Baby boomers fuel demand in the second-home market
WHAT-TO-DO NASSAU, CABLE BEACH, PARADISE ISLAND - JULY 2006 EDITION
The demand by foreigners for second and retirement homes in The Bahamas is greater today than ever before and there’s no sign of a let-up, say local realtors.
“I don’t see the market slowing down,” says John Christie, president of H G Christie Ltd, the largest realtor in the country, adding that, with that kind of demand, second-home prices are constantly trending upward.
“There’s been a good bit of appreciation in values, particularly in the Out Islands,” Christie says.
Second-home building and buying were once confined largely to New Providence and Grand Bahama – where the market is stronger than ever. More recently, it became a feature in the economies of Abaco and Eleuthera. Today, ownership is growing in Exuma, the Berry Islands, Bimini and even some of the sleepy, more southerly islands in the Bahamian chain.
Conventional wisdom says it’s the baby boomers, that generation born after the Second World War, who are driving the boom in sales, not only in The Bahamas but everywhere.
David Lereah, chief economist for the US National Association of Realtors, has been quoted as saying boomers are now at the peak of their earning power and they want to diversify their investments.
It’s not only the super wealthy, says Pat Strachan, immediate past president of the Bahamas Real Estate Association (BREA). Middle-income families are buying pieces of paradise, too. Demand has fuelled the building of many new developments and the expansion of older ones in western New Providence.
DIFFERENT KIND OF BUYER
In Abaco, it is a different kind of buyer, says Larry Roberts of Bahamas Realty, current president of BREA.
“They want fishing, boating and sailing. They aren’t looking for the gated, manicured communities. Instead, they want more privacy, the laid-back atmosphere and the friendliness of The Bahamas,” says Roberts.
While the pace of second-home construction is unprecedented, buying a second home in The Bahamas is nothing new, according to Obie Wilchcombe, Minister of Tourism.
Wilchcombe maintains there has always been a close connection between tourism and the second-home market. People came at first just to escape bitter northern winters, but then they fell in love with the place. At first they took rooms in private residences and then many of them began to buy their own homes.
For more than a century, tourism has been helping The Bahamian construction and housing market, and the housing market helps bring in more tourists.
The symbiotic relationship “worked back then, and it’s working now,” Wilchcombe says.
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