A group of St. John professionals invited the public to explore different aspects of home and land ownership at a weekend event held in Estate Enighed. Saturday’s St. John Home Expo gave visitors a chance to learn about owning property, acquiring property, managing and maintaining property, and passing property along to future generations.
One of the exhibitors at the event brought word of a plan to fulfill a promise of home ownership to residents at an affordable housing development built in 2005.
Members of the St. John Board of Realtors staged this year’s event at the Marketplace shopping center with the goal of “strengthening our neighborhoods and supporting the future of homeownership in the Virgin Islands,” said chief organizer Keleigh Rees.
Exhibitors handed out business cards and shared details about services being offered to property owners and villa managers.

For two new business owners, it was a way to introduce themselves to potential clients. “One of the things I try to get into people’s heads is preventive maintenance,” said John Scabis, owner of the company Big Time Maintenance, “It’s the small things that go unnoticed that turn into big things down the line.”
For the founder of My Estate Shield, wills and trusts are essential tools for family property management. “Across the country in America, 75 percent of folks don’t have something as simple as a will,” said business owner Steve Lowe.
Without having the formalities in place, he said, families can’t make good decisions about protecting, managing or sharing homes and land. “We’re completely focused on helping families get their affairs in order. We have about $170 million of V.I. wealth from average people like you and me protected with proper estate plans,” Lowe said.
In another corner of the expo, new business owners Scot McQuaide and Kade Wallace told the story of buying a waste management business to relieve St. John villa renters from having to drop off recyclable plastics and aluminum.
“We pick up primarily from villas, but we also do some local and residential pickups at custom rates,” McQuaide said.

Housing contractor Robert Jackson sent a team to help spread the word about a plan to make good on a promise made when Bellview Housing Community was built 20 years ago. The promise was made to ground-floor occupants of duplex apartment buildings who stayed in their units for a specified time.
At that time, those residents were supposed to be given an option to buy their apartments. But when their company, Jackson formed, was sold, the new owners did not follow through with the rent-to-homeowner commitment, said team member NaOmi Cagan.
So, Johnson bought the company back and sought financial support from the Community Development Block Grant Program. “He’s trying to do his part by doing right by the locals, and sell them back their units,” she said.
Also on hand to greet the public were members of the V.I. Housing Finance Authority, which offers homebuyer education classes and other programs for V.I. residents who meet the agency’s eligibility requirements.