We have an interesting development in the Puerto Rico saga. Something totally unexpected. Something we can’t really turn down. We are excited and still shocked. Something is in the works. When we know more, we’ll let you in on it. It’s good news though!
It does have something to do with this…
I read thru a political forum from time to time. I find it interesting for a number of reasons and it gives me an opportunity and a reason to try and educate myself on a number of things. Just recently someone posted an article about prosperty and global temperatures. The premise is pretty basic. When it is warm out life grows more readily there is more food and more wine consumed! When it is cold food is scarce, wars break out and societies collapse.
The article doesn’t attempt to explain the reasons for the warming and cooling and it really isn’t the point.
I thought it was relevant because we are trying to move from a climate that has extreme swings in temperature thru the seasons to one that is much more steady. In the summer in Colorado it can get up to 110F degrees and in the winter it can get to -20F. I’ve started to notice that with those swings I also experience a change. In the summer things are growing, I have more energy and am generally way more productive. In the winter things die, I have less energy and it’s more difficult to try and be productive.
I would think that not experiencing the extreme changes in seasons and temp would keep humans (and all life for that matter) just a bit more on the productive and energetic side. It will be interesting to see what my own experience is like living closer to the equator.
Well I found the property on Google Maps. It looks as though my memory was right in that we are the only house in the area. I had a GPS location from my phone I grabbed during my last visit but I couldn’t figure out exactly where it was at. We are excited for this new year and the things it will bring. The real estate agent received our contract, so we are on our way to an exciting year!
Click for larger View
There are 2 clearings (triangle shaped and one directly across from the property that is squarish shaped). The clearing across the street had been filled in with Greenery by the time I got there but the triangle clearing was pretty much the same from what I remember.
Both areas would make for good places to build additional housing. In total there are 11 cuerdas (acres). Our plan today is to build another cabana and a pool on the property and visit as often as we can. Over the next couple of years we will work towards moving permanently.
We have a plot plan and I am trying to match it up to the picture so we know our borders. That will help us with the planning out of where to build the next structure and where to put our pool!
Well I wanted to put up a brief update as to what we were doing. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a happy new year!
We had asked for a closing date June 15 and the sellers came back saying that they only wanted to do 90 days (March). We responded that we could probably swing May 15. They came back wanting to know why we want to delay. This is the response Britton and I sent them:
Well we have a few reasons. We are trying to leave enough time to gather our financial resources, secure vacation time from our jobs to travel to PR to close as well as contact a lawyer who can verify and check the title work, surveys, and inspections for us. We know that this takes some time because we have tried to buy a house in Puerto Rico before and we uncovered some title issues which caused the closing date to be continually pushed out.
We want to give ample time for this process plus we have to coordinate everything from Colorado which makes it a little more difficult.
I want to let the sellers know that we are very serious about purchasing the property at the proposed price and time. I hope we can come to an agreement that will please everyone involved.
I think we laid it out just about as clearly as possible. The only thing we didn’t suggest was that lowering the price could possibly make this happen more quickly. We didn’t want to go back two steps– to negotiating price again. So we waited…and yesterday we received the response back:
Hi Britton,
I spoke to the sellers, they have agreed to the terms, we will go
thru with the deal, hope everything will go o.k..
We will draw up the contract, please let me know if we can e-mail
you the contract or have it faxed.
So…it sounds like we are buying this property in May! Hooray! Well, we can’t get too excited yet. There is still a lot of work to do and as we mentioned in the email to her if any of those things goes wrong, it could push the date out. It is not exactly like buying property in the states even though I am glad this isn’t my first house-buying ‘rodeo’ or I’d be even more freaked out.
But, this is a huge step! The compromise has been accepted!
Soon we will be hanging out in the jungle in our hammock