This 29-year-old and her partner pay $1,000/month for a 3-bedroom apartment in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Months into their hunt for an flat successful San Juan, Valentina Valldejuli and her partner, Rafael, pivoted from searching section existent property websites to browsing Facebook Marketplace.

Valldejuli was calved and raised successful Puerto Rico and has lived her full beingness successful San Juan.

The 29-year-old "Modo de Vida" creation director, told CNBC Make It that it was indispensable to find a two-bedroom successful the metropolis to beryllium adjacent to her family.

"I emotion that anyplace you're connected the island, you person the formation nearby. I unrecorded successful this halfway of an area, but I tin conscionable instrumentality a ten-minute thrust and get to the formation present successful Ocean Park successful San Juan," she says.

In October 2020, the mates recovered a Facebook Marketplace listing for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom successful Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, for $1,000 a month.

Valldejuli says that due to the fact that the hurricane play successful Puerto Rico is lone getting worse arsenic the years spell by, the astir important happening for them was that the flat has what they telephone "tormenteras," oregon tempest shutters, and for the gathering to person a backup generator, too.

"The infinitesimal we saw this apartment, we conscionable fell successful love," Valldejuli says.

She added that though the rent for the flat was lone $1,000 a month, determination was a catch: it didn't travel with a refrigerator oregon an oven.

After getting approved for the apartment, the mates paid a $1,000 information deposit, the archetypal month's rent, and astir $1,200 for a refrigerator and $600 for an oven.

"We were consenting to compromise to get those appliances due to the fact that we emotion the abstraction truthful much. We had already seen 4 antithetic places, and it was precise hard to get a spot this large and [in that] terms range," Valldejuli says.

The mates enactment the 3 bedrooms to bully usage by making 1 their superior bedroom, turning the 2nd into Rafael's bureau and euphony studio, and utilizing the 3rd arsenic Valldejuli's location office.

"I'm a lensman and a graphic designer, and I wanted to research what interior plan would look similar from a position of a lensman and a graphic designer," Valldejuli says.

The creation manager describes their flat decor arsenic a premix of boho with a mid-century vibe and a spot eclectic.