User:Vincecate/FloatingVilla

Rental houses in Anguilla are called villas. This proposal is to make money renting out an early seastead prototype off the coast of Anguilla. After we get a few seasteads operational, it could be called a "seastead resort".

Taxes

In Anguilla there is no income tax or sales tax. However, there is a "hotel tax" or "visitor tax", officially covered in the "transient persons act". Basically there is a 10% tax on any room rented by the day or week.

Financial estimate

Anguilla villas are mostly full from Christmas to US Tax day (Apr 15). So there is about 4 months that people are fleeing the cold weather up in the US and coming to Anguilla. If a house got $500/night (plus the tax that goes to the government) for 4 months this would be about $60,000 for the venture. For this back of the envelope type estimate lets assume that you make enough during the rest of the year that the $60,000 is profit. A loan at 10% for $600,000 could sort of be paid with this profit. So if you could build a seastead for less than this, or charge more per night than this, you could be profitable.

I think we could start with something under $60,000 that could be rented for $100/day to some students or young adventurous types. I have some ideas on how to build something small.

Licenses and regulations

Would need a "business license", but this is not usually hard to get, particularly for a local.

A foreigner working on this venture would need a "work permit".

Seasteads would need a "boat license". I am checking with the guy that does the boat inspections to see if this would be a problem.

Location

Starting out with just one or two seasteads they could be located close to land. But I think it would be best to be a few miles out. A nice spot north of Anguilla is on the downwind side of the island and inside a reef while a few miles offshore. Far enough out and the seasteads could be out of sight, and "out of sight is out of mind". If you are paying 10% to the government and not bothering anybody I don't think there would be any trouble. It is also not far from my dome and within line-of-sight from a building I have on the top of our hill. So about 3 miles offshore, 4 miles from a good harbor, and around 5 miles from my property. The view is wonderful, the wind is nice, the reef amazing, the water clear, and not many people around. I think it is a location people would love to spend time at.

Tourist activity

Going the 4 miles to the harbor could take 20 minutes one way. It would be nice if there was entertainment near the seastead. Be good if people could have enough fun that they might stay in the area for the whole week. Some possibilities are:

• scuba diving
• snorkeling
• sailing
• kayaks
• kite surfing
• power boats (jet-skis not allowed in Anguilla)
• glass bottom boat (guy here in Anguilla could pick them up at seastead)
• fishing from seastead or boat
• operating an ROV - maybe catching lobster by remote control
• restaurant/bar/food delivery
• lobster traps
• internet (wireless providers and line-of-site to my place)
• phone (cell phone is easy, as is Internet phone)

Anguilla has a hotel named "Cuisinart" that has a hydroponic greenhouse. Tourists find the tour of the greenhouse very interesting. A similar thing could be done with the seasteads. Perhaps a combination of a micro-version of the Eden project and the floating greenhouses developed by Dutch firm Dura Vermeer? Anything we were experimenting with, testing, developing could be of interest to someone who picked this vacation spot.

Internet

This close to land Internet is easy.