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I am not familiar with the area so will let others comment on specifics.

You need to pass by there several different times.  Go weeknights,  weekends,  Friday and Saturday NIGHT - at like 10 pm,  then you see how quiet it is.

I'm checking with a friend that is a local in Sosua. Let you know what I hear.

Welcome Wanderer! Thanks for helping!

My local friend agreed, it is a relatively quiet area that is not particularly known for crime or gang activities. Hope this helps.

My local friend agreed, it is a relatively quiet area that is not particularly known for crime or gang activities. Hope this helps.

We looked at a place in Los Charamicos, also a local neighborhood area. It was nice. Spectacular view. But we ultimately decided against it. Partially the neighborhood. But mostly it was access. The apartment had 3 flights of stairs. Kinda funny...my husband and I were discussing the pros and cons and had to interrupt our conversation twice to get up and let the dog out. It suddenly occurred to us that several up and down dog out trips, groceries up and down, very narrow streets, and a pretty raucious night life in the streets was more than we wanted to take on. We found a small, quiet community and really like it. Not touristy, but walkable, breezy and good views.

Good luck! We looked at a lot of places before we decided.

That's the trick!  Take your time,spend a month or two renting, then think some more.  Look..... Listen..... Learn. Too many folks make rapid decisions & eventually have second thoughts, then regrets.  You don't have to join thad not quite happy group.  Have un, read as many threads as possible,  AND ASK & keep asking your questions. Welcome.

Great! Makes me feel alot better! Thank you

Hi Sash13 and ChristieE.

Your feet are on the ground. I am still in cold Totonto...

How do you find places you mentioned? Do you just drive or walk around, or is there an online resource?

I am interested to live with or among locals, where do they advertise their rentals, please?

I am arriving in 12 days and hoping to get an introduction to contacting locals. Do they speak English, or not at all?

Hello!

I had no luck online. When i was there recently i asked my local friends and saw postings at the supermarkets. You can also join facebook groups...Everything Sosua or Everything Cabarete.

It sounds like you have no idea how things work here!  Boots on the ground is how you find rentals. Locals rarely advertise.  They also are not likely to speak english.   Trying to live like a local without knowledge of this culture and spanish is not likely to be too successful.

Sash13  planner,

Ladies, every bit of info you gave is priceless.  Thank you a 9999999999 times.

If a friend or neighbor mentions a vacant studio, pls let me know.

Merry Christmas

Sign up to the facebook groups "Everything Sosua" or "everything Cabarete" you'll finds lots of rental listings, info on bars and restaurants, events etc.

Yes join the Fb groups.   But few local rentals in those groups, but great info about businesses etc!  They are targeted at expats so rentals are also targeted

I wish I was boots on the ground. Not quite yet, not full time.

We worked through a realtor. Found places online, send to her, she checked them out. Then we came over and went to lots of places. Some of the places that looked great were awful and vice versa.

Our realtor lived locally. In my opinion, the realtor's help was invaluable. And now, she is a dear friend.

Helpful info, learning fast...

Thank you all

I had the good fortune to stumble across......

Let me rephrase that for it was not exactly a 'stumble"... When I last relocated the methodology of Places Rated Almanac, a resource I used about 30 years ago when deciding where to relocate within the US was the best available resource. It was a book in the 'before the internet days'.

I didn't find it operative internationally online so built it out myself.. Basically PRA 'asked me questions' and from that derived my emphasis on a host of variables like infrastructure, healthcare, jobs, recreation, safety, climate, cost of living, climate, etc..

I built spreadsheets into which to plug that data from the internet (not available 30 years ago).  No surprise, Mexico was as the bottom of the list (though I loved it 40 years ago). 

Countries that I plugged into the matrix were Argentina, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize, Honduras, Puerto Rica, Panama, etc.

Surprising to me was that the DR was a the top of my list..

So, I re-did the sorting matrix for regions within the DR and spent a couple of months digging into that.  Then I did a scouting trip to the DR to measure what the spreadsheets could not, the key intangible of  "what does it feel like to be here"?

That led me the North Coast.  I kept running into DREscapes and absolutely DID NOT want to take any tour of any sort imagining it to be being stuffed into a vehicle with people seeing what I did not care about.

I told my prospective 'tour host' NO WAY am I going to take any sort of TOUR! Because I thought that tour meant that was to be trapped on some sort of bus, and hearing and seeing what I did not want to hear while being subjected to a sale pitch. Boy, was I wrong.

Reply was that the tour was just for me, and although they had an associated real estate business I was not going to have to look at any real estate for sale.  Good for me because I had a completely different agenda, I wanted to take soil samples, see how houses were built, take stream flow measurements, etc.

I was not disappointed.  I really liked what i saw and could not have put together a fact finding mission on my own at 3X the cost.

I will be returning shortly for phase two of my work that will most probably entail relocation.

Check it out if you like.

Kind regards,

Jay Reynolds