economic effects in VI

Pretty much totally, when things go up stateside they go up here. We ship just about everything in.

If people can't vacation, then they won't be able to come. On the other hand, as we have been looking for boats, we have been deciding on them and someone comes along and buys it. I am talking over $100,000 boats.

To quote rokipel "???????????" marlene.

USVI main income is tourism. If people are needing to cut spending on going out to eat, let alone vacations, they won't be able to come and spend money. Thus, we will be seeing a slowdown if it hasn't already. I'm not in the tourism business here so haven't seen a slowdown. But the small businesses that I can talk with have said it is slow. The restaraunts are all hurting too.

the way i look at it, we are a destination place,people who can afford to vacation or snowbird here come here,the people who are here one year may not afford to return the next year, BUT someone else can,i'm not sure if i'm saying this right but look at it this way, you have a big fish guy in a small pond back home in the states,economically he's doing good and can afford an exotic vacation or extended trip somewhere,then he looses a bunch of his money, well someone else profited from his loss and they are now the big fish in a small pond and so they decide to come here and buy a place or just spend time here so what i'm trying to say is that there are always going to be people that can afford to come here, both places i work at are full until about the end of april which is great some of the guests are long timers and some are first timers and none of them are the spring break crowd

We noticed a difference in the shoulder seasons, when the family who has sacrificed for a year to take this trip usually travels. These are the people who wil not be vacationing and where we will loose room nights.

What about the housing market in STT? Have prices fallen like they have here? Are people in the same bind with foreclosures as they are here? If we buy a house now, should we worry about a slowing market?

Not that I've seen. It seems pretty even compared to a couple years ago. Sort of balanced out.

we don't have the foreclosures going on in the USVI because we never had the teaser rate mortgages or zero down refi's that have now devastated the mainland market with their fallout. Buyers here typically put down 10-20% when buying a property and that keeps foreclosures very rare.

We've seen some properties reduced in listing price, but many of those were over-priced to begin with by sellers hoping to continue being on the leading edge of a rapidly rising market. As the prices stabilized, there was some lag before sellers caught on and now some have adjusted their list prices accordingly.

There were segments of the market on STX that were stagnant since last summer, but over the past week we have begun to see some action in the $400K-$700K bracket where things were not moving. Several sales in that price range in a single week after NONE for 8 months is a good sign.