Kim Lucas

I've just finished a visit to my daughter, in Australia, and offer some reflections about our two islands and lifestyles. I live in St Croix, in the US Virgin islands. My little island is 27 miles long and 8 miles wide. It is home to lovely white sand beaches, a sub-tropical rainforest, verdant hills and valleys, and colorful flora and fauna.

My daughter lives on the Gold Coast in Australia. Her island is a bit bigger than mine! In fact, everything there is bigger! The beaches are extremely wide. The ocean is very cold and the waves are huge! The trees - even the same ones that we have in St Croix - are taller. The rainforest is much older, and the vistas from the Australian rainforest (the Hinterlands) are just huge and gorgeous. The bugs and critters are bigger there, too, and more deadly! I had the chills at the Brisbane museum looking at the creatures that live among the Aussies! About all we have to worry about in St Croix are centipedes - and they look pretty tame compared to the Australian centipedes!

Housing

My daugther lives in one of those neighborhoods with rows and rows of houses that all look pretty much the same. I can't leave the house for fear I will never find it again! And these row houses are not inexpensive, either. The average cost of a home there is mid 300's to mid 400's (and right now the dollar is about .8 of the Australian dollar). That's just a basic home - nothing fancy. In fact, the architecture and design features here are very plain, and the lots very small. There are subdivisions springing up all over the place - which are, in my opinion, very unattractive and unappealing.

On my little island, St. Croix, there are not very many subdivisions, and there are no new ones! The house prices are fairly comparable, but for the same price in St Croix, you're going to get an old place that needs quite a bit of work. One big difference is that in St Croix you are never more than 30 minutes away from anything. But in Australia, the suburbs are miles away from shopping, beaches, and other amenities. Gas prices are about 4 times as high as in St Croix.

Costs

They are taking lots of steps to "go green" in Australia. Hotels and homes are constructed with energy efficiency in mind. Already their power bills are much lower than ours in St. Croix.

Food and drinks are much more expensive there. A beer (and by the way, the beer in Australia is just outstanding) will cost you about $7 a pint. In St Croix, happy hour prices are anywhere from $1 - $3 for a beer (but nowhere near as good). A mixed drink or glass of wine there will set you back about $10 - in St. Croix, about half of that. Meals, with the difference in the dollar, are about the same, although we did go to a steak place and the hamburgers were $25. Ouch. Grocery store prices are probably comparable as well.

Weather

The weather in St Croix is always warm. September is typically the hottest with the least amount of breeze (unless there's a hurricane), and winters are just perfect. On the Gold Coast, the seasons are, of course, opposite from ours. It's pretty hot there in "our" winter - but fairly chilly in their winter (our summer). I visited in October and the weather was interesting. Some days were very hot, and other days quite chilly.

Lifestyle

My conclusion is that life is harder on the Gold Coast of Australia. It's expensive; there is a lot of driving; jobs are hard to come by and you typically have to travel long distances to get to them; and there are lots of critters on land and sea to be wary of.

The pace, lifestyle, and ease of my little island of St Croix suits me much better. Although Australia does have something that St Croix does not have - and that's my beautiful daughter and her wonderful man, Andy. For that reason, I will certainly be leaving a little piece of my heart "down under" - and am already thinking of my next trip to visit the Gold Coast.

Meanwhile, contact me with all your questions and concerns about living and buying real estate in St. Croix. Be sure and sign up to receive your free Relocation Package and learn about our island.

Kim Lucas, REALTOR
www.retireinstcroix.com
www.kimlucasvi.com
340-626-3758
kim@coldwellbankervi.com

For those of you wondering what's been happening in the St. Croix real estate market in the last 6 months,  here are some stats you might find interesting:

HOMES:
62 home sales (closings) in last six months. Average sales price $472,702; median sales price $365,000. Average difference sales price to list price - $68,452. Average DOM = 238.

About a quarter of these homes were under $200,000. About a third were between $200,000 - $400,000. Nearly 10% were in the $400,000 - $500,000 range. Twenty percent were between half a million and a million, and nearly 10% were over one million.

Currently, there are 224 houses on the market. Only 10 % are under $200,000 - and many of these are just "slabs" or partial constructions. About a third are between $200,000 and half a million, and another third are between half a million and a million. That leaves about one-fourth of the homes listed at a million or more. There is a real need for nice, decent "low end" homes here, but if you're in the market for a high end home - there's plenty to choose from!

CONDOS:
56 condos closed in the last six months. Average sales price $222,691; median sales price $176,250. Average difference sales price to list price - $21,539. Average DOM = 217.

Most of the condos sold (nearly two thirds) were under $200,000. About 30 percent were between $200,000 - $400,000.

Currently, there are 162 condos on the market. about 42% of those are under $200,000. There are no new condo complexes on the market, and the least expensive condo here i

LAND:
241 land sales in last YEAR. Average sales price $154,295; median sales price $53,000. Average difference sales price to list price - $25,569. Average DOM = 307.

Nearly 75% of the sales were parcels under $100,000, and about 70% were an acre or less. Slightly over 20% of the sales were between one hundred and five hundred thousand. Four percent of the sales were over half a million, and over 15 acres.

There are some great buying opportunities now in St. Croix.  Our economy is strong and improving, and there will always be demand for housing in Paradise.  Contact me for details, my Relocation or Retirement Packages.  And Developers - we need you!  Email me for my Developer's Package too.

