REAL ESTATE NEWS
We’ve just received word of this tropical retirement home community, which can also make an economical investment property to rent out. Here’s the scoop on these new developments coming soon in popular world-class scuba diving regions in the Caribbean — starting under $80,000.
Landing pad for where you’re going to want to potentially move or, or having your back pocket as a place that you want to move or, or make some rental revenue.. It’s one of the most exciting and popular offerings that we’ve seen in a while and there are only 12 units available in the first phase. The best deals go quickly.
Virus hysteria and lockdown have proven that even the strongest democratic institutions are vulnerable to disasters, social unrest, authoritarian tyranny and mismanagement.
For some wealthy investors who have already moved from North America to Latin America, they say the “USSA is a zoo — soon to become an even more violent one when hyperinflation hits, debts get called in, taxes increase food gets scarce and riots increase. Kanadians have been voted most likely to turn you in for thinking outside the mainstream narrative, with research showing that most “Kanadians” support punishing those not following coronavirus rules.” These expatriates say “It’s Time to Activate Plan B.”
My friends at ECI Development are launching their newest tiny home community, The Reef Eco-Village, which just made the introductory announcement this week.
If you’ve been looking for the perfect investment to find freedom, high-quality of lifestyle, or a vacation or rental home, this is an amazing opportunity!
For less than $80, 000 (or 3 BTC) you can exchange lockdowns, bureaucrats and banksters for your own luxurious, yet eco-friendly tiny home at Gran Atlántida –– located on a Caribbean white sand beach, looking out at the world-famous islands of Roatan and Utila.
This article reports on the official launch that happened this week.
Some people call it the “Flag Theory,” “Perpetual Travel” or “Nomad Capitalism” — Go where you’re welcome. Get a second residency or citizenship, an offshore bank account, offshore real estate – and boundless freedom.
Others refer to it as Plan B, or an ‘Escape Plan’.
Whatever you want to call it, the bottom line is to get mobile, get private and get out.
This is a simple, secure, and straightforward deal. Join the launch and find out for yourself.
Here are some of the details of this new tiny home community, and an overview of the recent initial launch presentation:
Spencer Hiebert represents Eco Villages, ECI development tiny home communities. The developers have designed many communities at this point. The Reef is their newest community. They have a long history of designing these off-grid and eco-friendly communities. Spencer’s father, Patrick Hieber COO of ECI development has built new homes in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Gran Atlantida.
You’ve heard of the recent trend of more people choosing to moving into smaller homes. ECI has been around for 25 years. This article showcases some of the properties, tiny homes, which have been very exciting. They’ve built Gran Pacifica Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The newest launch is in Honduras, off the coast of Roatán and Utila, which is a scuba dive tourist haven with world-class diving. Interesting facts about Honduras: It’s the second largest country in central America. Spanish-speaking, Honduras is the only country that touches four of the central America countries.
Gran Atlantida tiny homes are located just outside the city of La Ceiba. It’s the ecotourism capital of Honduras, and there are nearly two miles of Caribbean beach. The views are unbelievable. The colors of the Caribbean waters — you can’t beat. So we’re really excited to share these details with you about this wonderful country.
When the developer first went to see the place a few years ago, he was just blown away — as this is one of the more beautiful places in the world. The area has mountains, which he was amazed at. He was not expecting a Caribbean area, not only on Roatán to be kind of hilly, like you see here on the picture, but, but let’s say, well, and Gran Atlantida named after the Atlantida department or the province of the area or state of that area, , has got some amazing not only the beaches, you kind of come to expect that with, with the Caribbean, that you’re going to have this amazing turquoise water and white sand beaches and the beautiful weather, the tropical weather, but then to have mountains, backdrop to the Gran Atlantida resort is pretty cool.
The first evening, he had dinner on the rooftop of one of the homes there, and he was just looking around 360 degrees — it was didn’t matter which way you looked — it was spectacular sunsetting beach, and then mountains in the backdrop. There, it’s a really cool spot and he made a decision that he’s going to get one of the homes, in the tropical tourism hotspot of the country. The city of La Ceiba also surprised him. It had a lot of obviously very authentic culture, amazing arts and social institutions there, but it also has a nice balance of the North American chain type of stores. He remembers driving by a Kentucky Fried Chicken. And just being surprised at that kind of stuff was available there. There’s a Burger King and Walmart, where you can get a little of that feeling of home if you’re a North American as well. And there are a lot of different cultures and ethnicities that care about food and ancient cultures, Mayan, Spanish, obviously a lot of the types of Mayan ruins in that area. And it’s just an amazing place, and undiscovered in a lot of ways. We’re really excited about this because we want to bring this kind of cool area into the limelight.
The Reef is Grand Atlantida is easily accessible to both La Seibe and the Island of Roatan, which is just a little ways away out of international airport. You have lots of connections from the U.S., Canada and all over the world, so it’s surprisingly easy to get to. There’s a lot of nature and natural reserve parks in the area. Of course, you get the obvious water sports and things like that on the, on the beautiful water in the Caribbean, but you also get a jungle tours and all of those sorts of things, and the areas is very, very cool. See some more pictures of things in the area, lots to discover the area is very cool, with all kind of dotted along the coastline there in the Caribbean is a lot of things to see.
