In my excitement to finally find the island and property that we wanted we started doing research on Cocomo Village on the island of Hunga, the area of Vava'u, in the Kingdom of Tonga.
I found out that these properties are not "for sale" as land in Tonga cannot be sold. But they offer a 99 year lease that is renewable. The properties are currently going for $5,500 for 1/4 acre and there are only 4 lots left.
I have spent the past three months driving the real estate agent, Robert Bryce (originally from the USA) crazy with all of my questions and demands for information as I want to make sure that I am not buying something over the internet that is not there. Remember the swamp land in Florida scandal about 20 years ago. Ya that. So I have about 50 emails and so far 3 Skype calls to Robert for all of my questions.
I even called other real estate agents in Vava'u to find out what kind of reputation Robert had in the area. I was shocked and disappointed to find that both the real estate agents that I called did not have anything nice to say about the guy who now wants to sell me something. But I don't take others opinions lightly so I starting researching Robert himself. I found all kinds of information on him from good to bad to everything in between. But is was not until I found this report from the Royal Land Commission of the Kingdom of Tonga that I began to understand a lot about the real estate agents unkind words and why the property is "selling" for the price that it is. It is a very dry read but for those interested it gives a lot of history to the dealings in Vava'u.
After the past 5 weeks of dealing with Robert I find him to be a very easy going person who is willing to help even on a Saturday afternoon. Even though I have all of the paperwork and deposit money in the bank I am still reluctant to release the money until I am 100% comfortable ..... and Robert .... so far ... understands this.
As of today, I am waiting for my travel agent to confirm dates that I am to be in Vava'u anywhere between May 1 and May 15 2013. When that is confirmed I will be booking villas on Vava'u and Hunga for the time I will be spending there to assess the properties.
Until then... have a good night.
Char
Saturday 13 April 2013
Wednesday 3 April 2013
How I got this idea
Hello all,
My husband and I decided it was time to leave this wonderful rat race that we call Canadian life and move to a far off and distant place. A lot of people have asked us how we ended up deciding to make a move of this magnitude so I thought I would share that with you.
Many years ago I was working at a manufacturing plant in Winnipeg MB as a temporary worker when I found out that the person I was filling in for was on vacation in Belize. It was supposed to be a 3 week placement that ended up being a permanent placement because the lady did not come back. She hired an agent to sell everything that she owned and moved to Belize without a moments notice or a second thought.
A couple of years ago I was surfing the internet dreaming of being able to do the same thing as this lady planted a seed the day she did not come back to work. At that time you could buy a couple of acres on the beach in Belize for about $5,000. 7 years later I am looking at these same properties that are for sale for $250,000 and over. Needless to say I was shocked.
Last Christmas my husband, Barry and I found ourselves to be alone on Christmas day as none of our 4 adult children had time for us. Just as they did not have time for us on Thanksgiving day or even Easter of last year. So we decided that next Christmas we are actually going to go on vacation somewhere warm for the first time ever. You see, it is hard on us to be empty nesters at such a young age (I am 39) and not to have any of our children is especially hard. All we have ever known is life with our children and we are not "cool" enough for them.
Anyway, I started researching where we would go on vacation and I starting looking at property in Belize again. As the property values are now too expensive for us average Canadian working couple and we did not want to buy the same thing in a different country just to have the same bills and responsibilities as we already have here so I started looking in different places.
My search brought me to Rotoan Honduras. It is a tiny little island with a lot of space available for a decent price. As we really want the typical "bar on a beach" I started looking for properties or business opportunities that our modest budget could get for us. Other than the one area of the island that is a growing tourist destination it seemed like a good place to go so I started doing research in the area, the people, the culture, living conditions, etc. The more I read the more impressed I was with the place. Until .......
Until I actually asked my husband what his dream spot would be like. And his answer was nothing like the up and coming area that I had been researching. Barry wants a tiki bar with only solar power for electricity, composting toilets and lazy days on the beach. Barry wants isolation, quiet, tech free, back to basis where there are no Jones's to keep up with. A place where we can spend all day fishing and gardening for our food instead of spending money to buy processed foods. I place where if we want to sleep on nothing but a hammock it is fine because we will not be cold or hungry so everything else is secondary.
The more he talked that more I could imagine exactly what he was talking about. And the more that I wanted it too. So I started looking for this magical forgotten place that for all knew did not exist. I spent hours and hours on the internet looking up different areas, island, countries but came up with nothing as I thought that only the Caribbean or Atlantic would have what I was looking for.
It is amazing how a person can go through life with half the world not even a glimmer of possibility.
