Realtor warns of more rent increases in 2023
(CNS): With the cost of residential rental accommodation already sky-high in the Cayman Islands, a local realtor is warning that rents could go even higher this year. Micheal Joseph, from Property Cayman and a veteran real estate agent, has said in his predictions for the property market over the next twelve months that the current environment of high inflation and increasing interests rates will make it more difficult for people to borrow to buy a home, which will increase the competition for rentals.
After almost one billion dollars worth of real estate was sold in 2022, most realtors in their annual predictions believe Cayman will only see a slight drop in demand for property next year. But with interest rates on mortgages and home loans running at over 7% and inflation still increasing, Joseph said that this is impacting everyone, regardless of income or type of property, and it will have a direct effect on renters as well as those wanting to buy or sell their homes.
“It has led to difficulty in acquiring financing for buyers and caused some hesitation,” he said. “But with the current environment making it more difficult to borrow, more people who may have been interested in buying will have to rent for the time being. This will increase the demand in the rental market.”
Even though there are indications that the runaway property market in Cayman may be slowing down and the number of properties available increasing, this does not mean people are likely to see any bargains. Property prices are forecast to increase by a further 5% in 2023.
At the end of 2022 there was an increase in the number of properties available for sale, with around 1,030 active listings in the last week of December compared to 688 during the year-end week in 2021, but Joseph said this is still not really a large amount. Most of the properties are also at the higher end of the price range and properties listed under $500,000 are still scarce.
Last year the average value of properties sold was over US $1.3 million, an 11% increase on 2021, which was a record-breaking year for the Cayman Islands when property sales exceeded US$1 billion. Last year saw the number of sales fall from 1,068 in 2021 to 872 in 2022, but with prices remaining high, the drop in numbers was almost outpaced by the increase in prices, with a decrease in total sales value of around $100,000.
The government has created a task force to address the housing crisis and is working on ways to help people access funding at lower interest rates using the Cayman Islands Development Bank. But in the short-term, local people are being priced out of the property market and most ordinary workers are not paid enough to cover the average rental rates. Several politicians are also suggesting that the pitch from developers for taller buildings with more storeys could provide a solution to the shortage of affordable homes.
With even one-bedroom units hard to find for less than CI$1500 per month, there is increasing anecdotal evidence that people are living in dire conditions, crammed into rental units where landlords are installing bunkbeds and converting kitchens into dormitories to accommodate the growing number of work permit holders.
High rents are being fuelled by a combination of factors, especially the surge of expatriate workers returning after the reopening of the borders and the fact that property owners are turning to lucrative short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb, which means there are fewer on the long-term residential market. The cost of property is also inflated by the acquisition of luxury accommodation as an investment by wealthy foreign buyers, many of whom do not live in their properties or even lease them out.
Canada introduced legislation last year, which came into effect on 1 January, banning non-Canadian citizens or permanent residents from buying residential properties and there have been calls for a similar approach here.
Cayman’s property market is distorted by its immigration system which makes it almost impossible for a foreign worker to get permanent residency without buying a home. This has undoubtedly helped fuel demand for property here over the last two decades but it is extremely unlikely that any government would contemplate a ban even if it is considering removing the link between the two things.
Banning overseas investors from buying property is also unlikely to curry favour with any politicians given the pressure from the real estate sector and the dependency of developers on selling to very wealthy foreign investors to maximise the profit on any given project, especially along Seven Mile Beach.
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Category: Business, Real Estate
What needs to happen here is that the Government needs to say no more permits for Real Estate Agents unless they can prove they have been in the Real Estate Business for more than 5 years from where they are coming from.
There are many bartenders, waitresses, bank managers wives and the list goes on who moonlight as real estate agents until they get PR and this needs to stop. The few Caymanians left in the business need to have the opportunity to earn a living in their own country.
CIREBA as the major real estate organization should lead this and have their member companies lead by example. How many is too many?
