse. It is growing so much that it is pushing the potted plants off the shelves.
gourd/pumpkin

Is it a gourd or a pumpkin?

In any case, the greenhouse is so full we cannot even walk in there anymore.

Greenhouse jungle

We also have a few things popping up in the garden.

Curvy Cucumber
A curvy cucumber

Broccoli
Broccoli

Garlic top
Garlic Top Bulb looking down at it

So, this is looking down at the garlic. If you don’t cut the garlic scape as we did earlier in the spring, apparently it creates this bulb on TOP of the plant that looks just like a miniature bulb except it has all these little seed like things coming from it.  It’s weird the things you learn in the garden.

Chicken

And of course, what would a garden post be without a picture of some chickens! 😉

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