Kim Lucas, REALTOR
kim@coldwellbankervi.com
340-626-3758
www.kimlucasvi.com
www.retireinthevi.com

Alexander Hamilton began his career on St Croix in a shipping firm owned by a New Yorker.  The wealth and social status achieved by the prominent families on the island appealed to colonial families in Philadelphia, NY and Charleston.  During the American Revolution, the products of the islands and close family connections produced natural support for America, and the neutrality and free port status of the Danish Virgins were important financial assets to the colonies.  

In the early 1800's, our economic picture began to dim, as the newly invented processing of the beet sugar crop began to cut into the market for cane sugar.  In 1848, the slaves of St Croix marched in Frederiksted and demanded emancipation.  Governor General Peter von Scholten made a proclamation from the walls of fort Frederik that freed all the slaves on July 3, 1848 (way ahead of the continental US!), but his actions were considered illegal by the Danish government.  In 1848 labor was regulated by a colonial labor law that was deemed oppressive; thirty years later, it culminated in a violent riot that led to the burning and destruction of homes and plantations - which we refer to as "de Fire Burn."  

Emancipation did not solve the island's underlying economic problems, and our population fell significantly.  Then, in 1871, the US attempted to buy the islands, but were not successful until 1917, when the islands were purchased for $25 million from Denmark.  The free port status of our islands was retained in the sale treaty and are still in effect today.  

The islands were first administered by the US Navy, with the Dept. of the Interior assuming jurisdiction in 1931.  The Organic Act provided local government in 1936, and a revision to that act in 1954 provided a three-branch territorial government.  Our first elected governor was Melvin Evans, in 1970, and our only "highway" here on the island was named in his honor.

St. Croix is a fascinating and exciting place to live.  Visit my web site for Things to Do in St. Croix, contact me for a free copy of my extensive Relocation Package, or general real estate information.

Kim Lucas, REALTOR
340-626-3758
www.kimlucasvi.com
www.retireinthevi.com
kim@coldwellbankervi.com

Interested in keeping up with what's happening in St Croix?

Well, in addition to subscribing to my newsletter (thanks if you're already subscribed), you can also get the feed to a couple of local papers: www.onepaper.com/stcroixvi  and www.virginislandsdailynews.com

If you're thinking of relocating to St. Croix, you might want to subscribe to www.vimovingcenter.com.

Other good sites to keep up with what's going on throughout our beautiful island: www.gotostcroix.com and www.stcroixtourism.com. These sites are loaded with information to help you learn about the St. Croix and connect with folks here.

Not sure where St. Croix is?  Visit the map page on my web site.

And, I'm just an email away to answer any questions you might have about St. Croix real estate!

Kim Lucas, REALTOR
kim@coldwellbankervi.com
www.kimlucasvi.com
www.retireinthevi.com
340-626-3758

In our last installment, we left off with Chris Columbus meeting the Indians at Salt River Bay in 1493. Skipping forward a bit -

In the early 1640s, England and Holland were sparring over St Croix, and a bit later, the French and Spanish got into the mix. From 1655 - 1665, the French leased the islands to the French chapter of the Knights of Malta, and the island produced cotton, indigo, tobacco, sugar and tropical foods. In the late 17th century, the French were forced to abandon the island, and eventually English woodcutters from Tortola moved in and engaged in lumbering.

France sold St Croix to the Danish West India and Guinea Company in 1733. Denmark took over as a Crown Colony in 1755 and began to expand the sugar plantations and control the African slave trade. The Danes established the towns of Christiansted (named for King Christian VI of Denmark) in 1735, and Frederiksted (named for King Frederik V) in 1752. Friederich Moth, governor of the West India Company, designed the town layout for Christiansted and had the island surveyed into 150 acre estates, the names of which we still use today! Moth encouraged settlers by offering tax benefits and reasonable prices on the land (sound familiar? We're still doing it!!). The tolerance of the Danes regarding ethnicity and religion made our island a cultural melting pot, which it still is. English eventually became the common language, but most people spoke a Dutch Creole, a blend of Dutch and African languages, and later a dialect of English - which I believe still influences the native language here. Our locals speak their own brand of "English," which is charming and lovely, although a bit difficult for us "mainlanders" to understand, at least initially. "All ah we tink dis is ah good ting, to ah talk Crucian...."

The sugar-based prosperity of St Croix reached its peak in the mid 1700's with exports of sugar, molasses, rum, hardwoods, and cotton. At one point, our island was called the "garden of the West Indies," which I think even captures our culture, although our new "branding" is labeling St Croix as "the Port of Solace." Today, you can see the ruins of over 80 sugar mills here on our beautiful island. They stand as a reminder to embrace our diversity and cherish our freedom, for it was on the backs of the African slaves that these mills were built and the sugar was produced - and our island prospered.

Members of our community still sit on the steps of our government house in protest of our government's lack of attention to the issue of reparation. They seek more and better education of our youth about the savage history of slavery, and seek to engage those nations who benefitted from the institution in helping to mitigate its devastating consequences. ACRRA (the African Caribbean Reparations and Resettlement Alliance) seeks to bring to the table all avenues of the topic of slavery and its repercussions so that healing - on both sides of the issue - can happen. But I digress.....

Join me next week for the final installment of my series on the history of St. Croix. Better yet, sign up to receive my blog posts through the RSS feed shown on the right.

Kim Lucas, REALTOR
www.retireinthevi.com
www.kimlucasvi.com
kim@coldwellbankervi.com
340-626-3758