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| view to pool deck through open gate... |
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| painted them a grayish blue |
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| I never noticed the razor wire while cataloging flowers I want |
Back in 2013 and 2014, Thomas and I started looking for a right-now vacation home that could be used as a future retirement home. Our budget was literally zero to whatever was cheapest. Knowing that properties in the Caribbean are generally cash based, we earmarked an investment property we owned to pay for a home in paradise. We were very naive...
but our adventures in investment property taxes are for a later post. There aren't many comprehensive real estate websites for properties on the North Coast of Dominican Republic.
(Real estate is the wild west here. There are no buyers or sellers agents. Every real estate salesperson essentially acts as a dual agent. So, as many of the online forums about the DR correctly suggest, boots on the ground works best. Reach out to many people at various sites and don't hesitate to ask all possible questions.) I was pouring over all of the sites I could find, clicking through endless listings with no idea what area was what and there seemed like there were unreal deals. But, so many of the houses looked like prisons, bars and gates on all doors and windows, even the porches resembled giant cages/jail cells. We were not impressed and hoped that wasn't everywhere in DR.
For many reasons that I documented in earlier posts, we chose a smaller farming town in the middle of the North Coast because it was not a typical tourist destination but had an established international expat presence. We fell in love immediately and do not regret our choice to pull the trigger after one five day visit. We decided NOT to purchase in a gated community.
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| I don't even notice the bars anymore. |
We know that break ins are common and thus everyone builds with bars on doors and windows. I saw our house listed on a couple sites and bookmarked it as a favorite. The pictures showed clearly that the house had bars. But once we were standing in the house and looking out, the bars didn't seem as distracting as in the pictures and now we've become accustomed to them. And I am even starting to love the look! Upon taking possession of the house we discovered our two bedroom, one bath house had an extra bedroom and bathroom in the form of a caretaker unit. We have since started the process of converting it into a separated master bedroom suite with an en suite bathroom. Small but functional. Even as our neighbors who were building on the hill with us attempted to go without bars, learning the hard way that no bars makes you an unfortunate target for thieves.
Some thief-gangs are quite sophisticated, they know the moment you are away and forgot to turn on the outside lights, or have small children who will crawl through openings you can't imagine would be big enough to allow them to and open the front door to their much larger companions to help themselves to whatever is handy and desirable. So, that settled the question about whether we
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| typical dominican style home...ground floor always has bars |
would add bars to the new converted addition. Answer: Yes, we will. This particular paradise is not a place where you could keep the sliders open all night allowing the night breezes to caress you as you sleep. But, with bars you can. The gates closed and locked give you the peace of mind to sleep in those glorious breezes and ubiquitous nature sounds: Crickets, Frogs and our adopted Dominican townspeople dancing the night away. So, now our future building plans all include those same jail-like features I used to fret about...iron bars.
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