St. C condo living

Ive lived in St C for a couple of months now, and I really like it. I am a female and everyone is super nice, very safe... Its gated now, and theres a guard there at night, so I would assume you'd be fine. You can always have someone on island check on it every month or so too.

I would suggest that after you buy it you live in it a couple of months and really get to know your neighbors. They will be your biggest help. Its a win win for them, if they're owners I'm sure they'd rather have it empty then a bunch of short term rentals. Also it never hurts to have a property manager even though you do not plan to rent it out. Someone should check it out once a month make sure everything fine, theres not leaks, no rot, etc... You might be able to get the manager on site to do it for a small fee. Or hire a monthly housekeeper to keep an eye on it for you and keep things from getting to salty and mildewy.

But anytime you leave some vacant for a long time its a risk. It will be less of a risk if you keep it simply furnished. Don't buy anything fancy and just get a small 20 inch tv something that won't tempt anyone. I assume you'll be at the beach anyways. 🙂

We have a condo at ST C that we are only in a few weeks at a time, about three times a year. We love it there. We don't rent it out either. The ocean breezes are great and we never use our A/C. Some of our neighbors do, so I guess it depends on your tolerance to humidity. We are from AZ so the heat in the summer months are nothing to us.
We turn off our water now, after a water hose that I replaced under the kitchen sink broke and flooded the place. The neighbor noticed it and alerted the security staff and they vacuumed out the place for us. I then asked the office to give my neighbor who was on island at the time to help tidy up the place.
The roofs are being redone, as well as other outside maintenance issues. We have a great manager now for the last year who is getting the place back in shape.
Some people give their spare keys to a neighbor to check on it for them. We don't since the staff does it once a month when they accompany the exterminator. I don't think you would need a outside manager to oversee it if you were not renting.
You can leave your car on property in the lot above the office area when you are off island. We cover ours. When Omar was coming last year, the staff uncovered all of the cars, and then recovered them after the storm passed. They will also close your shutters if needed. However we always close ours when we leave.
We have not had very many problems with thefts in the condos. I have not heard of anyone having any break-ins. I'm been on the on the board for the last couple of years, so i would have heard. There were two cars stolen last year, but measures are being taken to put a end to that.
You don't say if you have children or not. ST C is not a great place for kids. There is a pool but not a lot of other play areas. With the exception of a couple of units that have been changed, all the units are large ,1200 sq ft, and one bedroom.
All in all, I like ST C