As a Caymanian Why shouldn’t I be allowed to sell my land/property to whoever I damn well please in order to maximise my profit margin on the sale? Seriously, we need less government clowns meddling in our lives with their corrupt ways.
Because you’re selling out your island to make a quick buck at the expense of the future of your Caymanian children.
This has a lot to do with why you can’t hire top-notch police from other countries and only get bottom of the barrel beat cops from poor islands.
Too many real estate millionaires here living off Cayman suffering it’s time they pay their fair share Cayman 60% of the companies annual income for infrastructure schools and education and sports and the environment . Time to pay PACT stop talking start walking !
The time has come to tax real-estate companies at least 48% of their annual income. Too many now and they contributing to over development and infrastructure depreciation which the government we the people are paying . Time to pay their fair share Cayman PACT need to act now !
And they laughed at Bermuda because they had restrictions on expat home ownership and on car ownership…well, their you have it, with much more to come.
Tax Realtors 65%
Why? and if so why not in other sectors/
I was renting for 13 years and finally bought a 2-bed unit 4 years ago. I have realized over the time that it doesn’t make sense to rent as well as time the market for the following reasons…
1. Renting doesn’t make sense for the tenent… Rent in Cayman always cover the cost of mortage, insuranance strata and maintence fee etc.
2. Interest rate higher or lower doesn’t matter: It matters only to get the mortgage from the bank. But for the long run, whatever time period you buy a unit, cayman Island only fix the interest rate for max 5 years, so when the interest rate goes up and down, in a 30-year mortagage you will end up in 2-3 times about 5-year high interest and low interest… It don’t look at the interest rate just buy a unit you can afford.
3. Price of the unit: High or low, it doesn’t matter if it is your first unit.
If you think it is going to come down in 3 years’ time, think all the money you spend to rent, which should have covered your loss. but you need to make sure you live there for at least 5-10years. Eventually property appreciate, you will have some equity etc.
Always buy what you can afford.
Neverever rent if you can afford to buy.
A good part of the reason why the rents are so high is because of all the damage the tenants do to the place. Furniture prices and materials costs, and tradesmen – it all adds up. So when damage is done to the house or the contents it is very expensive to put it right. The deposit is never enough. That’s why the rent has to be so high.
My last tenant left with outstanding utilities, damage to furnishings and damage to the property costing more than $10,000, and although there was a deposit of $2500, she hadn’t paid the last months rent either. She had been there less than 6 months.
That’s a good part of the reason why rents have to be so high.
10.57am So how many of your tenants have done that, and how many times have you raised your rent in the last 3 years?.
10:57, Perhaps you need to do some due diligence on your tenants before you rent to them. I have been renting tenants for 15 years and have never had any problems but I always do my due diligence on them before I rent to them.
If you don’t already, consider putting inpections every 3 months in the next contract. Catch stuff early.
In exchange for rent controls, and you have a deal
not saying this is the case but I’ve dealt with a couple of scumbag landlords that when leaving find any excuse to retain a deposit even though the property was in better condition (cleaner) than when we moved in and didn’t do any upkeep whilst we were there. We took them to court in one instance and won.
it’s free market economics out of control and there is no easy solution.
cayman will become a two tier society soon…the rich and then low paid expat labour who do all the basic jobs. there is no future for the middle class in cayman.
“The working classes are beginning to ask why they who build the houses are in the cold, why they must walk weary and shelterless in the shadow of palaces they have built but cannot enter.” Eugene V Debs
Arent we there already
Solutions been around in other hyper tourism markets for decades. E.g., title restrictions – must be owned or occupied by a resident. The fact nothing done is on government. These cockamamie expert Real estate agents are just a symptom, not a cause.
Time to introduce a tax for those that land bank… use the money to improve infrastructure and build affordable housing for key workers. Hit Dart where it hurts.
Also hit the last few land rich, but poor otherwise, Caymanian families forcing them to sell to Dart. Crap plan… Next!!
Prices and bubble concentrated west of Hurleys due to zero traffic management.
