Brit Alex Cassidy was 22 when he built a house in the Caribbean for just $4,000. The young musician has constructed a simple home on the island of Tobago on land his family owns.
Mr. Cassidy, now 23, spends six months wintering in the Caribbean, and six months working the busy summer season in England. His favorite part of his island house is the veranda, which faces out over palm trees.
“It’s so beautiful, especially during sunset, when you’re hearing the crickets go,“ he told The Epoch Times. ”I’ve built a little desk as well, so I can just chill out there on my computer.”
Sharing his adventure on social media, the resourceful young man stunned and inspired followers when he revealed the low cost of the housebuilding project.
Mr. Cassidy says what prompted him to take the plunge and move abroad was the price of home ownership compared to the UK. While hiring a laborer cost him between 50 pounds ($65) and 60 pounds ($75) per day in Tobago, he would have paid up to four times as much in his home country.
“Obviously,” he said, “building materials are also a lot more expensive, as is land. It’s a big difference.”
Fortunately for the professional keyboardist, his stepfather—a known musician in the UK—snapped up a plot of land on the island in around 2009. He also constructed a house slowly, bit by bit, over several years.
Mr. Cassidy advises anyone considering relocating somewhere with a lower cost of living to buy land before the price goes up.
With the help of an experienced laborer and some neighbors, it took the aspiring builder just over two months to complete the small, roughly 12 by 16 square foot house. Using his island connections, Mr. Cassidy’s stepfather helped source manpower, did runs to the hardware store, and negotiated prices.
They started in January of this year, worked every day non-stop, and finished in mid-March.
Mr. Cassidy had no formal training, instead learning how to build by helping his stepdad with his house. But with a bit of natural craftsmanship, and by watching instructional YouTube videos, he managed to finalize the open-plan design on a very limited budget.
First off, the team sourced sturdy posts for the stilt structure and leveled the ground. After laying the floor, they erected the walls (a combination of plywood and hardwood), and constructed a galvanized steel roof. The completed property has electricity, running water, an ensuite bathroom, and Wi-Fi.
The biggest challenge, Mr. Cassidy says, was transporting heavy materials up the hill to the plot.
“Sometimes there’d be four or five people trying to bring things up. After a bit of rain, it would be really slippery, and you’d just be sliding down the hill,” he said.
“That was quite difficult, but apart from that, things went pretty smoothly. A few things had to be redone, like the plumbing, but everything else was quite simple. The only thing is, I burn very easily in the sun. We’d be working from the crack of dawn until night time, so I had to cover my face and neck and wear a lot of sun cream.”
When he looked at the finished project for the first time, Mr. Cassidy felt shocked because, for a long time, the place just looked like a construction site.
“It didn’t look like we were going to get anywhere,” he said.
“Once we got the inside walls in, and I started to paint, the house really started to look like a home. Then I put linoleum on the floor, and that just brightened up the whole place. That was when it started to hit me: ‘Oh, I have a home now.’”
Besides escaping the cold, dreary British winter weather and avoiding mortgage debt, Mr. Cassidy says he had benefited greatly from Tobago community spirit.
“Tobagonians are very, very kind, warm, friendly people, and they’re very nice and supportive,“ he said. ”It’s a really good community, a small village, where everyone knows everyone, and everyone looks out for each other.”
Working with his laborer—someone he didn’t know before showing up at his house one day and asking if he wanted the job—is something Mr. Cassidy says he’ll never forget.
“We had some great times just laughing and making jokes while we were working. I gained a really good friend there, and he’s a really nice person,” he said.
Getting to know the country, the people, and the customs is crucial for anyone planning on doing something similar, he says.
“There’s different laws, different mindsets, different views. Showing up without knowing the country first would be a massive risk,” he said.
Currently, Mr. Cassidy is restricted to only staying in the Caribbean for half the year due to visa constraints. He also draws his main income from his work as a seasonal musician in the UK, plus he dearly misses family and friends back in his native country. However, he does hope to obtain citizenship or a permanent residency, allowing him to stay longer.
Living in the Caribbean has brought him a lot of enrichment.
“It’s made me become friendlier,” he said. “Here, I could be anywhere, and I'll see someone I’ve never met before, and they’ll have a full-blown conversation with me. It’s made me more of a sociable person.”
Mr. Cassidy’s videos often showcase the natural beauty of his island home and the differences in lifestyle between England and the Caribbean. He was initially inspired by online videos of people building amateur houses.
He had seen some British guys in Thailand who were kind of his age and thought he’d document his own journey. The first video “blew up” and got two million views, and people seemed to love what he was doing, so Mr. Cassidy carried on.
“I didn’t expect this amount of attention—it’s quite a shock,” he said.
“All the comments I’ve read have been really supportive. Some people have said, ‘Oh, no, you can’t build that for 3,000 pounds. Some people thought I was lying, but I really genuinely did build it for 3,000 pounds, and I could have saved money as well.”
