Our San Pedro Rental Renovation

My husband Nathan and I had been visiting San Pedro, Belize since 2014 with plans to move there as soon as our sons were settled as adults. We visited as much as possible, staying in various hotels, resorts, and vacation rentals over the years.

In the summer of 2022, we booked a villa just north of the bridge that overlooked a tranquil waterway. We relished the convenient—yet quiet—location and breathtaking sunset views…

Upon returning home to Phoenix, Arizona, we both had the revelation: Why don’t we buy a villa in that community…? We were nearing the point when we could move permanently, we had proceeds from selling a home sitting in an account, and it would give us somewhere to start settling in on the island. In the meantime, we could use it as a short-term rental and possibly cashflow it.

There is no “Belize MLS” as we know it in the United States—many listings are sold via word-of-mouth or social media posts. We contacted an agent who had helped us previously, and he went to work to beat the bushes and see what he could find us.

Wouldn’t you know it, after a few days of reaching out to his network, he found a villa that was about to go to market. He sent us videos of the villa as he walked through it and told us the price. It was the same floor plan as the villa we had rented, so we felt as though we had already completed a “trial run” of living there, and we took the leap, having only viewed the property via video!

Our closing attorney in Belize City suggested we form a local company, or LTD, for these reasons:

1. It would save us on property transfer stamp duty—we would pay 5% instead of 8%.
2. A local company has a limited liability status to protect us personally from frivolous lawsuits, much like an LLC does in the States.
3. An LTD makes it easier and faster to sell the property to a new owner down the road.

Due to the lack of moving trucks and low availability of furnishings, most properties in San Pedro sell fully-furnished—the sellers remove their personal items, but leave the bulk of the furniture, kitchen wares, and appliances.

In this case, the villa was being used as a long-term rental, so the renters owned most of the kitchen goods and all of the electronics. That meant we would have to restock those items to add the villa to the rental pool.

I ordered some furnishings and décor online from one of only a few home stores in Belize City and set up delivery to the island via one of the barge companies.

I booked a trip to Belize for the week after our projected closing to prepare the villa for rental; due to some delays on the seller’s side, we ended up closing as I was sitting in the Belize International Airport. I sent the remaining balance to close via a wire from my phone at the Tropic Air gate.

Upon arrival at the villa, I found that it needed a bit more work than we originally anticipated, namely a full interior re-paint and an intense deep cleaning.

I spent the next few days driving around town in a rental golf cart (the primary mode of transportation on the island) trying to collect the necessary kitchen wares and other supplies. There are no Targets or Walmarts anywhere in Belize. I bounced from hardware stores to grocery stores to Facebook Marketplace postings to gather my goods—I found a practically new Samsung TV on Facebook, for sale in our same neighborhood!

Fortunately, I had researched heavily before my trip and learned that quality linens are rare in Belize, so I packed sheet sets and comforters to bring down. I am glad I brought towels, too—beach towels start around $25 on San Pedro.

On my last day in Belize, our property manager stopped by to check on my progress. Thankfully she enlisted local help to remove debris left by the seller and to re-paint the interior of our villa. Your local manager will be your lifeline as a short-term rental owner in Belize.

Our manager had a virtual tour filmed and professional photos taken; we had our first booking only a few days after our listing went live.

Many folks set the expectation that we would be “lucky to break even” after expenses on a short-term rental in Belize. Sure, vacationers are not very conscientious about electricity usage, and as a new listing, it took a few months to really gain traction and get consistent bookings. But after a full year, we netted about 3% on our investment. (Keep in mind that traditional financing is not available for non-Belizeans; we paid cash for the villa).

In our second year, we were on pace to net 6%—but we were able to move to Belize and removed the listing. We had netted as much in six months as in all of 2023!

It is possible to cashflow a short-term rental in Belize, particularly in tourism hotspots like Ambergris Caye, Caye Caulker, and Placencia. If your property is self-managed, you can net considerably more—shopping around, most management fees run 27-35% of your rental revenue. However, we didn’t have to do anything—the property manager took all payments, paid the rental tax for us, and would deposit proceeds to us monthly.

If priced correctly to market demand, expect to be rented out around 50% of the year—heavily “in season”, which runs approximately Thanksgiving through the end of April—and much fewer bookings in “low season”, July to October.

More important to us than cash flowing the villa was the ability to create a “home base” in Belize. We were able to use it when we vacationed, and we left belongings behind on each trip to start the process of moving. We installed a locking handle set on an interior closet and closed off the bodega (garage) so guests didn’t have access to our personal items. We were able to meet our neighbors before we moved, and learn the area a bit, too.

With a dependable local manager and team, it is very easy to own a short-term rental property in Belize. If you are patient, there are excellent deals to be had  and income to be earned as an “international landlord”!

Sincerely,
Sharon Lord
Contributor, Overseas Opportunity Letter