Operation Freedom Forty

So, this is what operation freedom forty looks like people.  Our new house is located nearby the fishing village of Salinas Grandes, which is on the coast of Northern Nicaragua just about a 25 minute drive into the city of Leon.  

We were told in December that our house would be turn key move in ready in February. Looks like we'll be moving in next week!   Don't worry we never believed for a second we'd be closing on this house in 60 days from that day in early December.  We are in fact aiming to move in this fall for the entire winter. 

We are having a zinc roof put on the house.  The metal framing is complete and the zinc will follow hopefully in the next two weeks. The zinc will be covered by a layer of clay tiles. (Seen in the previous post.) The ends of the clay will be filled in with cement to keep the bats and lizards OUT! The inside of the roof will be lined with cane which looks really nice when complete. The cane itself is treated to detract bugs before it is hung.  Any metal framing will be covered with wood and then stained a natural colour.  

Front entrance of the house.  We will build a dip pool out front here. The water will help cool the house.

Nothing moves quickly when building a house in any country.  This house began in early October. The house is only 900 square feet.  If you look closely at  the photo above you can see the workmen are beginning to smooth the walls under and around the windows.

Side view of the house. Ocean to the left.

We have plans to add natural fencing down our lot lines comprised of short palm trees for shade and privacy and cactus for security.  These plants are native to this area and once we are down there living we can spend the time to keep them watered so they will establish.

Other side of the house with side door.  The outdoor bathroom & shower will go on this side.

We have seen plans and actually stayed in a hotel with an outdoor shower that drained into the root bed of the tree which was within the privacy wall of the outdoor bathroom.  We have definite plans to work with a similar model for our second bath.

Of course Big Daddy P has been researching solar power for the hot water heater in the shower and to add to along the line so that we can support the electricity to power the house. Electricity in Nicaragua can be spotty and is very expensive. Besides that, we like the idea of existing off grid as much as possible. 

We have left a large portion of our lot on the back side of the house undeveloped at this time. We want to see how life in Nicaragua will unfold for us before we commit to building anything more. If all is working out great then a two car garage with a full two bedroom two bathroom suite with 360 degree views of the ocean and volcanos will be built on top of the garage as our main living space. That will leave the little house as a full time rental and to house our guests. 

Given that we've bought and built on a kick ass surf break and we are only 2km to Puerto Sandino surf break we anticipate a lot of visitors and a healthy rental return on our investment!

The Writing Floodgates Are Open

A year ago I wrote a post about our 2012 plans ... then I lost it when I was trying to edit the post from my ipad. That pretty much sums up 2012. Buh - Bye.  So this past year flew by and in it's rush some pretty monumental developments occurred right beneath our noses.  Okay, they were all things we had set into motion, but, after two years of limbo we are starting to move people!

Let's back story a bit so you can see where we've come from so where we are going makes sense.

In February of 2008, we closed on a beautiful house in the historic district of small town NC - it was our dream house.  We had a five year plan to live here then sell and move on to travel - pulling our money out of our house and using it to travel with.  We picked up a beautiful property for what we thought was a song given we now had 3200square feet  for a mortgage payment less than we paid in rent for our 800 square foot one bedroom apartment in Toronto.   The United States housing collapse pretty much occurred a millisecond after signing our ownership papers.  Pretty quickly we realized we had made a grave mistake.  Apparently real estate is not the secure investment everyone thought it was.  It's hard to settle into a home when you know you've just lost all the money you put down in it.   

In the mean time life evolved.  In spring 2009 we added a beautiful daughter,  Finley Mae, to our family and our life's focus began to shift.  We celebrated her birth and two of her birthdays in this house with our neighbours who have become friends.  

In September 2010 we put the house up for sale for 270K which would have had us coming out of the house with a slight loss - a year later after several drops in price, and an educated decision to cease paying an over-valued mortgage, we consulted a lawyer and went after a short sale so we could sell the house at "new fair market value."  The new list price on our house was 169K. Over the next year we continued to drop the price. We had a couple offers  the bank turned down, 160K, 105K and finally at 155K we finally had a buyer. The buyer went all the way through home inspection and bailed. Historic homes take special care and in the end this house was not for them. So we put the house back on the market.  A short sale runs alongside foreclosure, so taking this road was not without risk, we went into the whole deal with our eyes wide open.  We were not willing to lose any more money!

January 2012 started off pretty rough with the loss of our family pet, Cecil, my almost constant companion for 13 years.  Late January we left to renew visas in Toronto and upon return were served foreclosure papers.   That set us on the path of uprooting and uncertainty.  The last year in our home was shrouded with loss and it was punctuated by the sudden death of our next door neighbour Jake, who had become such a dear friend.   In August 2012 we gave our dream house, now affectionately called Casa Albatross, back to the bank and walked.  The house by the way is still for sale and is now reduced to 114K.  OUCH!    

In the midst of all this USA housing nonsense, in the fall of 2011, we had an offer we couldn't refuse and bought an ocean front lot in Nicaragua alongside three of our best friends lots and we are currently building a modest house.  It's the wild west when it comes to building there.  Our house deal was made over several glasses of Flor de Cana and a hand shake in May of 2012 and after a six month delay our house began going up!  

This is the first photo we received October 2012

Let me tell you that all of this Nicaragua business went down and I had not yet ever been to Nicaragua!  We had been almost constant winter residents in Costa Rica so we knew the landscape and knew it was where we would surely love to live out our winters but I had yet to experience Nicaragua.  A year after the lot purchase and with a house framed out I got to see this amazing country for myself!

Steve, Finley and I spent just over two weeks in Nicaragua late November and early December of 2012.  It was a really cool experience.  Nicaragua is NOTHING like Costa Rica and I love that!  Our travels this time took us to several cities and towns where we visited with a circle of expat friends who currently reside in Nicaragua and we got to go see our build.  

Steve entering the front door of our house.

The ocean is right through the trees and scrub.

For the first time ever I got to stand on our lot and stand in our house and walk along our beach!  It was a brilliant feeling that set the the past year straight.  2012 ended on a high note knowing all of our crazy maneuvers in the past two years to get us the life we wanted was surely looking like it will pay off for us.  Is it scary?  Yes, a little, but life is no fun at all if you are too comfortable.  

Happy New Year Everyone!  

Here's to a tremendous 2013.