Hundreds of adverts on ecaytrade say he’s wrong
Monday news: Property Insurance is set to rise 15-30%, while coverage will be reduced!
Not a joke people.
And still not a PEEP on increasing Liveable Wages here!!
High Costs are only one thing but insensitively to the people is a plague here!
Slave wages. Terrible.
Many even in government agencies make less that $3,000/month!
So anyone that has 50k sitting around and little to no other debt
Two incomes at about 80K each and you can be the proud owner of a piece of c- ap and spend 1.5 hours a day to in traffic!
Oh and the bank owns it.
Awesome!
Reform # 1
No more Air BnB / short term rentals. If you think this cannot happen just raise taxes to such a level the short term rentals are not viable and Long Term becomes more attractive.
Great idea 6:01. The market for condos on the Seven Mile Beach Corridor would drop very fast. Watercolours and others on SMB have short term rentals. Rents would drop and so would property values.
That would be great. We could afford to buy a property on SMB like we could 10 years ago. That was before Cayman sold completely out to foreign buyers who pushed property values into this massive bubble. The bubble will burst.
Rents have become so ridiculously high that accounting and legal firms are having real challenges attracting young professionals here.
Perhaps that is a good thing, as it will slow the financial services sector down which has been growing rapidly the past decade here.
Predominantly non-Caymanians have been flooding into the Cayman Islands and intercepting employment opportunities (and business opportunities) from Caymanians. High rent is not stopping this, unfortunately.
If more Caymanians would study finance and accounting at the university level they could get many of those jobs in the financial services sector.
Regret to say too many Caymanians study the wrong subjects and then complain because they cannot get jobs in the financial services sector.
What taxes? Tourist pay the accommodation tax…not the vacation rental owner.
Not the OP, but the idea is that if you make the tourist room tax 500% and the long-term rental stamp duty 1% then market demand forces everyone move their room stock into long term rentals. (Or whatever the ‘tax’ numbers need to be to make the switch.)
I don’t know if it would work (see complaints on CI vacation costs) but as long as my AirBnB and the hotel room are paying the same ‘tax’ then its fair. What would be unfortunate is to force micro-business Caymanians out of the tourist accommodation market.
Don’t stop there. You also need price controls. If you can afford to own a rental property then you can afford to subsidize the renters, no matter how much your insurance or mortgage rates might rise.
Then you need to bring tenant laws before Parliament to prevent tenants from being kicked out for little things like destroying the property or not paying rent.
The next phase would be to have all rental units as one strata managed by the NAU.
The Air B&B cartel needs to be dissolved. Home insurers should make every one of them pay commerical rates just like hotels.
Exactly!!! AirBnB has killed the long term rental market. I had a place secured at 2,500 per month at Ocean Club only to have the land lord cancel because he had an Airbnb booking for the month of December. He told me he can make 3 months long term rental on a one month AirBnb rental.
Rental is so out of control here Cayman is a much less attractive place to live as compared to 5 years ago.
All Air B&B owners should be forced to apply for a business license just like every other one does, pay commerical insurance rates, and only be owned by Caymanians who follow the above rules.
Apply for a business license to rent a room in my own house? CRAZY.
You are using your home as a business and competing with the hotels, so yes
6:20, Nonsense. One gets the total Caymanian experience when they rent a room in my house. They certainly don’t get that staying at the Ritz or Kimpton at 10 times the price.
Competing with hotels on SMB? You must be joking.
Try getting salt fish & ackee for breakfast at those 2 hotels or turtle stew for lunch.
Some people want a Caymanian experience. Not sure how sleeping in a bed for a fee in my house for a few months a year is a business.
You have no idea how many Caymanians need to run an Airbnb to pay their mortgage, especially in West Bay.
WOW. Never realized my small room in my house was on par with a room in the Ritz, Kimpton or Westin. I don’t even have a beach out front.
Bet you work in the hotel business 6:20, if you seem my room as a competitor to the 5 star luxury hotel rooms.
perhaps take a look at Canada and implement the same. The houses aren’t worth what they are selling them for.
