*Note the house I will buy is for bedrooms and living area, our kitchen, shower, toilet will be in another building. I chose a prefabricated wooden house, because they can be installed on they family lot and later moved if I need to. I don't want to get into land buying yet, because I don't know as much as I need to know. I want something already build, with a fixed price, which allows me avoid a major concrete project.

MARCH 2003

I hired Manzanara to take me to Spanish Lookout, this is a short drive, across the other handcranked ferry, to Spanish Lookout, almost like a small american town. We visited 3 Mennonite owned Lumber Yards, you have to look out, no pun intended, the signs varied, but we found them all relatively easily.The 3 lumber yards that I know of are Midwest Lumber Mill, Plett's Home Builders, and Linda Vista Lumber Yard.

What you will hear are things like this. The companies build the houses and deliver them. They are really inexpensive, 600 sq ft of house and verandah, delivered and put on stilts for about $6000 us, or about $10/sq ft. Not to shabby. All of this is true and basic. By basic, I mean a shell of a home, with a Zinc Roof. If that is all you need, you are in the house, so to speak. For some, simplicity is the goal and this is it. For most, who haven't thought it through, this a really nice garden shed. And that is ok, too. I just want to make it clear to all, that is it a shell, with nice louvered windows. No divider walls, no juice, no water features, shelves, closets, lights, nothing. BUT a custom package can easily be ordered. That brings us to the price list. Don't get me wrong, I feel this is a tremendous value, I just feel like this subject gets over simplified, and can lead to budgets that are not realistic to what you have in mind. I collected the price lists from each company and took pictures, and back to the ferry.

After the trip to San Ignacio, we went to see the new lots available in Santa Elena. The lots were rather small, but would be very nice for the start-up family. I am not sure how this works, but the government has land, and maps out a new subdivision and Belizeans can lease a lot for $100 the first year and about $20 a year after that. With special permission a person can get up to 3 lots. Within a few to five years you must show that the property has been improved, then you can buy it outright. I was hoping to buy a few for my friend, but they were sold out. After a 3 to 4 hour trip we were back to the little bridge on the Macal in San Ignacio, Manzanero is my old stand by, and cut me a deal of $20us, I felt he spent too much time and got me to the places I wanted to go so I gave him $40us.

DECEMBER 2003

$us
One of my goals for the December trip was to buy a house. I had spent many hours dreaming and planning what would be needed. I would keep trying to make it bigger, but would then remember my Dad's advice "you don't need a mansion from the start, you can always add on."My budget ended up around $6200. I had settled on 18ft-22ft which would include divider walls that would create two 9ft-10ft bedrooms and a nice 18ft by12ft livingroom and 8-18 covered verandah. I made a pretrip phone call and found out the prices had been raised 10% since last year, I got basic quotes for wiring about $350, delivery about $400, stilts $50/foot above 4 feet high, and ended up with about $6500US for the total package.

I still had a few more questions right before the trip and Jerry said he had a 18-22 on the lot that someone had placed a deposit on but was a month away from paying the full balance, so he said I could have a look at it. This one had a ceiling, which I had not planned on getting. The reason was my photos left me with the inpression that the roofs were closer to an "A Frame" arch. I thought this would be more breezy. Well that was a photo of a custom job. The stock houses have a very low roof, so the ceiling provides insulation from the Zinc metal baking in the sun. The house also had a bathroom/closet. So, I needed to make adjustments to my plans. I would not be able to afford the verandah. We decided to think about it over night.

Back to Manzanero, and back to Spanish Lookout. I told Jerry I was interested, and we needed to settle on the package and the price. He phoned his brother Allen who is the owner, they talked about 20 minutes in German, and I ended up fully wired, with 2 sets of steps, interior walls, ceiling, delivered, 4 ft high stilts, but no verandah for about $6200.

We were told someone would check the roads and the site Friday or Saturday and delivery would be Monday, since I was leaving Tuesday. Over the weekend, there was no sign of a site inspection, so I called Monday morning, Allen said they had forgotten to get a highway permit, but they were working on it. We went back to Esperanza, at about 3:00 I bet the girls $100Bz that they wouldn't come. At about 4:00 they showed up, positioned the house (see the photo gallery of the pulley rack system they use). Well, it was getting dark as they were digging the holes. So they left the house up on this rack, overnight. I went back to San Ignacio and flew out the next day.

Following up, via phone, on this project my girlfriend explains to me Mennonites are Belizean too. This destroys my initial thinking that Mennonites dot those I's and cross those T's and a million other things with integrity well before sunrise. They later came out and lowered the house on the stilts and installed one set of steps and said they would be back.

When she got the electricity hooked up some lights didn't work. So she hired an electrician to come and check everything out. She said "he worked, he changed this, that, it wasn't right at all." The electrician including supplies was $100us, to pay for this she spent the $100 I left her to get the water turned on. She also said a set of steps was missing and the house had not been braced or attached to the stilts. I have called twice and to date (Feb,04) nothing has been done. Oh well, this is Belize, and we will make it. I would use Midwest again, it is just hard to get anything done if you aren't there in person. Can you imagine managing a building project with a concrete contracter while in the US?

See the Midwest Lumber website here, but don't try to email them, they are on a fixed cell phone system (no land wires, and very slow for internet). Either call them on the phone or contact me and I will answer the questions or forward a message to them.

I tried to get information on house insurance from Regency Insurance. I e-mailed them and the reply about a week later was "sorry, we are over our wooden structure limitations."