There were monkeys in the tree right there near the property. The area is home to many howler monkeys, jaguars, sloths, toucans and pelicans.
Gran Atlantida as a resort in itself. there’s a lot to offer it just in itself, but then we’re going to focus on what we are calling The Reef, which is the tiny eco homes community and right behind the reef, right in front of it, you’ve got the Caribbean beach and the sand and right behind it, you’ve got the monkeys like the holler monkeys and spider monkeys and nature. He’s a huge fan of monkeys. That’s always a big draw for many too. You can sit on a deck and just watch monkeys for days. It’s pretty cool area. And you’re surrounded by that kind of awe-inspiring environment there.
This part of the coast is facing pretty much perfectly North. Countries of Belize come down to the South and then you go down toward Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and it’s pretty cool because you look to your right, you get the sunrise, you look to your left, you get the sunsets. There is the main city where you can get all of your groceries, stores, schools and really nice restaurants only a few kilometers miles away from the Gran Atlantida resort. It’s there where you get the protected waters of Roatán. It’s kind of a long, thin Island. You’re not going to find surfers there cause it’s not a surfing beach, but it’s awesome for other types of calm water sports, fishing, scuba diving, snorkeling and swimming.
It’s just seven kilometers or four miles from the international airport. That’s one of the rare, valuable conveniences. Compare this to a lot of resorts around the world, where you’ve got a two or three hour drive after you land. At those other areas, you land at night, then you’re kind of dreading it. Now, you’ve got to drive so far, you’ve got to take a cab or shuttle on a tiring drive. But at La Ceiba, you’re only four miles away, from the Golosón International Airport, you reach your destination at The Reef at Gran Atlantida in minutes. There, you can enjoy two miles of beach front, pineapple fields, nature reserves, giant parks, surrounded by natural jungle. The resort-style tiny home community is on a large property, with lots of room to grow. There’s already custom homes being built, homes that already existed. This opportunity is for the new construction eco homes.
There are options. If you’re large family or you want a larger home, Gran Atlantida has that has that option as well. It’s by the water, and you have the spectacular mountain range view as well. There are existing homes there. These new homes at the reef are right by the beach., where you have a beautiful view, and you can throw a stone from your home to the water.
Let’s dive a little more in depth about The Reef vehicle village itself: The community is comprised of a total of 63 tiny homes. These are all eco homes, 12 of which will be in the first phase of the community. You can see on the ocean front side, a nice common area. The community itself is just across the street from the beach front. The back side will have the community orchards and gardens, different jungle paths and nature, as well as yoga space and observation towers. There’s a lot going on in the community and a lot to do. Activities are one of our main focuses when we’re designing these communities.
Take a look at the renderings. When we designed this community, we have a large focus on balancing these eco-friendly features and green features with practicality. We never want to implement these features if they’re going to take away from practicality or cause some sort of nuisance for the homeowner. That’s really at the top of our list when we’re designing these communities: to keep them extremely practical and efficient. We really want to emphasize that these eco-friendly green features don’t necessarily have to be a nuisance or impractical or expensive.
We call ourselves eco sensible and not eco fanatics. We really focus on the technologies like solar panels, things will actually cut your costs of living while making your life more comfortable. It is a luxurious kind of lifestyle, but the real focus on the eco part of it is to focus on minimizing your cost of ownership.
Exactly. And I’ll dive into the specifics, , on, on what, what that means, what the IPA features are and how they actually do cut your costs of ownership. but first let’s talk about a little bit more about that ocean front common area. It’s a really cool opportunity with this common area because there’s actually going to be seven leaseable units. So, if you’ve ever had a dream of starting that small business or something, a truck or whatever it may be, but just haven’t seen it to be financially feasible or practical. This could be that opportunity for you say, you sell your home in North America or wherever you may be in the world and you downsize to one of these tiny homes and you have, there’s a little difference there. You have a little extra capital that could be what you needed to start that dream business that you’ve always had.
We’ve laid out an opportunity for that as well here. And another cool aspect of that is that you’re supporting people that are within that same community when you’re shopping and hanging out in the common areas as well. That’s pretty neat little aspect of the common area. Additionally, we also have the sustainability factor, which is, on the backside. We have those community orchards and gardens that we talked about. And the reason for that is so that we can kind of, the community can rely a little bit less on the outside world. You know, the solar aspect as well, you know, relying less on grid power. You can rely on yourself as, as well there, but, just trying to implement more ways where the community is more self-reliant and less reliant on the outside world. You can kind of live your life on your own terms in that sense. , and then in general, just inviting common areas, you know, common areas designed with a live music stage or performance stage a, ocean front pool, you know, the ability to have those, those different food truck as kind of stop places., yoga palapa is all things to kind of design to bring the community together.
