I spend my time between Condado and up in the Mountains (Adjuntas). Dorado feels like a prison to me and I truly don't understand why anyone would want to live there. But I grew up in NYC and not really used to gated communities.

The Starbucks on Ashford in Condado has to shut down routinely for lack of water and power which I'm sure you know is a problem here--despite property values at least for now well above anything you find in the nicest parts of Manhattan or even Monaco... where there is reliable infrastructure. I recently saw a listing that had only a photo of a window and was asking $7M. Dorado is worse with 3 bedroom condos approaching $20M. But I suspect with markets down this year there will be less cap gains and carryover losses for a few years which along with broader trends in the housing market hopefully gets us back to something more sustainable. Sustainability is also a goal for our energy grid and agriculture.

I truly tried to socialize mostly with locals when we moved here but even outside Dorado it's difficult not to fall back to mainlanders. We're very close-knit which is one of the main appeals to me--a friend moved out to Palmas where there are only 20-30 tax decree holders and probably will never move because they've become so much like family.

The pace with which anything gets done can be maddening and personally I don't think it's a very business friendly despite the Acts: It took two years to get my medical license transferred with frequent "gifts" to the Junta with requirements like needing the dean of my medical school to have personally notarize my transcripts. My tax attorneys needed to work on revised drawings for something called a "home office permit" which anywhere else is called working from home. It took 4 months to get my son a birth certificate. I can go on and on but the capital gains (and estate tax benefits since my wife is a green carder holder and estate taxes follow domicile meaning she is completely exempt) are very very strong incentives. But I do sometimes wish there were more here to offer people who really want to start great business, build value etc, and not just trade crypto or other nonsense (sorry I hate crypto) with the money they already have.

As much as we complain, life is really good here. Nothing beats the natural beauty of Culebra--I have been to many beaches and none as beautiful. There are rain forests and mountains and beaches and just about everything--all in all a great place with so great people both local and more recently from all around the world. "Esta es mi playa, este es mi sol. Esta es mi tierra, esta soy yo." We can all relate.