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Hi
My wife and I will be moving to St. Thomas around the end of October for a 6 month try at island life ( although we have lived on San Juan Island in Washington State for 23 years). The problem we face is trying to find a rental before we arrive. Its difficult to agree to a six month lease without seeing the place yet its hard to come down there before hand and run around looking for a place while staying in a short term rental. So I'm sure others have had to deal with this and I wonder what works. It probably is best to come down for two weeks and just look for a place... but I'm interested in feed back. thanks
bill & chris carli
Posted : August 20, 2008 4:39 am
Don't rent before you see the place in person. You can always stay short term in places like Villa Fairview until you find what you want.
Posted : August 20, 2008 9:15 am
When we came down 5 years ago we booked a hotel for a week while we looked for permanent housing. The hotel owner was kind enough to let us mail 6-8 boxes of household goods to her. We drove to Florida, shipped our cars and flew to STX. We rented a car here and on the second day started looking for a long term rental. We found something we liked on our third day here. Moved in on the 5th day and the following Monday our cars came. Our landlord (bless you Alan) took a day off work and helped us retrieve our cars from the shipper and get them registered.
In a little less than a week we had our cars and a place to live. Our boxes started arriving about 2 weeks later.
Don't, don't, don't put non-refundable money down on a rental you have never seen!!
Posted : August 20, 2008 10:55 am
Ditto about not renting until you see it! Stay in a guest house/hotel or some sort of short term spot while you look around. Don't depend on our recommendations or even pictures. 😎
Posted : August 20, 2008 12:29 pm