Now I’m going to dive into those green features, both the eco-friendly side of them and also how that can benefit you financially. We have the whole hybrid solar electric power systems and what these are, are solar systems that throughout the day, when it’s sunny out, they’ll take power from the sun as long as there’s adequate power from the sun overnight. And if there’s not enough power being generated from the sun, the systems will automatically jump over to the grid power. This happens automatically and seamlessly. You don’t have to worry about doing it. The inverters will do that for you, but it’s a nice way to just reduce your power bills at the end of the day.
Most of the power you’ll be using will be generated by the sun. That’s going to reduce the power bills in general, alongside with the homes being smaller and more efficient in general, they will have quite dramatically lower power bills than you’d be used to. Green roofs have two major benefits. One would be the aesthetic benefit. They’re kind of cool. They’re unique. You have a rooftop terrace that is, hasn’t vegetation, you can grow your own mini garden up there, or you can just keep as the grass. There’s also a very big, practical benefit from these, which is the increased R value. The most thermal transfer in at home happens through a roof, whether you’re in a cold environment and that heat is, exiting your house through the roof, or you’re in a hot environment, and the sun is baking down on the roof, increasing the temperature inside. That is where the most transfer happens. If we focus a lot on that roof, and making it more efficiently designed and reducing that thermal transfer, that will assist your air conditioning in this case to not have to run as often, reducing your power bills. Then, we have the gray water cycling, which is essentially three types of water. You have the fresh potable water, which is water that comes out of your tap, fresh water. Then you have gray water, which is water that has been used for anything that is not septic related. Also, you have black water, which is septic water. In the case of The Reef, the black water will go through a biodigester, which in a way is actually recycling it as well, because it then gets turned into a fertilizer for the surrounding environment. But the homes themselves focused on the gray water. In this instance, if water were to run through your kitchen sink, bathroom sink, or your shower, there’s really nothing wrong with that water other than the fact that some soap etc may be tagging along with it. So, we run it through a filter, then disperse it into your garden. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to water your garden as much, perhaps never. That water that would have generally been wasted now has a second use, and it gets reused for your garden, so more savings there as well.
This brings everything together to live in harmony with nature. Living more efficiently is a beneficial thing for the environment and for your wallet. People want both. So that’s what we do. We design homes that can help you support that lifestyle.
12 homes here in the first phase of the development: You can see it’s a really prime location. You have a yoga palapa (thatched shade pergola) and observation tower. Just across from that is where the common area would be.
Let’s jump into these home models. We’ve got three home models to choose from starting at $79,900, and going up to $99,900. The Pearl is the one bedroom, one bathroom. It’s just an amazing design and the plan is a single floor model. It has the rooftop patios with literally 360 degree views of the ocean, jungle and mountains. The developer is very excited because he as lived at Merguez Key on the Island there, so he knows what it’s like to live on an Island and with the Caribbean waters. He loves the idea of this being on the mainland and still being right there with world-class diving and the islands close by.
You’ll love the fact that you can turn around, and there are the mountains and the monkeys. Many people enjoy watching real monkeys in the wild. The views from here are going to be unbelievable. They’ve done such a great job using that green space. When you live in the tropics, it’s all about outdoor living. Therefore, you don’t need a lot. These small homes allow you to leave many worries behind, and to feel so much lighter, with so much less stress. And you’re going to be happier because you really find out what’s important in life. Explore it. If you’re looking for a lifestyle opportunity and it’s definitely a great investment.
Oh, Perla, let’s go. Sorry. I’m jumping ahead. Now. Let’s do the breakdown. So you can see it’s 344 square feet again, starting at 79 nine. The furniture package on this one is 7,400. You do have some appliance package and we can talk about that a little bit more detailed later closing costs. So you’re looking at a total just under 97,000, which is unbelievable. And you have a monthly HOA of $162. So that is the Perla looks like I’ve got control again, which well, I think I do. Nope. Next slide. Okay. The coral. So it’s a one bedroom, one bath, it’s a lot model. This one’s a great option as well, open areas for viewing space. Again, you’ve got those amazing views. So you’ll take a moment just to look at the first floor there and see your different options with the living area.
Again, they really utilize this space very well, and I love that green on the upper level. So let’s go through the specifics of the coral 333 square feet starting at 89, nine, as you can see the total all ends just over 107,000. And again, there’s your monthly HOA and you can see the stairs there. You will notice that. I love, if you look there at that upper picture, it has a really cold netting area. That looks down to the space below. But Patrick, if I’m not mistaken, you can actually jump on that, right? Like maybe not jumped, but you can get out onto that netting area.
Yeah, you can. And I guess in a pinch you could even have guests, you know, sleep over on there.
I love that feature. I think that’s so cool. So that’s the coral model and we’ll jump to the next one, the Dell theme. So it’s the two bedroom, two bath model has a large pass through window to the kitchen. You see that, and that’s really great because again, it’s all about the outdoor living and enjoying your community. And so that’s a really cool feature that I love on this bottle. Once again, you’ve got just the ocean views from the top deck spin around to those mountains. It’s just unbelievable. So if you need a little bit more room, I know, I mean, they are tiny homes. We’re not, that’s just what they are, but two bedroom, two bath will give you that option to have the extra space and an extra bed for a company to come and visit, because definitely you’re going to have people knocking on your door in this location. For sure.
