Hello future friends! Trying this again, as my first post seems to have disappeared - blame it on user error. First, a quick intro: My wife and I (late 40’s, early 50’s - I won’t tell you which one of us is which)… we are from Colorado, and are in the process of buying a house on Roatan. We are set to close at the beginning of June. We have a few questions that we would be so grateful for some insights on.
First, how we came to Roatan. We first encountered Roatan about 10 years ago when we stopped on a cruise. We took an island tour (independent taxi driver) and spent our time driving around much of the island. We vowed to come back and spend more time, and we did - about 4 years ago. We spent more than a week that second time and got sucked into the Roatan Vortex. There were lots of serendipitous things that happened on that trip that told us there was some “force” that was telling us Roatan was the place for us. We met another couple from Colorado during that trip… we toured various parts of the island…we looked at properties, etc.
Fast forward to today, and we found a house with sweeping ocean views and our bid was accepted, and we are working on closing on our home in Sandy Bay in a month. It is located between Carambola Gardens and Gibson Bight… up on a hill. We are excited as can be.
We have a few questions, as you might imagine. I don’t want to ask too many in our first posting, but welcome any and all responses!
WiFi. We have heard that WiFi works much better on the island these days. That is encouraging, as my wife and I have jobs that allow us to work from anywhere, so we’d like to try this maybe on our first trip, but are a bit nervous. Is there more than one provider in Roatan? How does one go about scheduling an appointment? How long does it take to book an appointment? We are considering extending our trip by another week after our closing and working remotely from our new house, but are nervous. We’ve also heard that some providers let you “pay as you go” or turn the service off and on. Is this true?
We are considering renting the house (or at least the lower level) either short term or long term. We don’t have any idea how much the house would fetch. Does anyone have any recommendations for a management company that they trust who can give us an assessment?
Getting work done: We may need to do some updates - a bathroom. A kitchen. Maybe even adding a deck and pool. Do we NEED to physically be there during the work? Does anyone have any experience with a management company “checking in” on work progress for them? Is that feasible?
We might consider allowing someone to stay at the house in exchange for work. Is that possible? Does anyone have experience with that?
Where does one go for home goods… like appliances, bedding?
I’ll stop there for the moment, as I know it’s a lot for my first post… but we are so excited and appreciative of any and all input. We can hardly wait to close on the house and start making our Roatan dream a reality. We sincerely hope to meet lots of new future friends.
Your realtor should be on top of all your questions for they should know the island best of all. I had property there for 20 years and change is often on technology but not over the whole island. So your location maybe in the right spot for coverage.
I’ve been here since 2008 and own a home in Sandy Bay. WIFI is readily available here by two separate companies. MAXCOM and Reytel. Your TV service is with MaxCOM and many people just use them for both Cable and WIFI. I do not because if Max goes down so goes your wifi service. A good plan with Reytel is about $85/month. many property management companies on the island and each person you speak with will have their own favorites. One is Roatan Property Management in Alba Plaza. Note they add a 15% surcharge to any activity they do for you. I would not recommend doing any work on your house from afar. Workers here are notoriously out to lunch when it comes to time lines and especially with any finishing work to be done. Lady next door built her house largely without her there and to this day the builders never came back to finish the job. You put a lot of faith in having a person unknown to you to stay in your new home unsupervised and supposedly overseeing work. It doesnt work that way here. I do not suggest such course of action until you have been here long enough to vet the “good” guys from the thieves. Many thieves here (not just Honduran) ready to take advantage of ignorance of the newest gringo. Lady Lee in the MegaPlaza Mall sells appliances and home goods. Elements is a great store for furnishings. Molinaro and Bay Island Electric are all great stores for appliances. Good luck and my suggestion is to tread carefully.
Thank you, again, @Carol_Luber. So, good idea to use cable TV with Maxcom, but Reytel for separate internet package, it sounds like. Are speeds able to accommodate video chat? Lots of WebEx and Zoom in my line of work.
Do we work with independent companies to purchase those services? What I mean is that there is probably not a MaxCom storefront in Coxen Hole that I schedule an appointment with, or is there?
We are going into this with eyes wide open and don’t want to assume anything works the same there as here.
Maxcomm has a storefront location in French Harbor but I recommend you contact Kyle Kuhlmeyer who is the sales rep and can get you signed up easily and explain in detail. He’s on Facebook. The speeds are fine for zoom Or Skype or other forms of messaging.
Your welcome, out of all the islands the wife and I have been to and visited over the years Roatan was our choice of living out side the states. It was so laid back and easy going. The word rush or hurry up is not in their vocabulary. Please do not go thinking your going to get things done as you would here in the states, They have one speed (THEIRS) and that’s not a bad thing if you get in the swing of things there. Live life large day by day and you won’t miss nothing on your journey. good luck
We closed on a house in Sandy Bay, up on a hill with sweeping views in November. I actually think you are our next door neighbors. We use Island House for property management, Brad and Ruth are wonderful. Their office is in West Bay. We have also done some work to our house there from afar. I agree you have to be very careful with who you hire, we have a wonderful guy I trust completely with the keys to my house, we did the work before we turned it over to the property management company. I had him FaceTime me everyday and show me the work progress of the day. Also constant pictures. We will also be there in early June, maybe we could meet?
Hello @Sage. I appreciate the input very much! I wonder what type of work you had done, and if you’d be interested in sharing the name of your guy? May I ask, how did you find him, and how were you sure you could trust him? Had you been living on the island for some time already? My wife and I are so excited and nervous at the same time, and want to make sure we tread very carefully. We’d love to meet up, yes. As of now, we’ll be there for Memorial Day week, but looking to extend it by a week, as long as I can get access to reliable WiFi to work during the next week. I’ve already put in a work order with MaxCom to get that started.
Our Real Estate agent recommended the contractor so I felt good about him. We went down in October to inspect the house and we met him and his partner then. When we closed in November he started work. Our agent gave him the key (at my request) and he had it for about a month while they were doing work. We had some structural work done to the support beams (had them dug out and added concrete around the bases so they would be more sturdy and water resistant) then pained with a tar substance. We also put new bars on the front windows and added two AC units. I believe you bought the three story white house, if that if correct we are the neighbor in the next house up the hill. We will be getting to the island June 5, let me know if you will still be there then. Please feel free to walk around our house and look at what you want. there are steps leading to the supports we had work done to. We haven’t lived on the island at all. We plan to move down in a few years. MaxCom is who we got internet with also. There was coaxial ran up the hill but when we installed we got fiber so it should be more reliable. Maybe that will help you? Also Max should provide a router, we literally had this done in March. I am happy to share my contractor’s name and contact information but maybe not on a public forum. Feel free to email me privately, not sure how this works, but my email address is sage103 and that’s a gmail account.
we are from Colorado, and are in the process of buying a house on Roatan. We are set to close at the beginning of June. We have a few questions that we would be so grateful for some insights on.