But the Young Urban Professional’s that are buying all of South Sound east of Walkers Road don’t really care , why would they , when they are being paid a 6 digit salary on arrival with the ink on their passport stamp not dry ? Fill in the blanks here
With name of Law and accounting firm of choice “ _ _ _ _ / ________________”.
Canada and their real estate market is one of the longest-running money laundering mats of the planet with thousands of eager professionals courting foreign all-cash buyers in multiple languages, nominee smurfs, zero AML and KYC. You can buy entire hotels in Vancouver with China’s Union Pay crypto card, avoiding the usd$50k currency control limits. There are Russian Oligarchs that own entire buildings with hundreds of condos in Toronto. So, yes they have a different level of problem to extinguish. Let’s hope it’s worse than ours.
We are far more sophisticated here than in Canada how we launder money in real estate.
Fintrac, ISED, and FATF are all blind to the corruption and laundering juggernaut that is today’s Canada. Bay Street and real estate sector are all deeply complicit. Canada’s Financial Action Task Force is comprised of 12 people, 6 in Calgary and another 6 in Toronto. They are only concerned with credit card fraud involving their big banks. The FATF has not given Canada a checkup since a barely passing grade back in 2015.
Yeah let’s not go down the same road as Chinada
The simple truth of Cayman real estate is this – EVERYTHING is influenced by SMB beach pricing by foot.
The problem is, SMB pricing by FOOT is gamed. It is gamed by a few local realtors (think of the most well known, you’ll get there)..and developers.
Ever since a few (probably TWO) local realtors (Neither of whom are Caymanian by birth) decided to defraud the SMB strata’s by seeking to force the decision to redevelop to a vote by strata from 100% to majority……those realtors and their developer friends have made fortunes.
Along with collapasing SMB as a viable investment for anyone who isn’t stupidly wealthy and only wants to be here 2 weeks per year…..they managed to completley mess with ALL of our house valuations
How? Well, any house valuator can only go y recent sales psf in the area…guess what is tricking down among the community? Its not profits…..its COSTS!!
Unless you want to vote out the government that let this happen (and that includes Alden and Joey, not just PACT fools)….it will never EVER end.
Does anyone really understand what is happening?! take a look at the next red light…is the Range Rover driven by a yoga mum with her latte and making a VERY important phone call…or is it driven by generational Caymanians seeking to make sure we are all ok?
please stop with the generational Caymanians nonsense. You are disrespectful to those of us who have also built our homes here and care about our kids futures (who only know Cayman as home).
Then teach your child/children to have loyalty to this country and not only the country/countries you all come from.
The subgroups of Caymanians are growing rapidly and unless these children develop a love for the Cayman Islands and feel a sense of obligation/loyalty to do so, then yes the writer is right.
Too many who have gotten Status still show no love or loyalty to the Caynan Islands and this same behaviour is modelled/passed on to your children.
End result: loss of Caymanization and the culture of the country and an increase of them Vs us mentality.
Had to squeeze in some venomous xenophobia. Why?
Standard these days. Need to blame someone.
So mortgages are going up, and nobody buys houses. For some magical thinking, the price of houses is not expected to go down even if there will be no demand. At the same time, they expect rents to go up with a lot of unsold, empty houses whose owners will be stuck paying strata, insurance and possibly mortgage. I know the mantra ‘this is Cayman, prices never go down’, but realtors may be in for a big surprise
One realtor, who will remain nameless, once claimed that values go up in line with interest rates! Sharp as a spoon that kid.
Why is the government at the mercy of the real estate business? It is made up of a few folk that weren’t bright enough to pass professional exams.
Because they throw the best parties.
Especially if you are 13
Sadly, Cayman was not built for Caymanians. Only the wealthy can retire here.
But who is to blame?
The blame goes back 30 plus years ago when we were blowing up. No one saw or cared about what could happen if we did not structure Cayman properly for its people and NOW the chickens are coming home to roost.