If I could just jump in for a sec. One thing you kind of triggered in my mind is we didn’t really talk about the, kind of the tiny home living minimalist living concept in the tropics. It’s different than if you’re in Minnesota or something, or, or Oklahoma or wherever, you know, it, you know, and the different types of climates here w well you know, I’m a, I’m a digital nomad. My wife and I live in a number of different countries down here in the tropics. And, you know, we don’t mind having small spaces. I’m in a animal apartment right now, but you know, these tiny homes are amazing because the reality is you’re really only using three rooms in your home when you’re living in the tropics and that’s your bedroom, the kitchen and the bathroom, there are no great rooms. There are no massive dining rooms or there are, but people don’t use them if they have them, because you’re always going out outside.
You’re always even like, I, you know, I watch Netflix or the Superbowl or whatever. I know I’m Canadian. So I watch a lot of hockey and I’ll do it outside my, you know, my TV’s mounted out on the, on the deck and, and, that’s where I spend my relaxation time. And then of course, you’re right beside the beach, you’re going to end up spending a ton of time at the beach, or you’re in a jungle hikes the community orchards, maybe you’re, you know, gathering some food or maybe you’re out exploring in the mountains. It just because the weather is always nice. I mean, it’s, it’s always, you know, in these communities, it’s, it’s almost always between 75 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit and, you know, basically 22 to 30, 32 sometimes type of in Celsius. So, you know, you really, really don’t need all that extra space.
And, and that, that’s what we found. Like, I, I started with designing, eco-friendly totally off grid homes at our grand Pacifica property in Nicaragua. And those were, you know, up to 3,500, 4,000 square foot homes, but, you know, massive areas and all these, all these great rooms and things like that, but, you know, nobody’s ever been in them. So it was just, they don’t get used. And in these, in these climates, people just spend their time outdoors. And, and so, you know, it really, it, it, you know, I know when people first look at these tiny homes, they always, Oh, that’s too small. I can’t possibly live in something like that, but you’ll be surprised because, you know, when you’re going to bed to crash, it doesn’t really matter how massive your bedroom is. You know, you’ve got a really comfortable, modern, you know, bedroom and bathroom and modern kitchen and little area with the TV for a little living area. But again, you’re going to REL you know, relatively minimally stay in that area. Then you’ve got your up upper deck as well, which a lot of time spent on there. So, and we started to jump in there, but, just wanted to, cause I hadn’t mentioned that earlier and it was something I wanted to mention,
No jump right in anytime. No, I completely agree because you know, there’s, there’s definitely a reason that the tiny homes have become such a huge trend and people are drawn to them. And it’s really, because I think people are, especially after this last year, we’ve had that. We’ve had, they realize what’s truly important life and they want to live again. They want to be out and experience life and, you know, obviously enjoy nature and you have everything that you need. And the obviously they’re beautifully designed and all the amenities, but you’ve got that wonderful outdoor space and community as well. And I think the community is something we really should talk about too, because you know what I’m seeing in Nicaragua and, you know, the different areas that we are is the community that is being formed is really unique. And I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. The common space, you know, people are going to hang out there. I can really envision what it’s going to be like to live in these communities or to visit there and, you know, vacation there as well. So I’m already ready to go to the reef. So I’m anxious to hear down the road, like what timeframe we’re looking at, cause I’m ready to come check this place out for sure, but let’s do it. And
If I can jump in there on the community as well, I mean, obviously that’s a big part of my life and my life living down in, in these communities. And, you know, you w Spencer mentioned earlier, regardless of, you know, how you feel politically or, you know, anything that’s going on in the U S Canada, Europe, and Australia, or the world right now you know, the whole reaction of governments to the, to the COVID hysteria issue. You know, a lot of people are just, frankly, not, not crazy about the way the government reacted to them. And a lot of these countries down here took a different approach and just treated people as adults. And, and so you find yourself in these one thing I really love about news. You kind of find yourself with like-minded people. I mean, if you are a person that’s looking at the reef community here as an option, whether it’s a plan B or you just want to move tomorrow, you know, you probably are thinking a lot like the other people that are on this webinar and, you know, and, and when you end up sitting in, you know, having a glass of wine and watching the sunset and you can, you know, I’m watching the music performed on the stage at the reef.
You’re gonna, you’re gonna realize that people around you are kind of cool to hang out with because, you know, you’re, you’re not getting a lot of the nonsense that you’re getting necessarily today and I know the place. So that’s one of the things I really appreciated about these communities as well.
Awesome. All right. Let’s carry on. As we say, we won’t go through all the details, but you do have appliance package options, and we can give you more details on the furniture package. So we really encourage you to reach out to your property consultant and they can go through all the details of everything and really help you select what’s the best model and fit for you. You’ll see, there’s some of the renderings I’m really excited about this common space. When you said I’m a music lover. So when you said music studio and the music stage, I was really excited about that as well. Like I said, it’s going to be a definitely a different feel and a unique community at the reef.
