Moving to PR

Just came for a few hours to see, we are on the way back to metro area then head to humacao. Next time i will let you know ahead of time.
Ill write something about my inpressions tonight or tomorrow

Didn't know you were in Rincon .I would haven't gotten together with you .I have been crazy busy the last couple days .

We also had two of our children visited from the 6th to 14th. I have been busy .Then it rained so much I have been trying to catch up on the laundry and the usual house cleaning .Maybe see you next time

Yes, I'd love to hear your impressions of Rincon. We just returned home recently from 4 weeks there.  We're getting to know more of Rincon each visit

I am assuming this was posted for Rey?

Rey, Here's to hoping you find a beautiful piece of land to call home!

A little of the trip

Well I was able to check out some properties and decided on the Ceiba Lot next to the house I was originally planning on buying. I will post a picture of the view from the plot of land when I get back to my house from work.

I was also able to pass a good time with some of you in the Forum and visit with some of the family. Thanks Frogrock for a place to stay.

I was able to take a few hours to travel to the west of the island and get a little bit of an impression:

Given that it was a Sunday, there were a lot of people at the beaches, kiosks and restaurants, basically it was very festive. It reminds me of a combination of The California west coast (strong waves and lots of foam, with plenty of rocky areas on or around the beaches) and a combination of Loiza (kiosks, lots of people around going back and forth and crossing the streets in next to nothing outfit, some made my eyes water). Lots of fairly thin roads with cars parked on both sides of the roads and a line in the middle to accommodate traffic in both direction, so a little of waiting to get from one place to another.

There were a lot of very nice (LARGE) properties and a lot of humble places, the town plaza was tipical for most towns in PR and not many people there since the time of the girls parading by the plaza while we whistled at them is long past (40 years).

A lot of properties have been made into apartments or INNS, some with a bar in the back facing the beach and some a combination of bar restaurant. Needless to say they were busy and all had ENGLISH ONLY signs. So their main business obviously was the tourist.

By about 4:30 in the afternoon we decided to stop and get something to eat a this restaurant, all tables where on the outside, taking over the sidewalk. All the people there were dressed in black. We sat on a high table, the place was a little busy but there were about 3 tables open at that time. We sat there for 10 minutes being completely ignored, finally we signaled one of the servers for our menu. He got us the menu and walked away to talk to his other 5 friends while two or 3 other servers were running around the restaurant. After we had an idea what we wanted, we signaled another server, since the first one never came back to our table, he proceeded to give us the specials and take our order which the first server never did. When the food came in we asked for Pique (hot sauce), and proceeded to eat our meal while we waited for the hot sauce. We interrupted out dinner 5 more times to ask different servers for the hot sauce which finally arrived, mean time the crew of 5 people not doing something other than chatting and using their phone kept changing. Needless to say the service was horrible and the food was so-so. Not impressed at all!!!!!

Picture when I get home. No I do not remember the restaurant name but it was in Rincon.

By the way, if I was looking for a vacation place that was full of action, Rincon would be a good place, however I want something quiet with no crowds, so not the place for me. Yes, visit, but not live there. Lots of you love the place, I know, but not my kind of place.

Sounds like you had a great trip...minus the restaurant in Rincon! Can't wait to see the pics since you had a great view from the home you were originally going to buy.

I don't think is just that restaurant, we had the same experience on some restaurants along the coast. We noticed on several restaurants we went to that the service was lacking. The food was good but the waitresses don't take care of the customers as they should. I made the comment to our family and the answer I got was "that's the way it is here". We got better service from the street vendors than in actual restaurants.

Maybe neither of use looked or sounded Gringo, so maybe we were not welcome.
Maybe i should have worn one of those ass floss bikinis, wow that would give anyone a nightmare.

With 90% of the tourists business in the island been generated internally, you would think the restaurants will treat local customers better. I most say, not everywhere we went we experience this but it was unexpected. Specially in areas where you know are attractive for folks to hangout. We will certainly not go eat at those places again.

Go where the locals go, typically good food at reasonable prices.

Soooo true!!!

OK here is a picture from the highest point of the property. Notice on the right the right most marker post of the rear of the property. This was taken at ground level, imagine viewing it from the second level of the house!!!!

This is  Ceiba overlooking the old Roosevelt Road base the sea and what looks like Vieques

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B02532ODWXN4D5

When the image displays click on it to make it larger

Rey, so glad your trip was good.
The property is wonderful. Great view.
I like Rincon but my Ray says, he would not live there. He likes the country like you.