I was watching "The Truman Show" movie when one of the characters mentioned moving to Fiji. That got me curious as I didn't know where Fiji is and I have been doing a mountain of research on islands, so I looked it up! Then I looked up property for sale on Fiji, then property in the South Pacific.
And poof! Right there in the middle on my screen is Barry's dream. A 1/4 acre of land in the middle of nowhere with lots of fishing, mangoes, pineapples, coconuts, and fresh air for $5,000. 89 Lots available .... 81 lots sold ..... and not a soul living there as of yet. Close enough to the village that we can get whatever we need but far enough away that we could go for weeks without seeing another person if we choose not to. Cheap to live if you stick to local products but very expensive if you want all the trappings of our Western life that we are so used to.
The only downfall that we can figure is that it is not cheap to get there and it is a 34 hour flight so we will not be going back and forth to "home" very often which means not seeing the kids. But that is an issue to deal with another day.
My husband and I decided it was time to leave this wonderful rat race that we call Canadian life and move to a far off and distant place. A lot of people have asked us how we ended up deciding to make a move of this magnitude so I thought I would share that with you.
Many years ago I was working at a manufacturing plant in Winnipeg MB as a temporary worker when I found out that the person I was filling in for was on vacation in Belize. It was supposed to be a 3 week placement that ended up being a permanent placement because the lady did not come back. She hired an agent to sell everything that she owned and moved to Belize without a moments notice or a second thought.
A couple of years ago I was surfing the internet dreaming of being able to do the same thing as this lady planted a seed the day she did not come back to work. At that time you could buy a couple of acres on the beach in Belize for about $5,000. 7 years later I am looking at these same properties that are for sale for $250,000 and over. Needless to say I was shocked.
Last Christmas my husband, Barry and I found ourselves to be alone on Christmas day as none of our 4 adult children had time for us. Just as they did not have time for us on Thanksgiving day or even Easter of last year. So we decided that next Christmas we are actually going to go on vacation somewhere warm for the first time ever. You see, it is hard on us to be empty nesters at such a young age (I am 39) and not to have any of our children is especially hard. All we have ever known is life with our children and we are not "cool" enough for them.
Anyway, I started researching where we would go on vacation and I starting looking at property in Belize again. As the property values are now too expensive for us average Canadian working couple and we did not want to buy the same thing in a different country just to have the same bills and responsibilities as we already have here so I started looking in different places.
My search brought me to Rotoan Honduras. It is a tiny little island with a lot of space available for a decent price. As we really want the typical "bar on a beach" I started looking for properties or business opportunities that our modest budget could get for us. Other than the one area of the island that is a growing tourist destination it seemed like a good place to go so I started doing research in the area, the people, the culture, living conditions, etc. The more I read the more impressed I was with the place. Until .......
Until I actually asked my husband what his dream spot would be like. And his answer was nothing like the up and coming area that I had been researching. Barry wants a tiki bar with only solar power for electricity, composting toilets and lazy days on the beach. Barry wants isolation, quiet, tech free, back to basis where there are no Jones's to keep up with. A place where we can spend all day fishing and gardening for our food instead of spending money to buy processed foods. I place where if we want to sleep on nothing but a hammock it is fine because we will not be cold or hungry so everything else is secondary.
The more he talked that more I could imagine exactly what he was talking about. And the more that I wanted it too. So I started looking for this magical forgotten place that for all knew did not exist. I spent hours and hours on the internet looking up different areas, island, countries but came up with nothing as I thought that only the Caribbean or Atlantic would have what I was looking for.
It is amazing how a person can go through life with half the world not even a glimmer of possibility.
I was watching "The Truman Show" movie when one of the characters mentioned moving to Fiji. That got me curious as I didn't know where Fiji is and I have been doing a mountain of research on islands, so I looked it up! Then I looked up property for sale on Fiji, then property in the South Pacific.
And poof! Right there in the middle on my screen is Barry's dream. A 1/4 acre of land in the middle of nowhere with lots of fishing, mangoes, pineapples, coconuts, and fresh air for $5,000. 89 Lots available .... 81 lots sold ..... and not a soul living there as of yet. Close enough to the village that we can get whatever we need but far enough away that we could go for weeks without seeing another person if we choose not to. Cheap to live if you stick to local products but very expensive if you want all the trappings of our Western life that we are so used to.
The only downfall that we can figure is that it is not cheap to get there and it is a 34 hour flight so we will not be going back and forth to "home" very often which means not seeing the kids. But that is an issue to deal with another day.
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