You can see the guitar in the background. I like to think I had a little bit of play. Spencer’s a great guitarist kid. So that’s what happened for the music studio and then the music stage had to be involved. That’s awesome. I love it.
All right. And this just goes over the performance. So your return on investment, and again, obviously it’s a little small to read, but you’ll see. We always do on our performance, we do the interest is industry standard, and then we do a conservative model as well. You can see there, this is looking at an occupancy of 50%, 56% for the industry standard and 49% and the conservative. And I’m trying to get my screen where I can see a little bit better. You can see here, the ROI you’re one is 14.79 year 10, 25%. That’s the standard case and the conservative is a year one at 10% and your tenant 18.4%. So, and that’s obviously this one’s based on a cash. We can run these depending on if you’re doing financing or the different options. This is something that you can really jump on a zoom meeting with your property consultant and go through this in detail — obviously a great return on investment.
Well, and just to point out to Leslie, I mean, these, these are based on real world numbers at our other properties and other communities. So, you know, although we can’t guarantee any numbers and we won’t guarantee any numbers, you know, I, you know, in full disclosure I have properties within, you know, the ECI family of, of resorts. And a lot of these numbers are based on what we see in the rentals, in our other properties.
Absolutely next screen. We have a lot of pathways to ownership as we call them. Obviously we accept cash, gold bullion, self-directed IRA, and we do accept crypto. That’s been a huge one. I think we’re one of the few developers that I’ve been hearing about that actually does accept crypto. If you have seen a home site that you are really excited about, and you want to reserve that, then you need to get with your property consultant immediately and put down a $999 refundable deposit to claim that home site. We want you to get your pick. So be sure and do that.
It is refundable minus the 10% admin fee. So you know, nothing to worry about there after that point, once you get your official paperwork, you know, and you review that and we can jump on a zoom meeting and go through the details and when you’re ready to move forward, then you put a 50% less your deposit down with your paperwork. You have 20% do when foundations complete 20% when the walls are up and then 10% plus closing when the home is complete. So we have plenty of options for you, and we can talk about the best one for you.
And I want you to meet the team. Our team has been growing. You’re keeping us busy with all the leads. tonight I think we were up to maybe 1500 plus registrant’s, which is amazing, one of our most popular, webinars. So that tells me a lot of people are interested in these tiny homes and the location, but our team members are ready to, to assist you. We have Katie and Joe Gian, Betsy, Andrea, Sarah, Natalie, Megan. And of course myself. So reach out to us. I try to manage expectations. We’ve had a couple of interesting weeks. Our emails are coming in like crazy. So be patient with us, but we definitely are very, um, anxious to visit with you as well. And you’re very important to us. So just know we will get to you, but reach out and connect to your property consultant.
Okay. Of course, as we always do, we like to provide you with resources. Um, that’s what we’re here is just to serve as a resource to you. So you’ll see that, um, email address webinar@ecidevelopment.com again, webinar@ecidevelopment.com, if you would like a copy of the consumer resource guide, um, just request that, that really, um, Patrick kind of closes out here on this opportunity of a lifetime. Like I said, I’m really excited. It’s a beautiful location. If you love the Caribbean waters and want to experience that outdoor, the waters, the jungle, again, I like that it’s on mainland and you’ve got some options with restaurants, but you can jump, you know, on a ferry or hop across the Island if you would like as well. So, um, I think it’s a great location. I’m very excited to see who our new homers are going to be at the reef.
Yeah, thanks, Leslie. I think this is a, is a very cool kind of, you know, we’ve got on here once in a lifetime opportunity. I mean, this is also the first, um, resort property that we’re working with in a marketing joint venture with, with the owners of this property and expanding it, you know, as, as, as part of the ECI family and the Gran Atlantida, the property. And, um, you know, it’s, it’s, I think, you know, the numbers are speaking for themselves. We would probably set records again here on this webinar in terms of the amount of interest. Um, I’ve certainly seen over, over the weekend as the invitations to the webinar were going out how much interest there was, um, people even reserving before webinars started. So, you know, that that’s exciting, you know, we, we, we know we’ve got something special here, there, it is rare that you can find a spot that has that beach, mountains, a golf course nearby a city with all those kinds of restaurants and theaters and things like that in a touristy area at this kind of price point, like starting under $80,000 for the home itself.
Um, that, that is pretty unusual. So we know what’s going to be popular and I, you know, really excited about it. And, like I said, I’m looking forward to being neighbors with some of the folks on this call too, because I I’m, I’m pretty sure I’m getting one as well. So I should probably have picked before we did the webinar because Patrick, but, we’re really looking forward to, to, you know, you know, realizing this community. And, and, and like I said, if, you know, if the tiny homes are too tiny for you and you want something bigger, there is that option there at, to Lantos as well. So, you know, I, I’m pretty sure we’re going to see a lot of, you know, pretty, you know, a lot of people getting into this community and we only have 12 homes in the first phase.
