The Virgin Islands Energy Office (VIEO) broke ground on the construction of a 125 kW Solar plus 300 kWh battery micro-grid at the St. Croix Educational Complex last month and slated to complete at the end of August. According to the St. Croix Source, the micro-grid will enable the Educational Complex’s emergency hurricane shelter to function reliably during extended grid outages and significantly reduce the use of fossil fuel generators that have proven difficult to maintain and costly to fuel. Additionally, under blue-sky conditions, the solar microgrid will aid in offsetting approximately $6,000 per month in utility costs the school incurs under normal operation.
This is great news for the territory and in very timely for the upcoming hurricane season and start of school year!
We talked to a young friend from the states visiting family on St. Croix. He showed us this quarter. The night before he had gone with his family on the bioluminescence tour in the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve and described his delight in the tour seeing the mangrove forests in person! He knew a lot about the mangroves and why they are important to the wildlife. It was wonderful to hear! Now he has his own connection to that amazing habitat through his coin.
Mangroves are very important to wildlife and marine life. According to the National Park Service, magnificent mangroves are flowering trees that live in saltwater or brackish water in mudflats near shorelines. Red Mangroves are the most distinctive, with their complex ariel prop roots. These root systems, when submerged, support a diverse community of sponges, ascidians, algae, corals and crabs.
If you thinking about taking a bioluminescence tour on St. Croix, we recommend you taking a look at Go To St. Croix’s article. It highlights two of the Caribbean’s rare bioluminescent bays at Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve and Altona Lagoon.
Great news for first-time homebuyers who are looking to make homeownership a reality! V.I. Housing Finance Authority (VIHFA) announced the launch of the ‘Own A Lot, Build a Home’ program, a secondary financing initiative providing 20-year, zero-percent forgivable grants up to $250,000 for the construction of new single-family homes, as reported by the St. Croix Source. The program targets low-to-moderate-income eligible residents who own land, but also need financial assistance to develop it. Financing assistance will hopefully make home construction affordable for residents. The VIHFA has partnered with Banco Popular for the program. Read more about the requirements and the application on the VIHFA website. Read the full article here.
The territory has been experiencing severe flight shortages between St. Croix and St. Thomas since 2022, so we are excited to hear that more flight options are on the horizon! As the VI Daily News reported, Cape Air and Silver Airways currently offer flights between St. Thomas and St. Croix, but the high cost, a lack of available flights, and cancellations has caused frustration for the traveling public.
The Virgin Islands Port Authority recently hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to welcome Fly the Whale, the newest airline to provide air service between St. Croix and St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Fly the Whale will begin daily flights between St. Croix and St. Thomas with a soft launch of four flights on Friday, April 27, 2023 as described in the press release.
According to an article from the VI Consortium, the aircraft are said to be just a little bigger than Cape Air planes and seat about 9 people. Read full article here.
Watch the video on the Fly the Whale aircraft flight commencing between St. Thomas and St. Croix below.
WAPA plans to install substantial amounts of solar and wind energy facilities in the next two years! Great news on the recent announcements of power purchase agreements for the wind and solar projects on St Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John! According to an article on VI Consortium, the governing board of the VI Water and Power Authority (WAPA) approved contracts that include wind farms on St. Croix and St. Thomas, as well as two solar parks on each of those two islands, and one on St. John. When completed, the wind and solar projects will provide as much as one third of the territory’s annual energy needs according to WAPA CEO Andrew Smith. Read the full article here.
On St. Croix, we are generally seeing homebuyers putting less money down now compared to 2 years ago, similar to what is happening in other US markets. According to a report from Redfin in March 2023 that looked at 40 of the most populous metropolitan areas in the US, and records indicating homebuyers who took out a mortgage, the typical down payment of a US homebuyer has fallen 10% from a year ago for the purchase price of the house. The median down payment is now 10% of the purchase price of the house, off its peak of 17.5%, (which amounted to $65,000), in May 2022. You can find the full report on Redfin and a good summary in this Axios article.
With elevated mortgage rates compared to years past, and home prices staying steady, buyers are facing higher monthly mortgage payments, and therefore more constrained in what they can afford to put down, as pointed out in the Axios article. On St. Croix, we are also seeing some earnest money deposits less than 10% for some higher price properties.
What does this mean for homebuyers? Whether you are searching for a modest home or financing a premiere property, it’s still possible to get your offer accepted with a smaller down payment compared to one or two years ago.
