Tax and insurance on St. John homes?

I've looked at the other 3 islands and St.J is still my focus at this point. I guess I have to gather up all my info. and see where we will fit in and make good sense to settle for a good while. I will keep doing my homework and weighing all the pros and cons to each island. Thanks for all the great info. so far.

More food for thought!

I spent 5+ years visiting 20+ different islands and read countless books, articles and internet blogs about living/building in the Caribbean before making the plunge and still ended up spending way more than I had budgeted for our home. I thought I knew everything there was to know about living on an island and boy was I mistaken. It's hard to describe to someone who has not spent much time in the islands.

Things like power outages, phone outages, internet outages happen regularly. Something is always needing repair - I jokingly tell people I would be happy if I could have one week go by without something malfunctioning or breaking. In the past two weeks we had two internet outages, we replaced one of our a/c compressors that completely rusted out after originally being installed less than 8 years ago, we had a wood lice infestation (that's the local name for tiny termites) and a pool pump leak. Those were the "major items" and don't include our last minute changing of the menu for a dinner party we had because we couldn't find a certain cut of meat anywhere on the island, the repair of a flat tire caused by one of the many potholes in the road and the 30 minutes I spent standing in line at the bank just to cash a check. The point being while island life may look like paradise it is not heaven. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying living on an island is better or worse than living anywhere else but rather it is just different and very usually much different than most people imagine.

Read this forum carefully and use the links at the top of the page to begin your research on what living in the islands is like. There's so much material here it will take weeks to read it all. Read everything BEFORE you do anything else and when doing so take off the rose colored glasses - focus not only on the good things that are said but also on the bad things. Don't rationalize when someone points out a shortcoming by saying to yourself "Yeah, but I can INSERT YOUR RATIONALIZATION OF CHOICE". Instead ask yourself can you really live with that day in and day out.

Then plan on spending 6 months or so living on the island of your choice. Yes, you can use some of that time to look at houses but that should not be your primary focus. Instead experience what daily life is like, learn what it is like to have your refrigerator break down and you have to wait 2 or 3 days from the repairman to finally show up only to tell you he has to order a part that won't come for 2 more weeks, find out how long it takes to do your everyday chores like shopping (going to 3 stores just to find orange juice or other staple isn't fun when you do it several times a month).

Find out how much money you'll need to live the lifestyle you want. Too many people try to justify their decision to relocate to the islands by saying the want "a simpler lifestyle" or they want to get "out of the rat race". Truth be told, life in the islands is not simple - it has it's own set of challenges. in other words, the rats still race - it's just a different venue. And so, the best way to learn is to experience it first hand BEFORE selling everything and making a major financial commitment .

Have fun chasing the dream but doing thorough research will keep it from becoming a nightmare.

Excellent advice, Afriend. This should be posted permanently somewhere.

Thank you for more insight. Will keep all these tips in mind. And anymore I might get. You can never get enough information.