11.06.07

buying a home in antigua
when lois & i decided to sell our house in canada & buy in here in antigua the last thing we anticipated was... well... just about everything we encountered. our biggest mistake was thinking like north americans.

the real estate market in antigua is very different from canada. in canada, people buy & sell homes on a regular basis for many reasons. it took us several months to figure this all out, so learn from all our education in this article...

• canada big. antigua small. got a new job? no need to relocate. the furthest commute wouldn't be more than many a commute in the GTA.
• antiguan's are builders not buyers. every family has a construction crew...umm... built in.
• banks? no thanks. with ridicules interest rates in excess of 11% most homes are built not with bank loaned buck$. with savings, the family construction crew can pick up & put down a project when money is available. its a serious undertaking to have a home, not all projects get completed. for every couple completed homes, there's one sitting in the neighbourhood: a skeleton of incompletion. (we'll talk more about this later).
• the family getting bigger? don't move, renovate! with most properties being a decent size (1/4 acre), folks are known to get that family construction crew going & add on to their homestead.
• the wild west is the antigua real estate industry. no regulations. it seems anything goes. while there are real estate professionals in antigua, there are plenty of cowboys. its enough for most folk to avoid the entire process altogether (more to come).

for these main reasons real estate transactions at the middle & lower income levels are challenging and uncommon.

if you have money and want to spend a half million or more (CDN $) things are entirely different. in fact the more you want to spend the more places seem to be available & the better the real estate services. at this income level, the chance of purchasing from a non-antiguan is probably higher than from a local antiguan...

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