Priced-Out Buyers in the Virgin Islands

From the NY Times:

COLLEEN WILSON, a lawyer who relocated her family to St. Thomas for a job at a multinational insurance company this spring, has not rented a home since she was 21. Not in Britain, nor in Jamaica, nor in Florida. Here in the Virgin Islands, however, she has been renting a three-bedroom house for more than eight months. And she doesn’t like it.

“Renting seems like such a waste,” she said, of the modest house on a small lot in the eastern Red Hook section of the island that could be hers to own for slightly more than $1 million.

“But I’m just not comfortable with the range of prices here,” she said. “Based on the property values in Miami, where we lived before, I expected to purchase something nice for $500,000 or under within six to eight months of exploring the island. Everything I’m interested in is $1.2 million, and I can’t see myself mortgaging my entire lifestyle to incur that kind of debt.”

USPS Officials Choose New ‘Permanent’ Location for Post Office

From the St. John Tradewinds:

"After months without communication with the Virgin Islands government, the U.S. Postal Service has abandoned its plans to move its St. John post office to the proposed vendors plaza, and has instead settled on a still to be constructed building at Pond Road and Enighed Road, across from Enighed Pond, where a car wash is currently located."

More here.