So it’s time to get on that quick flight. We’ll, we’ll be releasing a few future phases as we go along here, but you know, there’s a lot of people on this webinars. So I encourage you to, if you’re interested to, to, you know, it’s a pretty inexpensive, reservation fee and three fundable, if you’ve changed your mind in the next few days. So no problem. So I will take a questions now, I guess I pardon my pardon, my eyesight at my age, but I’m going to put my glasses on so I can actually see the questions. We have a lot of questions and we try to keep these to a, you know, an hour or so at most. So we’ll answer as many questions as you can. I’ll go through some of them and have them, the ones that make more sense to hand off to you.
Leslie and Spencer, I will do that. The first question I see from Chris is, do you need to physically go there to invest knowing you can put your reservation down tonight, if you want, and, and, and hold that, um, you know, in a lot of our communities, it’s just been, as you know, with the whole COVID stuff, it’s been difficult for people to fly. So we spend our property spend a lot of time going through, you know, the experience with people and, and to, you know, the worst case scenario, I guess, is if you bought something and you showed up and you didn’t really like it, which so far has never happened. But if that did happen, then, you know, you could put it back on the market and they’re, they’re very popular. So, you know, it wouldn’t take much to sell. You probably sell it for more than, than we’re selling them for.
Um, just let me scan through the questions sometimes they’re repeat. So it’s wanna make sure I’m doing something new. where is it is the exact location of this community on the Caribbean coast? Um, so it’s on the Northern coast of Honduras looking out at Roatán. The Island of Roatán is probably one of the top, um, diving islands in the world it’s right on the Mesoamerican reef. Um, and that reef now is actually the largest living reef in the world and, super popular area. Lots of ex-pats in the area from all over the world, Europe, Canada, us, Australia, all over the place. So it’s a popular area and it’s becoming more and more popular all the time. So hopefully that explains it from the map. Also, if you want to go back through the recording, I’m trying to scroll down here.
I’m interested in, in any concerns you have about the crime in the area. I mean, let’s, let’s put the elephant in the room on the table here. You know, obviously some central American countries get a bad rap when it comes to crime. Um, I remember flying down to Nicaragua for the first time and everybody telling me I was crazy. And then, you know, bringing my kids, Spencer was, I don’t know, four years old or something at the time. And, um, you know, we, I got admit flying in the first time I looked down at the city and, you know, it’s the tin, tin, roofs and everything. I was like, wow, what have I done? But then as soon as they landed, it was just a, you know, instant change apart I go where it was, you know, the people are super friendly, you know, the crime rates, I mean, there’s crime, you know, in every, in certain areas of every country.
And I mean, it depends if you, if you’re into the drug trade. Well, yeah, you’ll probably going to find it, but if you’re an average person like me just living in these communities, you never have any problems. I very, very seldom have problems in any of these countries, but I’ve never had really problems in any of these countries. So I know I’ve been coming down to central America for, for 15, 20 years, um, well before that, but actually, you know, doing things in, working in the area for that long. So yeah, I mean, you, you, if you, if you listen to CNN and, and you know, the news, you’re all sorts of terrible things, I would just say, make your own opinion up and come down and talk to people that actually live down in these countries. And you’ll realize that it’s, it’s really not a concern.
I agree, Patrick, I just want to, that’s what I usually say when I get the question about, you know, safety and the different areas. Um, obviously I’ve been in Billy’s, I’ve been in Nicaragua and I simply asked them, have you been there? And until you’ve been there and lived there, then I just encourage you to come because I’ve never not felt safe in either of those places. And I’m sure Honduras is going to be the same. And I’m definitely going to go as soon as possible to check the space out
Well. And, a few months ago we did a, Nicaragua and discovery webinar. And, I talked specifically about, you know, the crime issue in there and compared cities in the U S to, to Nicaragua. And I think you’ll, you’ll be pretty amazed if you go back and see that webinar, and it would be similar in many of these countries where you’ll, you’ll see that, you know, your perspective on, on crime is just a bit out of whack when you’re, when you’re all you’re hearing is North American news, um, how to get to Roatán and the reef community. There, there an eye, there are airports in both Los Seva, which is right beside the reef and Roatán, they’re both international airports. So you can fly in from other countries into those airports, but they also have, um, you know, over the water shuttles, um, planes going back and forth between those airports.
And I actually took, I flew into Rola town and then I took a ferry from really, Tantalus say about, and, I can’t actually remember how long it was. I was too busy looking out at the water, but it was, I want to say an hour, an hour and 15 minutes. I might get corrected on that, but it’s not very long. And it’s a beautiful, I mean, any, any time you’re on the water, over the Caribbean waters is nice. So it’s, it’s a nice relaxing thing. It’s, it’s, you know, interesting little port in both sides and, you know, there’s, there’s just a lot to see. So, you know, you could, you could literally go to row at 10 in the morning from the reef across on the ferry and then come back in the evening and make a day of going to roll a 10.