Not 100% sure its even fixable.
Caymanian families with visionary gaps now confront buyers remorse on cashing-out their family birthright a generation or two ago. Yes, of course it’s too late to fix that. No, expropriation doesn’t restore the spent asset. Many other families still bank oceanside land and they are picking their moment, or kids are waiting for granny to die, and that’s when Dart swoops in. All of this ignores the fact that there are more buckets to financial independence and inter generational wealth than just the real estate sector. Cayman does not have a very robust wealth management sector, there are few streaming dividend products beyond CUC, and the banks here suck.
Don’t CUC force you to re-invest your dividends now? I believe you can no longer get a quarterly dividend cheque from them?
Housing globally is already starting to turn. Rich foreign investors aren’t picking up overpriced real estate in places like Cayman anymore, and many are selling to get liquidity to cover their other bad bets. (for sale signs are way more numerous than CIREBA listings).
Rent increases are also being tried. I say TRIED because if no one is willing to pay the rent, then the place goes unrented! (cash-flow negative for most owners who can little afford it these days).
If you are an otherwise desirable tenant, make an offer at a rental rate you feel is fair. Don’t pay the sticker price. And book a two year lease with fixed rent, while you’re at it. That should get you to the point (6-18m from now) where the next housing/financial/economic crisis hits its full impact. Then look at buying.
It grates my gears when real estate “specialists” talk up the market. Of course that what we expect–it puts money in their bank accounts. Don’t listen to realtors, nobody knows how the real estate market in Cayman will fare in 2023.
Yep, predictions are always difficult, especially when they’re about the future.
75% of them were bar staff or housewives until the boom in 2018.
That explains a lot
We have the most inexperienced administration at the helm. We should all be very worried for what’s ahead.
So,the task force was created in April last year – what exactly have they done since then to address the housing crisis or what solutions have been offered? I guess the premier will be asking the voters to tell him what we think he should do?
The PACT gov’t is just plain inept. Two years since the election, and nothing of substance has been done for the country. Absolutely nothing.
We in these islands are faced with a challenge of gargantuan proportions with little to no hope that a solution is near. What is even more terrifying however is that the middleclass, the cog in the society between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ are seeing their hopes of achieving a home becoming more unrealizable.
For a greater understanding of the housing crisis in this society and the world I recommend reading Mike Davis’s frightening and magisterial book Planet of Slums.
Take everything this guy says with a massive grain of salt.
He talks here about a “slight drop in demand for property next year” – but his Q3 report shows sales value down 25% and sales down 32.5%. Lol. see below.
Considering the federal reserve is yet to even conclude its massive interest rate rises and only really started 2h 2022, 23 could be a terrible year for these real estate agents. Hardly a bad thing however when they take 7% commission.
Cayman’s property market is also fueled by Caymanians selling out to foreign developers, real estate agents selling predominatly to investors for holiday rentals / 2nd homes and our government handing out duty waivers to developers like hot potatoes. Just look at this guy’s website, the cheapest property avaliable under ‘house for sale’ is a 100k time share for an apartment….
https://www.propertycayman.com/blog/cayman-real-estate-market-q3-2022-review/
Realtors fees are on a sliding scale, not 7%.
8.20pm Upwards?.
Sliding scale as shown below:
7% ———————- 7%
Zero down payment and 40 years repayment for Caymanians might help.
Just borrow from the Cayman Islands Development Bank, then you never have to pay it back…
Gimme gimme gimme
Said the entitled expat…
Mortgage term is at least a factor of earning years left to retirement, that’s not a cookie cutter 40 years for every applying Caymanian.
What’s worse is that the places for rent are ridiculous. My landlord keeps upping the rent and says that we are getting a “deal” every time. We finally gave notice and now he’s trying to rent the apartment that needs work for an additional CI$700 without doing any renovations on it. It is so hard to be a tenant. We need laws to protects tenants. It doesn’t need to be like in Canada, but certainly there are some good things to take from the rental market in Canada like:
– not allowing the rent to increase more than [x]% without doing any renovations.
