Apartment Hunting

Hunting for a new apartment is fun, exciting and challenging when you do it from another country. We were able to do it from Canada when we moved to Mexico, then from Mexico to Barbados. We have decided we should start snooping around in some of the other islands for potential rentals in the hope that we can find something in one of St Lucia, St Vincent or in Grenada. We have to rely on information from the internet and then make as many phone calls as we can to get clarification on details. Even with all our hard work we have been finding that we have to make concessions or compromise on things.

We don't have a car and renting one full time gets way too expensive for our pension income. And, seeing as it's kinda hard to fit our furniture in our suitcases, our apartment living needs / wants are fairly simple: A furnished one or two bedroom suite (with a/c in the bedrooms), in-suite laundry, within walking distance to the beach and to a grocery store. It would be nice to have security bars on the windows, gas or propane for appliances (stove, dryer, hot water), and nice breeze through the house. And to make Cyndi really happy, access to a pool if that is possible. We have found many places being offered had various combinations of these but none of them fulfilled everything.

We lucked out when we found our place in Mexico (900 sq ft - two bedroom) even though we had to walk up a 5 story hill in the space of one block and then up 32 steps from the main floor to our suite. It sure kept us in good shape. It had a nice pool where we met many great new friends there. On top of that, our landlord / property management folks were really good to us and we enjoyed living there.

Our apartment here in Barbados is a lot smaller (400 sq ft - one bedroom) and we have a few daily living issues that we could not foresee before getting here - see a previous post. We are paying about the same Canadian dollar equivalent for our Barbados apartment as we did for our apartment in Mexico.

We have found that it's important to pick the right time of year to start the process of finding and securing an apartment for a long term stay. Most of the good places are booked and occupied during the the "high" tourist season and are taken off most of the real estate market listings, making it more difficult to plan. Some agencies leave everything on their websites and then you don't know if they are actually available - more of the charm of hunting here... There is a lot of work and research that goes into being a full time nomad - patience with the process is paramount while trying not get discouraged with the hunt. Waiting for low season (August to November) seems to open up options and access to nicer (now vacant) units.

We thought at first that we would stay in Barbados for a year but information we have been receiving from many people indicates that the Barbados Immigration folks would probably not approve our residency as they have too many rules that they don't share anywhere on the internet. We have heard stories of people who have tried for 10 years and have just given up in frustration - and that's after they bought a 3 bedroom home here and lived in it for 6 months out of every year...now they want to stay permanently and can't get approval. As a result, we are discussing whether we should try for and pay for "extensions of stay" beyond 6 months or whether to leave after 6 months and then continue our adventure on another island. It doesn't really make sense to us to spend additional time in a place if there is no hope becoming a full time resident - our main objective - and perhaps other places will be more willing / forthcoming. We are visiting the Immigration office in a few days to get more information.

Our recent apartment search ran into something a bit different in Grenada - here is an excerpt from my November 2016 emails with a real estate agent:

Hi Jan, Thanks for your email. For a long term rental, April 2017 is a bit far off. January would still be the best month to start looking in earnest. Especially now, the long term rental properties are waiting until January to ascertain whether they will get a long term rental (usually the University students). Only after January has passed, can they safely determine if they will have availability for April. I know that you are eager to organize, but a leeetttle bit more patience

Hi Shonta - just so I understand, landlords and real estate agencies give preference to university students?

Hi Jan, No. That isn't so. What I meant was that landlords, particularly in the areas that you are interested in,will wait until January to make sure that they will not secure a rental now. This can be from locals, visiting professionals or students. I am presently still booking all 3 categories starting either immediately, in December or January. A landlord will not pass up on a potential long term rental now for one starting in April. That's why I advise you to wait until January. If the landlords haven't booked by then, they will most likely entertain later bookings. I hope this is clearer.

Thank you Shonta - I think I get it now - booking a month or two in advance will get me a place now, whereas trying to book 4 or 5 months in advance is difficult to predict as they might be all gone by then. Thank you for all your help and advice thus far.

You're welcome. Once January has passed at least halfway, it will be easy to seal a deal with a landlord.

....and just goes to show that you need to become aware of the local market conditions / pressures when you decide to move somewhere. It appears that this agency is giving preference to university students and perhaps they are getting a commission from the local university for doing that.

While searching we found another location in Grenada that looked like it had everything we need until we checked a topographical map. This is an important step if searching on volcanic islands. The road leading to the apartment is about 1 km from the beach and it has a steep hill (100 M high over 250 M of road length) with no sidewalks. That's like climbing a 35 story high rise building in that short distance.... no thanks - I am retired and probably wouldn't survive that much climbing. Back to the drawing board...

The first thing I do is get a map of each island and look for a Scotiabank location and grocery stores. Then I use the "measure distance" function and draw an imaginary 2km wide circle where the bank, beach and grocery stores all fit inside. That gives me the optimum area for our search when I talk to the real estate agents as we don't have a car. There seems to be more agents on some islands than on others. Barbados has the most, then Grenada, St Lucia and then St Vincent. Slim pickings in most places right now as it is almost high season and regular returning tourists have already booked.

One of the agencies we contacted have proposed a one bedroom place close to the beach and within easy walking distance to grocery shopping - all on nice flat roads! We are still waiting on confirmation but hope to land this place. Our main concern is the busy street that it fronts on and we hope the noise from the street will stay on the street. Stay tuned for island details....