And I think, I think that’s pretty cool too, being that close. Um, what about hurricanes? I mean, anytime you’re talking about the Caribbean, obviously that’s a, that’s an issue. Um, the further South you go, the less, there are hurricanes. So, you know, you get obviously a lot of attention paid for Miami and Florida and things like that with, and, you know, new Orleans or wherever the hurricanes are typically hit. And, you know, we, we have, we spend a lot of time in beliefs. We have properties and beliefs, you know, it generally the hurricanes kind of misbeliefs and, and, or, or if they do hit, they’re not as powerful every once in a while you get, you can get a real one. Um, these are concrete homes, first of all, they’re gonna, they’re going to stay there for a thousand years, whether you like it or not, they’re there, they’re not going anywhere.
Um, and you know, the other thing is because you’re actually facing North here, generally, your, your hurricane surge pushes from East to West as the hurricanes come in. And it, you know, so if your beach is, is facing East, you’re gonna get hit hardest with the surge. But if you’re facing North, it’s almost like a glancing blow in a, in a boxing match, it doesn’t really matter, right. It just kind of slips by. So you don’t get that, um, you know, you’ll get higher levels of waves and water and everything, but you don’t get those in no huge breakers. And then it’s protected by Rollie Tam as well. So it’s got a lot of things going forward in and just being where it is, you know, there’s just not as likelihood, um, or, or the likelihood of having hurricane issues. Um, let me just go through, you’re going to put my glasses back on, sorry,
Patrick. I see Ron’s asking about other locations sold out like Nica and Panama. There’s definitely still availability. And Ron, I see that you also mentioned that you like to serve, so if you like to serve, then you may want to check out a grand Pacifica, Nicaragua, and
Yeah. The Ava community or the Bela community in grand Pacificas would be your, your ticket to have in there. If you were into surfing, you’re right on the [inaudible] beach there. And then there’s one, a professional beach, a reef break called meat grinder, right beside it, which is a, so you’ve got an option for beginner, intermediate and expert serving right there in front of your home. Um, the reef here is really not a, a surfing destination. It is a diving destination, and, you know, Spencer talked about the little shops on the beach. I picture those being, you know, swimwear guide shop, you know, ice cream shops and things like that that people want to kind of have as their dream tropical life with a little, you know, a hobby business on the side. And, you know, I think that’s going to be very popular, but it’s not a surfing. It’s not a serving area at the reef.
what percentage is English speaking? Um, obviously, um, on doors is a, is a Latin American country where only beliefs is really the truly English speaking country in the, in the region. But, um, let’s say, Gran Atlantida, and that whole area, that region around the Atlantida department is their top tourist area and road town as well. So that, you know, you get a lot of ex-pats in the area, frankly. And so there, you know, my, my English is, is, you know, my English is apparently, okay, my Spanish is terrible, but my wife is from Ecuador. And she reminds me that my Spanish is terrible all the time. I thought it was good until I met her, but, but, but you get by easily in any of these countries and the towns and villages and cities just by, you know, hand gestures and, and trying a little bit, it’s always good to try to learn a bit of a native language. It goes a long way when you’re talking to somebody and you’re, you’re trying, and they’re trying English and you know, it, you generally create friendships that way to be honest, but, but, it, it isn’t, um, naturally a, a Spanish is the first language. And, but there is English spoken a lot in the area.
Melissa says the monkeys steal your sunglasses. I don’t hang on to your sunglasses, Melissa. Um, I think we’ve answered a couple of those questions. Is there snorkeling and diving from the property? Yes, absolutely. You can always just walk into the beach and snorkel and dive you want, it’s not directly on the reef. Um, so you’d have to go and take a, take a boat out to, to be on the reef itself, but, it’s, that’s, that’s easy enough to do as well, but I like snorkeling around in, in, in the areas like the calm beaches anyway, because there’s a lot of colorful fish and everything just about everywhere in any beach stuff,
You were getting some questions, Patrick, maybe address when we’re starting the project and what the timelines look like. We’re getting a lot of key questions about that.
Yeah, well, we expect to start very soon. I mean, we’re working with the actual owners of the, of the resort and we expect to get started. And obviously based on the, on the interest level, I expect that, the first phase will be sold out pretty quickly. And, and we’ll be, we’ll be starting very shortly, you know, and the common areas, the pools and things like that will go along with, with the, the first phase being completed as we move into the second and third and fourth phases, the community will grow. So it there, like we said, there is room for a lot of growth at the property, but we’re, you know, we w we want to take it in, in manageable sections. So we’ve put 12 homes in the, in the first phase and, you know, that is going to get started very soon.
Generally the tiny homes don’t take, obviously as long as, as, you know, a 4,005,000 square foot home would take to build. So what we’d like to, you know, give ourselves six to eight months, you know, from, from when we start to make sure all the finishings are done and everything, and there are a little bit more, to these homes, obviously they have solar systems, um, different alternative energy systems, the gray water reuse, which requires a little different plumbing green roofs, which obviously, you know, you have to prepare the roof for that and everything. So they do take a little more time that way. But, um, you know, there for people that are really interested in going, going down, there’s obviously places that can be rented. In the meantime, we see a lot of that happening where people will, will, um, in a rental home while they’re, well, their home is being built so they can kind of keep track of it as well. So we just checking the time and got a couple of minutes here. Let me just see if there’s any, sorry I’ve been answering all the messages are all the questions guys. Sorry, Spencer, if you had something to say, just chime
In, maybe speak Patrick, about your time, about, um, if a car is required to get around, what was your experience?
