USVI-On-Line

....who have blogged the building process you went through on the island. Each one I read resulted in a beautiful finished product. However,

THANKS TO YOU I WILL NEVER EVER EVER MAKE THE MISTAKE OF TRYING TO BUILD ON AN ISLAND.

I am stunned at the trials and tribulations you lived through. It's just remarkable what you had to go through to get it done.

My hat is off. Holy cow.

I totally agree! My dreams of building a small villa on STJ has been shot after reading about what it takes to pull it off!
But, if my lottery numbers ever hit, I would buy and existing villa or condo to rent out when I'm not there~
Have you checked out this blog?

http://islandgirl.typepad.com/latitude/

This family has the right idea & knows how to have FUN! Canada summer/STJ in the winter! ENJOY!

I'm crazy enough to still want to do it and hope we will some day- and I'll write a blog!

Hey Colleen- I haven't seen that blog yet- thanks! Just added it to my list.

Can't wait to read your blog! I hear Soggy Dollar cups make great building material and can withstand any hurricane!!

Good! I'll keep collecting then I could use cheaper building materials!!

One day....

I just went back to that cool blog and found this for you!

I saw that! Love it! Going to have to copy her when we're down there

Yeah I'm with you on this. Thanks for the blog link, you're right they do seem to enjoy themselves for sure.

msgcolleen wrote:I totally agree! My dreams of building a small villa on STJ has been shot after reading about what it takes to pull it off!
But, if my lottery numbers ever hit, I would buy and existing villa or condo to rent out when I'm not there~
Have you checked out this blog?

http://islandgirl.typepad.com/latitude/

This family has the right idea & knows how to have FUN! Canada summer/STJ in the winter! ENJOY!

Thanks, we try to live life to the fullest...

Rob (Shelley's husband)

That you do Rob!
Love the blog and your family is adorable! If you want me to come down and hang with you guys, just let me know!!

The building blogs written many years ago that people are reading today are dated in several respects. With the downturn in the economy, the reality of building and/or buying on St John has also changed. We are currently building a 5 bedroom villa and are not experiencing any of the issues that people had to deal with years ago during the real estate boom. If not for the downturn, we never would have been able to build the size house in a prime location that we are building. We are also living on island, supervising all aspects and are able to correct mistakes before they become permanent. My husband is a consultant so he can work from any location and travels about one week per month for business.

Building on St John is easier and more affordable than ever. Because the building boom has ended, there is an abundance of experienced carpenters & laborers on the island and average labor cost per hour has come down substantially. Also, its not a problem to get concrete delivered with a day or two notice, as Heavy Materials in St Thomas is now servicing St. John. They have also purchased the concrete plant on St John and will shortly be producing / delivering concrete locally on St. John.

Wapa, put in our electricity with 2 days notice. Building inspectors come out in 2-3 days to give approvals.

The local STJ building supply company, Paradise Lumber, is now very competitive with St Thomas/Home Depot prices as they are having to compete for your business to keep it on island.

We have purchased building material from some contractors who do not have business or half finished projects at 25 cents on the dollar and I scored big at the Pond Bay Auction.

One of the biggest problems for owners wanting to build on St John have been the building contractors who mark up materials, labor and other construction components 25% -50%. This combined with poor project construction management / oversight was the contributing factor for the huge cost overruns and delays in projects being completed on a timely basis.

This is not to say that this problem still doesn't exist. But today you can find builders who will "pass through" the cost of materials, excavation and labor at cost. They then add their construction management fees on top. This allows an owner to have much greater visibility into the cost of their project.

We have the luxury of living on St. John and can supervise our crew. We have hired a combination of experienced local carpenters and laborers and have a couple of recent engineering grads from the US supervising their work. This combination of experienced craftsman with "trained" engineers ... is a very solid building team. I believe our construction team would operate in the same "cost plus" basis for owners who can't be on island during construction.

If you are interested in buying ... you should know that just like in the US ... real estate prices in St John have reduced in the past two years and its a buyers market with many "highly" motivated sellers. I am amazed at some of the recent selling prices I have seen. Our Realtor Les Otis-St John Properties, (Pia's Husband) sends out a weekly mailing of current listings and sold properties and there have been some great bargains in recent months! Les is an excellent buyers broker! Les was very patient with us as we looked for over 2 years and like many people, we went back and forth between building Vs buying.

The advantage of St. John as a US Virgin Island with limited land available and the US National Park is always going to make it a desired destination. That will not change.

Bottom line, just like in the US, many changes have occurred in the St John real estate and construction market. Talking to a broker or someone building right now, I think you will get a very different picture than you get from many of the blogs that are very dated.

Thanks for that perspective, Betty. I know from building three homes locally that daily supervision can catch a whole lot of mistakes in time to correct them at little cost. So it's great that you're able to be there.

I was wondering how the downturn had affected things. Good to hear that you're having a pretty nice experience. Best of luck the rest of the way.

Is yours going to be a rental or will it be your permanent residence?

We haven't decided yet whether we are going to rent or not. We will live here October-May or June. That leaves a limited rental period during the slow season. I am going to start a blog this week, I actually just started working on it tonight.

Betty- please post a link when you get the blog up and running- I would love to follow along!

Thanks for the update on building there now. I'm hoping that when we finally are able to do it, conditions will be favorable...either way, we're up for the adventure!