– ensuring that the laws are re-written and that landlords cannot exclude parts of it in the leases.
I’m sure there are more, but I think that would be a very good start.
He might just be passing on the increased cost to insure and maintain the property.
This is a world wide issue , the crazy thing is Cayman isn’t close to the worst hit country’s
How about a forecast of how many new condo units will come on the market in the next 18 months. I suggest it will be in the thousands and with most being unable to afford to buy, surely this will cause rents to fall as most of them hit the rental market.
No more concessions to developers and a certain percentage of new build condo units in each complex to be allocated for affordable housing or the developer pays Govt/CPA a fee for each unit not to be designated.
The concessions for developers should have ended in 2012! I understood it at the time of the recession (2008 onwards). But why is it still happening 15 years later in a time of massive price increases and demand. NO MORE CONCESSIONS!!
GREED!!!!!!
By both tenant and landlord be clear…..
Non beach front 15 story high rises is the solution. Like the great Mark Twain once said “he who builds more supply with behoovingly moderate pricing from demand”. RIP Mark Twain.
10:40, 10 storeys is enough and developers can still make good profits. I know, they are greedy. Windfall profits.
I do not want to see SMB turned into South Miami Beach just so developers can make massive profits. The reason I moved here was to escape South Miami Beach and the high rises there.
The last paragraph of this article ,speaks volumes.
1. It is clear the government and the local developers, past and present, don’t give a hoot about the housing problem for anyone living here, calling Cayman home, EXCEPT for the wealthy;
2. If something is not done soon, Cayman will face a serious social, mental and criminal situation; and
3. The younger Caymanians will, no doubt, inherit a Cayman that will comprise of:
a. A high disparity level between the ‘Haves and Havenots’which will only continue to grow;
b. A Cayman that will have more subgroups of people who call Cayman home but have absolutely no loyalty to the country; and
c. A complete loss of the Caymanian culture because of the mere fact stated in 3b.
The difficulty in arranging financing is because our prehistoric banks suck. They are almost entirely foreign owned and controlled, treat their responsible bread and butter customers like villainous criminals, without competitive pressures, time limits, published CAP policy, and offer the narrowest array of services with minimal understanding of service. No other reason. Anywhere else in the real world, a career level professional could visit their home branch and refinance their entire household affairs over a lunch hour, signing docs online. Here it takes weeks, and approached like the customer is a walk-in stranger. CIMA need to change the duties and obligations of Class A License holders to ensure they are treating our law-abiding market participants fairly, and adhering to a universally applied, baseline customer rights Customer Acceptance Policy, and fee transparency. These should be published and updated by CIMA, not the cartel bankers Association.
Would YOU lend money to someone who can’t repay the loan.?
Does it really take 6 months to figure out if you want to accept someone’s deposited cash or property and lever their assets to the bank’s favor? Who is the customer? How about tabulating collateral and calculating interest coverage? Hard to imagine there are other banks that can do this very easily in minutes, like it’s their profession. Our banks suck.
The speculative market in Caymsn long time ago by the first developers who saw Grand Csyman as a cash cow with everlasting milk. While it is often said that the demand for property particularly on 7 Mike beach is what has caused the ever rising humongous prices, the commission side of the business is never discussed as being one of the main drivers that has placed market values at the levels today. Would there be so many Sales Agents around if the prices were lower of course not, the companies could not afford them. While not advocating price controls there has to be some degree of monitoring of the market to ensure that manipulation thereof is discontinued.
If Caymanians can not afford to live in their own country the question I have for the politicians is, who are we developing Cayman for?
Rental support is a good problem for property owners. However, Cayman’s discount politicians are always flirting one bad government decision away from having lots of housing availability. Cuts both ways, and shoring up stakeholder equity is another reason why we should all push for modifications to the Elections Law.