Well, you’re very close to LeSabre and I, you know, I think, you know, people ask about, you know, do I need to own a car down there or, you know, all that sort of thing, but what people tend to think of, they, they picture their home, you know, in Omaha or something. It’s like, well, I got these big distances to go. Cabs are expensive, all those sorts of things. Well, and in countries like this, you know, a cab cab ride might be, you know, a dollar 50 or whatever it is, you know, and it just becomes a non-event. Um, you know, so you’re certainly welcome to have you a vehicle and do, but, but to get around, you know, back and forth to let’s say a bow and then maybe to the ferry or airport or whatever, you know, that, that it it’s really you’ll find that often your, your car just sits there a lot, because it’s kind of like when you live in a city with Uber and you don’t feel like always having to find a parking spot, things like that, or maintain, you know, or buy gas or whatever, then, you know, sometimes it’s just easier to in these countries, it’s easier.
Like right now I’m in Panorama city and it’s so inexpensive to take Uber that, you know, vehicle never comes out of the, out of the car park. So if you see any other questions there, Spencer or Leslie, in terms of things that we’ve missed
Glancing through here to see,
Okay. I think we’re capturing, I mean, the other thing too is, um, you know, any questions that we missed or, or didn’t have time for whatever, you’re definitely just welcome to talk to your, your property expert on this and, and we’ll get all the answers to you. Um, sorry if we did miss one or two in here or there, or there were, I think most of them were repeat, so I might’ve missed a couple, but, but, yeah, you know, we’re, we’re definitely here to answer all your questions. As Leslie said, we’re probably going to be pretty busy over the next few days. Um, but we will get, make sure that we get your questions answered. And, and in general, I just want to say thank you to everybody. I mean, this is, this is an exciting time for, you know, every time we release a new community is extremely exciting. Um, you know, we, we really, we really feel like we kinda hit the bullseye on this one. We were in a beautiful location. Spencer did an amazing job of designing the community and the homes and just the all around area. It’s, it’s, it’s kind of a match made in heaven with all the parts that came together on this. So I’m, I’m, I’m pretty excited about it. This is me being excited by the way, for people that don’t know my excitement level.
I don’t know. Honestly, if you have anything else you want to talk about
Or is there something else that you want to end with?
no. I mean, I think we covered the bases pretty well, and I’m obviously very excited about this community as well. Unfortunately, you can’t see my face. It’s probably looks a lot like my dad’s. Um, but yeah, no, this is, it’s a really cool community. I like, I like the, the reliability of the hybrid systems is exciting because, you know, you, you have that grid power backup, but also if the grid goes down, you still have some level of power as well. And there’s always the option to expand with these systems as well. And you can add a battery then she’s really high end systems. So you can add value banks as well, so that you can essentially act as a battery backup generator as well. So, you know, it’s a, it’s a really cool community with a lot of potential, and I’m very excited about it.
just on that point. One thing that made me laugh was that when we first built the first [inaudible] was our first, um, off-grid solar, um, community in grant Pacifica and Nicaragua, and everybody’s saying, Oh, you can’t do that. It will never work. It’s not gonna, you know, run them on properly and everything. And then within a few months there was a power outage on the grid. And everybody, you know, for it was last for a while and everybody was coming over to those homes, to those solar powered homes and charging their phones and their iPads and their laptops, and, you know, bringing over little coolers that could plug in and things to keep food cold and stuff. So it, it, it quickly changed the attitude of a lot of people that, Oh, these homes actually are less susceptible to problems than, than more. So it is, it is true. I mean, a hybrid home is kind of the panacea for that because you, you know, if, if you have problems or whatever with, you know, solar systems, although we rarely, rarely do then, you know, your grid, it clicks in and things run off the grid. And the flip side is if you have a power outage like happen in Texas, not too long ago, you know, if that, if that were to happen here at the reef, while your homes are on solar power, so they would be much less effective.
Patrick, I’m also, I’m seeing just several questions. People are, you know, if you’re new with us and you’re not sure who your property consultant is, they will definitely reach out, but you have that webinar@ecidevelopment.com. So if you’re interested, I see quite a few people, so you better get those reservation forms. Then they’re asking where to send that reservation form. So definitely send us an email@webinaratecidevelopment.com that you’re interested, ready to move forward. We will definitely get you connected with your property consultant and they will help you, um, on this pathway to ownership in this amazing community, the reef.
Thanks everybody. Thanks, Leslie. Thanks Spencer. Thank you so much, everybody. Again, soon,
Live again. We’re there for you to be a resource or just reach out and we will be in touch as soon as we can to get all the answers to you. And we look forward to having you as part of the ECI family and part of the reef community there at Gran Atlantida.
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