I would like to tell you about a recent home purchase and our experience with one of your agents in Sosua, Ms. Ina Birkhan.

As a buyer, you put a lot of trust & faith in your realtor. This is doubly so in a foreign country. We’ve spent the past several years looking for the “right” house all over the Caribbean and Central America during our holydays. We’ve looked at many houses with many realtors. I can honestly say that not one has come close to the energy and enthusiasm and professionalism of Ms. Birkhan.

How many realtors would take their clients shopping for new furniture, household goods, bedding and spend one of her days to do so? Ina did.

How many realtors would make sure your house is secure while you’re away and help located a gardener & a maid? Ina did.

How many realtors would take you out to dinner and introduce you to many of the local people so you would feel at home? Ina did.

How many people would send you friendly E-mails to find out how you are doing and is there anything she can do to help? Ina does!

We have never been so impressed with a realtor and her whole company. In fact, everyone we’ve met at CENTURY 21 Juan Perdomo has been extremely eager to help an assist us in any way possible. Guido Perdomo has an outstanding reputation as a lawyer and notary and has handled all our transactions quickly and with great finesse. Pablo Rivera, the architect is quiet creative and is designing a new kiosk for our pool.

Scott and Lisa Garanflo
Georgetown, Texas.

We were looking for our place in the sun and chose to visit the north coast of the DR because we had heard it had interesting towns and good watersports. I decided to contact Century 21 Juan Perdomo because they had the most professional website among the several realty sites I visited. I sent them a brief e-mail and received a prompt and comprehensive reply from agent Alexander Nogueira. That was the beginning of a very successful trip to the north coast.

We discovered that the north coast has active beach towns with expat communities from Europe, the U.S. and Canada, just what we were looking for. Having asked us the right questions to determine what kind of property we were interested in, Alex suggested that we visit a variety of
properties and locations to get a feel for the towns and the market, but I think he had one property in particular in mind that he thought we would like. Well, he hit the nail on the head, so much so that we now have two places in the sun.

Alex and his wife Anabela, who is also an agent at Juan Perdomo, have gone above and beyond the call of duty in assisting us with getting our new homes ready to use. They are extremely thorough, referring us to other local professionals and businesses to help us navigate the issues and ease the transition of buying a second home in a foreign country.

I can honestly say we didn't expect to find this level of professionalism in the DR. Century 21 Juan Perdomo delivered on all fronts."

Jerry and Ariel Thompson
Garden City, New York.

We hired a Dominican driver to show us the countryside and educate us on Dominican life... Thanks to voraciously reading threads on DR1, and other message boards, we decided the northern coast was the place to look for a vacation house.

The realtors’ web sites are good with plenty of pictures. We emailed several of them constantly for 2 months as we narrowed our house selection down to about 8. We also had several email discussions with attorneys and financial planners in Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata about the legal aspects of buying a home.

We then talked exclusively with Dean Brown from CENTURY 21 Juan Perdomo about the 8 houses we chose. We were on the phone with Dean many times during January. We did as much homework as we could before we left.

People thought we couldn’t possibly choose and buy a house in 2 weeks, but we did. Dean made arrangements for all 8 houses to be available to show in one day.

What we thought was our favorite house before arriving, was truly the best one. Dean did his homework too and predicted correctly what areas we would and would not like. We made an offer on Wednesday. The owner was in Germany, but by Thursday night, he accepted our final offer. The attorney was Guido Perdomo and he quickly worked with the owner By faxing papers to sign. Money transfers went smoothly and by Monday, the title search was complete. We left Thursday with the title transfer left to be completed. That is because the German had to physically be there to sign the original papers.

From the day the owner accepted our offer until we left the next week, we arranged for all the furniture to be sold through Dean. On Saturday, we made a trip to Santiago to get custom furniture made. Dean graciously went with us on this trip, since we know little Spanish still, and he will be at our house in March to accept the new furniture for us.

After the title search was all in order on Monday, we obtained the keys to the house. We hired 2 maids to help clean the place. Dean arranged for his gardener to work on the outside.

We gave the project manager a list of things we wanted done (paint pool, cut tree branches, etc) and he immediately started the work while we were still there.

As far as the investment, we didn’t really buy it for a rental income, but we are going to rent it to friends and acquaintances later this year to offset some of the monthly maintenance fees. We plan on coming down about 4 times a year; when we retire in 3 years at age 55, we’ll live here during the winters.

We live in a very upscale neighborhood adjacent to a very nice country club. Our social life IS the club. Our vacations have always been at Exclusive resorts and we dine in only top-notch restaurants. With that said, why in God’s name would we be content in a 3rd world country

The country is a paradise island with beautiful beaches, mountains, lush vegetation, perfect temperature, and the most Valuable asset – the Dominican people.

Doug and Jan Harrall
Padukah, Kentucky

Today I received a request to complete a survey that Century 21 is carrying out. It reminded me that I have been wanting to write to Juan Perdomo for some time to tell him how pleased and impressed we
have been with the service we have received.

In particular we wanted to let Juan know how much we appreciate the help Alex Leemans has given us.

We think Alex is an outstanding sales person. And we are hard to impress! My wife was a real estate salesperson in Naples Florida before we moved to England and since moving here 25 years ago we have been working with major multinational companies in advertising and marketing.

Before we ever arrived in DR we contacted a number of estate agents throughout the Caribbean. While most people responded, Alex responded in the most informative and comprehensive way. Before we
left London, we knew he was the person we wanted to work with.

When we met Alex in Cabarete he showed us a number of properties. But in addition to showing us properties, he was actually listening to what we said we were looking for. Because he knows how to
listen (this is a rare skill), he told us about Bluefish, which was still at the drawing-board stage, and took us to the spot where it was to be built. We fell in love with the setting.

Alex inspired complete confidence. Because of this we felt warranted in purchasing two apartments in a complex that did not even have architectural drawings to look at. Since returning to London, our confidence in Alex has proved well founded. Not only has he responded to e-mails promptly but has
sent us pictures of the Bluefish building and answered the many questions we have had over the
past 10 months.

In short, Alex has done everything he promised and more.

Of course, our _expression of appreciation would be incomplete if we did not thank you too, Guido, for making this transaction as easy and worry-free as possible.

Would you please forward this letter - with our warmest thanks - to Juan
and Charlie.

Frank Baughman
London, UK