This is a 3-part blog series on how we found a rental property in Barbados to buy sight unseen during a pandemic while being in Toronto, Canada. In early 2020, a friend and I chatted about buying an investment property in Barbados. Both of us had been real estate investors for many years and were looking to branch out beyond the Canadian borders. I had been running a 6-suite guesthouse in Prince Edward County, 2 hours east of Toronto for the last 4 years successfully and started thinking that a rental in a hot, sunny climate was bound to also do well. So I booked a vacation in Barbados with a few girlfriends over New Year’s 2020 and started to become more acquainted with Barbados. I loved it. I loved the people, I loved the restaurants, I loved the weather, I loved the fact that I could walk everywhere, I loved how close we were to the beach. It somehow felt like home even though I was born in Guyana and had never set foot in Barbados.

Many of us have read the story about the Jane St condo building in such a state of disrepair they have given their owners 15 days notice to pay $30,000 to $42,500 in a special assessment. It was reported that they no longer have cleaners, security or a superintendent and that their reserve fund has $1.75 and their operating fund had $5000. This is shocking and a sad state of affairs. For owners to come up with such a large sum of money in such a short period of time is ridiculous. The building is now putting liens on the units that haven’t paid their special assessment yet.