Our vacation house hack in the Islands - Montego Bay, Jamaica

[Frank Robinson]

Investment Info:

Large multi-family (5+ units) commercial investment investment.

Purchase price: $10,000
Cash invested: $50,000

Purchase of 3 Lots (1.5Acres) in Montego Bay, Jamaica WI just 10 miles from the airport + 3 miles from the nearest beach. Construction nearing completion on the first 4 Units (2BR / 1 BTH).

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

We vacation in Montego Bay annually and also have some family still living here. Over the years my wife and I have dreamed of buying a vacation home instead of giving our money to the resorts all the time. We opted to first build some rental units since there is high demand. The side benefit to this is that it will eventually pay for our own vacation home.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

We were lucky in that a family member purchased and built their home in the same community and we were able to witness the entire process as we visited yearly. Although we didn't get in on the ground floor we believe we got a great deal on our lots.

How did you finance this deal?

Cash purchase

How did you add value to the deal?

As opposed to building a vacation home for us to use a month or two each year we shifted to putting up rental units that will give us needed Cash Flow.

What was the outcome?

It was a long and slow process but we will

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Building a project such as this remotely is challenging to say the least. We could not have done it without the help and support of our family. The other item is that inflation and currency risk is a big problem in the Caribbean Islands and given that materials are imported the cost swing a lot. Move quickly on your construction and secure materials on the frontend or else you will pay later.

[Frank Robinson]

Hi Colleen, yes I understand.  I am mainly going for long term as there is high demand in this area.  We are also open to renting short term in the event of a vacancy.  There were no significant legal challenges given this is fairly small scale. Due to the risk of hurricanes we need to build the main structures from block, steel and cement.  So 2X wood structures are not ideal which drives the labor and materials cost quite a bit higher than they would be otherwise.  The property will be managed by a local property management company that currently handles units owned by my inlaws.