The booming Seven Mile Beach real estate market has picked up where it left off last summer.
‘We were on a pretty good roll before the hurricane,’ said Kim Lund of Re/Max. ‘Now we’ve not only caught up to where we were, we’ve gone past that.’
Kim Lund of Re/Max: “We were on a pretty good roll before the hurricane. Now we’ve gone past that.” |
Doug Sell of Butler Properties agrees.
‘Before the storm, the Seven Mile Beach market was on fire, with very little inventory left,’ he said. ‘Now there’s less inventory than even before.’
Augmenting the normal supply-and-demand market dynamics are several factors, realtors say.
‘There’s a lot of confidence right now in the Cayman real estate market,’ said Sheena Connolly of Sheena Connolly Real Estate.
Part of the confidence arises from how the Cayman Islands dealt with the effects of Hurricane Ivan, Mrs. Connolly said.
‘I don’t think there’s another island in the Caribbean that could have rebounded from a hurricane like that as quickly as we have, and to the level we have,’ she said.
Mrs. Connolly said the strength of the Pound Sterling is also making Cayman real estate attractive to British nationals.
‘People just coming here from the UK are finding it preferable to purchase rather than to rent,’ she said.
There are also several new Seven Mile Beach condominium developments offering pre-construction prices, with seven different projects in various stages of completion.
‘Historically, money has been made buying Seven Mile Beach properties at pre-construction prices,’ Mrs. Connolly said. ‘People who get in early are usually in a good position.’
Besides the seven developments under way, other properties severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan – such as The Beachcomber – will likely rebuild for its owners with additional units for sale.
Another factor helping the Cayman market is simply the impression of good value for money, Mr. Lund said.
‘I had a client who said he bought a unit here because Cayman was cheap compared to other resort destinations’ Mr. Lund said. ‘He said the unit here was half of what he’d have to pay in Hawaii and 50 per cent less than what he was looking at in Florida for a similar thing.’
The upcoming completion of The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman is also generating excitement in the Seven Mile Beach real estate market, Mr. Lund said.
‘Some people don’t realize the kind of impact the Ritz will have on the local market,’ he said. ‘The spill-over benefit of the Ritz is huge.’
Mr. Lund said that real estate prices in some locations where Ritz-Carltons have opened have quadrupled in the first four years after opening.
The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman, has sold all but 15 of its Residence units, including three since the hurricane.
Cayman has seen real estate values increase in the past after major hotels opened, Mr. Lund said.
‘When the Hyatt opened, we had a huge boom. When the Westin opened, we had a huge boom. (Those booms) are small compared to what the Ritz will bring here,’ he said.
Nicola de Lima, vice president of sales for The Residences said clients believe in Cayman’s future.
‘Without exception, our clients have voiced the expectation that Grand Cayman will come back stronger and better than ever before,’ she said. ‘Our buyers have been coming here for years and have an enduring love for Cayman. They’re loyal.’
Mr. Lund’s forecast for the Cayman real estate market is also bright.
‘In another year or two, it will be almost impossible to buy a two-bedroom, two-bathroom beachfront condominium on Seven Mile Beach for under one million dollars,’ he wrote in a recent newsletter.
‘For several years, I was down on this market, but I’ve never been more optimistic about where this market is going,’ he said. ‘The boom we will go through is going to be bigger and better than any real estate boom we’ve had in the past.’
Mrs. Connolly was more guarded in her description of the market.
‘A lot of people are talking about a real estate boom, but I’m not so sure I’d say that yet,’ she said.
However, Mrs. Connolly is still optimistic about Cayman’s real estate market.
‘Cayman isn’t going anywhere but forward in my opinion,’ she said.
The forecast of a strong real estate market isn’t isolated to Seven Mile Beach, either.
Mr. Sell noted that many of the 2003’s Caymanian Status recipients have bought properties, and are still doing so.
‘We were well in that process (of having Status recipients buy properties) when the hurricane hit, and now we’re starting to see it again,’ he said.
Mrs. Connolly noted that the South Sound market has been busy, although much of that business is beyond what the eye can see.
‘Under the surface in South Sound, there are a lot of sales being made, applications in Planning, and developments being planned,’ she said.
Out on the northeast coast, Lyall Watt of Century 21 Just Condos said Castaway’s Cove is seeing good success in sales, too.
‘We’ve sold out the 18 units of phase-two preconstruction and we’ve just started selling phase three,’ he said. ‘We’ve seen the units increase in price from $379,000 to $529,000 in just 18 months.
Mr. Watt said he found that Hurricane Ivan actually increased real estate sales for some properties.
‘Shortly after Ivan, people were buying up anything available that was high and dry,’ he said.
Like his fellow realtors, Mr. Watt sees good things for local real estate market.
‘We have tremendous room to grow, we really do,’ he said. ‘Cayman Islands Real Estate has always been a good buy.’
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