One of our aims on Barbados Caribbean Travel is to share our story of moving to Barbados and showing how you could do it too. While we were planning the move, I wrote a few articles as a sort of chronicle, and that’s how the From The Ground Up series was born. Here’s how we began our search:
Most self-builders pick out a convenient plot, within easy reach of home and where they can keep track of what the construction workers are doing. But we like a challenge and decided to build our dream property some 4,000 miles away from the UK – in Barbados.
That clear blue sky was reason enough to move to Barbados
Early Thoughts
We’d previously flirted with the idea of a first floor flat in Gran Canaria, overlooking an amoeba shaped pool and with views to die for. But we’d been married in Barbados in August 2000 and a repeat visit to the island in March 2002 confirmed the choice. With an average temperature of 28C, 12 hours of sunshine a day and cool sea breezes year round, the climate was perfect. Add to that the convenience of the language – English – and an old-fashioned courtesy rarely seen on this side of the Atlantic and we couldn’t think of a nicer location to move to.
The island is a haven for the rich and famous, but our budget wasn’t quite in their league. So how could we conduct a property search in Barbados from Nottingham? No celebrity estate agents for us; in order to save as much of the budget as possible for the purchase and build, we’d have to do most of the legwork ourselves. That decided, we started where all great researchers begin these days – on the Internet.
Finding An Agent
Our search threw up a number of property websites with prices in the millions of US dollars and one property agent who seemed tailor made for us. Her name was Marilyn, a British Barbadian catering specifically for UK residents looking for property on the island.
In essence, Marilyn chose herself. As we were to discover throughout the process, although Barbados is well served for telecommunications (and it all works, too) not everyone replies to emails. Those who didn’t were immediately crossed off our list, as that was the only cost-effective way to keep in touch from this distance. So Marilyn it was. And like UK estate agents, there would be no charge until she’d found a property for us.
Which Parish To Choose?
From my knowledge of the island (I’d lived there throughout my teens), I’d narrowed our search to three of the island’s 11 parishes, St George in the centre of the island, and St Philip and Christ Church in the south. We ruled out St Michael, where the capital, Bridgetown, is located, as it was likely to be too congested. St James, on the West Coast, was likely to be too pricey (Sandy Lane is there, need I say more?). There are many million pound properties in this area and even a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment could cost upwards of £300,000. Other parishes were likely to be too far from the swim of things, though this is a relative term as the island is only 166 square miles and can be circumnavigated in a few hours.
Narrowing The Choice
St Philip had perhaps the cheapest land and a house there would be near the Grantley Adams International Airport, while St George was likely to offer views of rolling fields and cool breezes, worth considering in a tropical climate. But our favourite choice was Christ Church. This was where we had stayed on previous visits to the island. It offered a good mix of amenities, but was much less expensive than the prestigious West Coast. Our favourite beach (Oistins) and coffee bar (Cafe Italia at Quayside) were there and it was only 10 minutes to the airport and 20 minutes to Bridgetown.
In the next instalment, find out where we chose.
