Cocomo Village

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