Nice view! A nice 2nd floor terraza on that side of the house and you will never want to leave!! Nice place for a hamaca enjoying the ocean breeze. I can just imagine!!

I wish all goes well and you can build your dream home there.

Thanks guys, Hector called it a million dollar view. It is a great view

Wow, lovely view from the property!

Great view, used to fly into that base all the time the golf course was great.

Rey,

Looks awsome!  What is the elivation?

Elevation is about 1,000 feet over sea level, poles will have to melt a lot before it can reach my place.

I am ordering a land study to make sure the hill is stable before I buy. There is a lot of run off from further up the hill, so I will carve some of the hill, add a retainer wall and create a couple of trenches to divert the rain runoff around the property. I may decide to line the trences with river rocks so it looks like a quebrada. Will try to maintain a back to nature look. While there are some fairly flat areas for a house, I will get the property better gradded to increase the flat area. I plan a road to the house that snakes around some of the trees and reduce the road incline.

If the hill is safe, it is going to be very nice but it will be years until all the work is done and new plants grow to the right size.

Rey,

Great view! I bet you're glad that's off your to-do list. Sorry you had a bad experience in Rincon, we had a similar situation a month ago. Yeah, we were also shocked many businesses didn't speak spanish...*sigh*.

Looks great!

I noticed when driving to various locations in the PR high country, that many many homes are constructed on very steep mountainsides that require terracing of the land and extensive structural support systems to allow construction. 

In some cases the roadway occupies the ridge top of the terrain and the houses are built on either side with such support systems.  The views are often great, but often most of the lot area is too steep for anything except a billy goat (which some people have!).

Looks like you have alot of usable and relatively flat land suitable for yard and grounds on the site.

Yes the lot has a tilt but it is fairly flat specially toward the back of the property. You can walk up as is but highly recomend a walking stick and maybe resting 1/2 up.

I would not consider building in a site like you described, a good eathquake and house and family end up tumbling down the hill.

Some people have 20 acres of land and 80-90 percent are unussable except for a billy goat.

You can see a lot of houses like that along the country roads up in the mountains. They build on the side of the road and most of the structure in in columns 15'-20' feet off the cliff. Or the house is level with the road and the rooftop is the car garage. And remember, most of those homes are build by themselves no plans or engineer involved in the design.

That is scary, one of those houses can take out several others if something goes wrong.
I am doing a land study, the land is fairly flat and an Engineer will be hired to check everything.

Rey, the road that goes to your property is a beautiful drive. It reminded me of the roads leading to mansions on the 'Gold Coast' on the north shore of Long Island, NY.

Rey, Lmao!

What a great piece of land with amazing views! Congratulations!

frogrock wrote:

Rey, the road that goes to your property is a beautiful drive. It reminded me of the roads leading to mansions on the 'Gold Coast' on the north shore of Long Island, NY.

There are a lot of roads like that in the interior of the island. Fields on both sides and a green canopy overhead. PR is georgeous
Thanks

boricanroots wrote:

Rey, Lmao!

Not sure what you are refering to

ReyP wrote:

Maybe neither of use looked or sounded Gringo, so maybe we were not welcome.
Maybe i should have worn one of those ass floss bikinis, wow that would give anyone a nightmare.

Sorry...hit the wrong button! This is what I was laughing at!

Well house in MA is getting fixed to go in the market. Here is a little demostration of how happy we are: http://www.jibjab.com/view/rHldgsXvRjubHaVvxl9ceA

"floss bikini" - makes my eyes hurt!  LOL

That was funny!!! You wish you can have those moves!!! 

Advice an entretainment is what I try for, there is ussually a joke in a lot of my posts.

Rey, Happy Easter to you and yours. Love the Jib Jab!!!!

Thanks Tonie

A small update, I have ordered a geotechnical study of the land, they will drill and see how stable the land is and provide recommendations about how to build in the lot for good stability. They will go down up to 35 feet or hard rock whichever occurs first and do some lab tests on the sample dirt. If that goes well, then I will start the title search and arrange for the closing on the lot. Not sure yet, but likely by mid May I should be closing.

Can not build yet, have to sell the house in MA first then move to PR and rent while selecting an engineer, select and modify house plan, contractor, etc.
Getting there
Rey

Sounds like a good plan Rey. Hopefully all will go well and you be in the island in no time.