Changes to the Landscape of Rincon

Bienvenido, local traffic regulator

It seems like there are so many new construction projects around town.  The biggest is a town-home style development near the marina, a small cul de sac of attached 2 level homes that makes me wonder, why are there no balconies facing west where the sunsets and ocean are.  Who designed these?  Across from this development which looks to be almost complete, a lot has been cleared for a new development on the 413 at the marina.  This new development is supposedly a hotel, but that's just a rumor so far.
Down our street, a small house has cropped up with really bright red shutters.  It sits on a quiet side street overlooking the River Mouth, nicely designed, all concrete, but with some interesting features.
Right behind us, the old cock fighting buildings have been torn down and the lot leveled.  It is a beautiful lot with views of all of Aguadilla Bay, rumor is that they are planning on building a new cock fighting coliseum on the site, oh joy!
The 2 large villas being built near Maria's and Dogman's Beaches are getting close to being complete.  I believe the one at Marias is going to be apartments, and the one at Dogman's looks similar, very large with multiple units on multiple levels.
There has also been a lot of clearing and moving of dirt on the hill behind the post office, no word on what the plans for that are.
Being fairly new to Rincon, I can't be too critical of these developments, they bring much needed jobs  to the area and probably increase property values, but I do wonder if they will all be occupied with so many other developments just sitting around almost empty or even worse, incomplete.  The huge Costa Azul development in Aguada has 2 huge towers, nearly complete, but no work has been done on them for months.  Another development on the 413 near the 115 at Pineapple Hill sits nearly complete, but no construction crews have been there for months as well. The condos near the balneario and the Sea Beach Apartments on the 115 haven't sold, so where and when will the buyers for these projects come?
Meanwhile, still many lots and houses for sale in Puntas.  No water or electrical outages yet this season so overtaxing of the utilities doesn't really apply as an argument against new construction anymore.  The roads are still small and there is still no traffic signals in Rincon, of course our local traffic regulator, Bienvenido and his whistle help, but with all these new developments around town is that the city of Rincon's solution?

Destiny Strikes Again!

So it is the next to last day of our vacation and we know exactly what we're looking for; a house or land in the Puntas area of Rincon for under $100k. We drove the 3 streets that go down the hill from the 413 to the beaches and saw plenty of Se Vende signs with phone numbers, but mostly no answers or prices way beyond our means. At 10am we met with our realtor, Greg to look inside the house we drove by the day before.

He didn't have much nice to say about it. No one had lived there for awhile, it would take upwards of $20k to get it in livable condition, the driveway and condition of the house itself was questionable and he couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't slip down the hill the next hurricane season. But we liked it. The main part of the house had 2 small bedrooms and 1 bathroom. There was a small kitchen and 3 other rooms. In a seperate apartment downstairs was another bathroom and 2 more rooms with a kitchenette. The condition was terrible, there were cracks in the concrete and spots where rebar ws showing through. The roof needed repair and water damage was everywhere. Nothing upstairs was salvagable, it would have to be gutted.

But near the driveway a large Flamboyan tree shaded the south side of the house and gave off vibrant red flowers while hiding any view of the southern neighbors house. The veranda was a small walkway on the east side of the house that looked down over a small valley of jungle and the sea beyond. Down the hill, what once was a terraced landscape was overgrown with Flamboyan saplings, weeds and banana trees. I knew the view alone was worth the $139k asking price. As the cliche of a million dollar view came to mind, this house was beginning to seem like a bargain.

Later we ran into Steve, the owner of the Lazy Parrot and asked him if he knew anyone who could give us a quick assessment of the condition of the structural elements of the house. We were just looking for assurances that it wouldn't fall down the hill in the next hurricane season. He told us he had done construction work in Texas before he came to own the lazy Parrot and would be happy to look at the house for us. 15 minutes later we were at the house and Steve was telling us how he had put in the tile floor of the lower apartment for a woman who was renting it and working at the Lazy Parrot.

Now usually when things come together like this, I run away. There are too many coincidences, nothing is coincidence..., blah, blah, blah. But as I linked the dots to us getting to this point, it even sounds crazy to me, but it seemed clear that it was our destiny to own this house! Once Steve assured us of the house's relatve stability, we began working with the numbers.

The original asking price was $178k, recently reduced to $139k. We could come up with about $90k cash, but didn't want to have to take a loan out. Speaking with the realtor who had the listing, we wondered aloud if a $90k offer would be insulting. He didn't seem to think so and we went to Island West to make up an offer.

That night we packed our bags for the trip back to Los Angeles. Not wanting to set ourselves up for a big let down, we didn't put much hope in the offer being accepted, but we did wonder how long it would take to hear back. We discussed various scenarios; what kind of counter-offer could be made, how could we come up with more money, was this the right thing to do? We've only been here 4 days, this is CRAZY!

The next day we drove to San Juan and spoke of little else other than the small slice of paradise that was just within reach. If only! We leaned against each other at the American Airlines terminal waiting for our flight to board, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for something to break up the spell we had been put under. And then the phone did ring, I watched Cyndi's face as tears welled up and she began to jump up and down. The offer was accepted, the house on the hill in the middle of paradise was ours.

Rincon Real Estate From The Pueblo to Puntas

Once we decided we were interested in living in Rincon we stopped at a real estate office called Island West Properties, located on the 413, "the Road to Happiness", the small looping road that connects Rincon's surfing beaches and hillside neighborhoods to the 115, the main highway into and out of Rincon. They had some property listings on their walls, mostly condos and houses in the $200k to $300k price range, a little out of our budget. We were looking for a condo or house for about $100k or possibly land for that price which we could build on at a later date.

We spoke to a realtor, who pointed out a few pieces of land at that price, a tear down house and another house that was a little more than we could afford. We got the directions and drove out. The first few places we looked at were in an area called the Pueblo, which is off the 115, close to the main town plaza and the public beaches and is mostly flat. We liked the proximity to the beaches, but we noticed it was considerably warmer down here, away from the hills, and also the beaches in the southern part of Rincon don't have the great surfing that is found around the point to the north.

We had 2 more properties to look at on our list, both were in Puntas, the northern part of Rincon which is looped by the 413 and contains all the great surfing beaches. Our first stop was a piece of land on the side of a hill with beautiful views, the asking price was $110k. Very nice location, but the property was a sloped piece of hilltop and would require alot of grading and money before we could do anything else. The other property was a run down as-is house with the price cut from $178k to $139k. We knew it was more than we could afford and would need more work and money, but what potential!

The house was built into a hillside, made from concrete with a large concrete driveway and a small veranda overlooking a valley dense with jungle, palms and mango trees. In the distance, the next town of Aguada and further, the town of Aguadilla could be seen, along with a small portion of the sea. All around the house was overgrown and peeking in through the windows all we could see was headaches and the dollar bills we would need to spend to make it livable.

That night, while sipping Mojitos at the Rum Shack, the bar at the Lazy Parrot, we talked about what we saw and our options. Maybe we could buy the land and put a trailer on it, use it for vacation. The tear down house in the Pueblo would be perfect for that. But the views from Puntas and the beaches made our decision for us; we would focus our search on that area. The next day we made plans for our realtor Greg to show us the run down house on the hill and we would drive the hillside streets to see if there were other properties for sale.