Update on building the house

When we first entertained the idea of moving here several friends who lived on the island told us, “You know, living here is different than visiting here.” I had no idea what they were talking about and in fact, thought to myself, “How different can it be?” LOL. After nearly 4 years of residing on St. Maarten the answer is, “Night and day different!”

Now I’m faced with another challenge, “How different is building here versus purchasing a prebuilt property?” After the honeymoon wore off of realizing we had this gorgeous piece of property we began the task of getting serious about what it was going to take to build on the site.

First, a mortgage. On the island banks will only allow you to have a mortgage until age 70. For us, that’s about 11 years. This means that payments would be sky high. So, instead of getting a mortgage we’ve decided to wait until next summer (of 2023) when we turn 59 1/2 and can begin to pull from the 401k without penalty. It feels better to our hearts to do it this way, so we’re not saddled with interest rates (which actually aren’t horrible here, roughly 5% at our last quote) and can build on our own timeline.

Next, after having several architects review the plans that came with the property, we know we’re essentially going to have to start from scratch. This is not a bad thing. We want this house to be 100% right and we’re blessed to know a few outstanding architects on the island. The basic design of the house will stay the same, we love the modern look. Instead, having an architect draw this up will insure that every detail will be in place. One example, while the original plans had a cistern, it did not include a way to connect it to the house 😞

Lastly, because we live our lives with the mantra, “make plans, don’t plan results”, we’ve also got the land on the market. If it sells before we build, it will financially be in our favor. If it doesn’t, we proceed with building and it’s no harm, no foul. We’re willing to trust the Universe to work out those details 😊 Onward and upward!