House Hunters International

This past holiday weekend, I was going to do something productive like cleaning up my room, or sorting through the letters I let pile up on my desk or clear out the basement cluttered with books accumulated from my many years of schooling. Instead I did not do anything productive on saturday because I still had sunday and monday to accomplish anything useful. When sunday rolled around, I decided to watch the two playoff games, both of which I might add were exciting though I wanted Farve and the Packers to beat the Giants. Besides I still had monday to make my weekend productive. Alas, it was not to be because HGTV decided to have a marathon of their house hunters international and the early retiree that I hope to be, I was hooked to their programming of beautiful homes in exotic places with easy access to the beach.

So on Monday, I sat and watched about six hours of great stuff. If you have read any of my previous entries, you already know that I am looking at the real estate market in NYC. But house hunters international does not show property in the US, rather it shows property you can get abroad. And because I live in NYC, the property on the shows actually looked affordable, even cheap when compared to what you would need to pay for a comparable house or apartment in NYC. And really, who would choose to live in a small one bedroom apartment in Manhattan rather than in a three bedroom beachfront property on a tropical island? I sure there are folks, but for this early retiree wannabe, the choice is clear.

Did you know that for just a little over 200K, you can get a nice two bedroom apartment near the beach in Cabo San Lucas? The lucky couple in that episode bought an apartment that was within five minutes of their respective offices. A new apartment I might add with a new kitchen and bathroom. For the same price in NYC, you get a 12x12 sized apartment in Brooklyn Heights and the bathroom needed work and the kitchen or kitchenette I should say also needed work. Trust me, I looked at such a place over the summer and was appalled at the high asking price for the tiny dorm like apartment.

If you have more than 200K, try for something bigger. There were some great houses in Turks & Caicos, the Dominican Republic, Roatan island off the coast of Honduras and of course, Cabo San Lucas. Take a look at the house hunters international website and click on the realtors links. You will see some truly breathtaking houses and wonder why you put up with living in your small apartments in NYC. In case you were interested but lazy, click here to see one of the houses they featured on one of the episodes about Roatan.

Maybe my weekend was not a complete waste. I discovered something very important from watching all those shows on monday. Other than the fact that I can rationalize away doing something productive on weekend rather easily. It is that most of the people on the show worked for themselves or had a job where they could work from anywhere in the world. So I have to figure out a way to make money without having to work in NYC. If you have any suggestions, drop me a line.