Investing in St. Thomas USVI

[Bryce Fairburn]

Hi community

looking for some feedback. I am looking at a property on St. Thomas, that needs some significant renovations. Here are the things I see.

- I have the skill set to do majority of the work

- the numbers appear do work well as a STR

- the property has sat on the market for a long time (100+ days)

- I am assuming material and substrates will cost significantly more then doing the same work in the lower 50 states.

- the topics I search on BP appear to all be pre/mid covid, and have some recovery discussions post Irma. Recognizing we are in a different season of investing right now.

where my suspicion comes in:

- if it is a good deal, why has no one bought it yet?

- am I missing a significant red flag about this property that I do not see?

- when I dive into the deep due diligence, am I most likely going to find something that crushes the deal and makes it not feasible?

Thank you for thoughts and feedback as we look at this market

Bryce

[Andrew Steffens]

Hey Bryce

I have been in a similar situation when evaluating a deal.  I am not seasoned in USVI but I had these thoughts:

1. Is the market there hot?  I am in Tampa, a very hot market, so if someone else has not bought in 100+ days it is a real red flag.  If there are not a lot of buyers with the means to do that deal, than maybe it is not a red flag.

2. You mentioned that you have the skill set to do most of the work yourself.  Therefore to someone else that has to pay for labor, maybe the labor cost is a deal breaker for most.

If you inspect the house and triple check your numbers down to the screws and nails, I do not see how you can go wrong.  Of course there is always risk, but if you buy a good deal you should be able we weather most storms, figuratively speaking.

Best of luck!