Quick Answer: The best beaches in St Maarten depend on what you want from the day. Mullet Bay is the best all-round beach on the Dutch side, Little Bay is the easiest for families and first-time snorkelers, and Maho is the one to visit for the aircraft. On the French side, Orient Bay has the...

Quick Answer: St Maarten is safe to visit for most people who take ordinary precautions. The U.S. State Department rates Sint Maarten Level 1, “Exercise Normal Precautions”, its lowest advisory level, and Canada advises travellers to “take normal security precautions”. The main risks are opportunistic theft, especially from rental cars and on beaches, road traffic,...

Quick Answer: St Maarten is warm all year. Average daytime highs run from about 29°C (83°F) in January to 32°C (89°F) in August, and the sea stays between 26°C and 28°C (78°F to 83°F). February to April are the driest months, averaging about 60 mm (2.4 in) of rain or less. September to November are...

Quick Answer: The history of Sint Maarten begins with Amerindian settlers who called the island Soualiga, the “Land of Salt”, more than 3,000 years ago. In the 1600s Spain, the Dutch Republic and France fought over its salt ponds, and on 23 March 1648 the Dutch and French divided the island under the Treaty of...

Quick Answer: A house for sale in St Maarten is usually a villa, a townhouse or a family home in a residential area. Villas bring land, privacy and often a pool, but the upkeep is yours. Townhouses sit in the middle: a house feel with usually less to maintain. Family homes trade views for everyday...

Quick Answer: When you buy a condo in Sint Maarten, you buy a unit inside a managed building or community and pay an association a recurring fee that typically covers common areas, security, amenities and building insurance. The fee only means something once you know what is in it. Before you make an offer, ask...

Most buyers arriving from North America or Europe assume a home inspection works here the way it works at home: you call a licensed inspector, they arrive with a clipboard and a moisture meter, and three days later you get a 40-page PDF. On Sint Maarten, that assumption breaks down almost immediately — there is...

A lot of buyers assume an appraisal is optional paperwork you can skip if you trust the seller’s price. On the Dutch side of Sint Maarten specifically, that assumption is wrong — and Island Dreams Realty walks both buyers and sellers through this process regularly enough to know where people usually get surprised. This guide...

Both timeshare and full ownership get sold as “owning a piece of Sint Maarten,” but they’re not the same purchase. Island Dreams Realty deals exclusively in full ownership property, so it’s worth being upfront that this guide has a point of view — but the numbers behind that view are real and worth understanding before...

Closing on a home in Sint Maarten is the easy part compared to figuring out who to call first. Island Dreams Realty walks new homeowners through utility setup regularly, and the honest answer is that the order you do things in actually matters here more than it does back home. This guide covers electricity, water,...