When South Sound expats are complaining they can’t afford to buy where the WB road expats live, you KNOW things are bad. My question is, what does he expect us everyday people to do about it? We have no rent controls, no decent landlord and tenant legislation and the banks are in bed with the real estate cartels. He is preaching to the choir.
south sound…aka the poor man’s smb corridor.
Didn’t the PACT government campaign on the housing issue but yet they are turning a blind eye to what is happening as the stamp duty from these record land sales fills government coffers. Where is their mouth now! What plan do they have besides introducing additional stories to buildings that will only help work permit holders to find housing and or buy to stay to get their points for residency.
PACT is only using the surplus they have to continue to grow NAU and get more people dependent on same. It is vote buying. Stay tuned cause the vote buying will ramp up very shortly as they have not addressed the housing issue cause they don’t have a plan nor the balls to do what they should.
They also campaigned on less development and the environment
To be fair, the PACT government didn’t campaign on anything. Individuals made promises they couldn’t keep in the hopes of being elected, which has always been the hallmark of politicians.
Each individual PACT member had their own ideas, if you are willing to concede that random flickering thoughts can be categorized as an idea, and those vague ideas still persist today with no coherent policy for the entire group.
What do they plan to do you ask? Well, the answer is always the same, it’s time to work on being re-elected!
I’m born Caymanian, 25 and make THREE (3!) times the minimum wage a month, but even I’m considering moving back into the extra bedroom at my parent’s. Do I need to make 6 times it to have a slice of my birthright?
The current state of housing worldwide is tough but this is just depressing 🙁
Make sure you vote.
Vote for what? Put the PPM back in power so they can cater to expat billionaires again or more of the same (nothing) from PACT?
Unfortunately my younger generation still cannot outvote the church-going dinosaurs who have kept voting in the same politicians who support their church tithes for the past decades hence no change, and here we are – up shit creek without a paddle while unna older voters got your property while you could and then sold it out to wealthy foreigners after inheriting hundreds of acres. Now we must inherit the mess YOU made only to be called “lazy” because most of us still have to rent all up into our 30s.
Unna wonder why there’s no respect for the environment, yet you allowed the situation of being able to drive from town to WB and not see the ocean happen.
Unna wonder why we na breeding and the Caymanian birthrate is negative, but our leaders still allow gentrification by foreigners to go unchecked?
Unna wonder why education been going downhill for seemingly forever yet have we had a different Minster of Education in the last 20 odd years?
Maybe if we spent more time learning instead of praying to not be gay, more of us would end up at universities instead of church, and could afford property instead of giving away 10% of our salary to the sky fairy. Separate the church from state/school – go to church if you want but stop wasting people’s time who would otherwise rather be in class than sing hymns in the mornings.
And yes, I said “unna” – even that is being oppressed lately by some expat commenters who think local dialect should be prohibited on a literal cayman news site.
Well people like you cousin ona, is what cause the fareiner to look at us snd laugh at our lack of unity. Talk bad about the church huh May the Lord forgive you dear way before your demise 🙏🏼
Problem in voting is nobody on either side offers any ideas on affordable housing.
So why should I vote?
Great for all those Caymanians who rent multiple properties and are landlords.
They are laughing to the bank.
The Canadian approach is the only way to go here.
A freeze for a few years on non Residents buying new properties until the economy stabilizes and inflation slows.
Stop the duty concessions is the first start. The only people benefiting from that are the foreign buyers and developers. This duty should be going into the govt coffers. And not staying in the pockets of foreign buyers and developers.
It’s your birthright to own a house?How’s that?
It is also your birthright to sell your property to an expat.
So many Caymanians do that too.
Good idea. While staying at your parents maximise your savings. Paying rent is not a long-term solution.
Cease all sales to foreign non resident buyers. Cease sales to corporate structures of investors. Maybe a 1% property tax. That is all they need to do.
Unsustainable and the bubble soon burst
Have you looked around the world at different markets that were to burst about five years ago. Still holding strong so I don’t think you’re right, but I hope you are.
Its demand and supply. The bubble only bursts if demand falls and/or supply rises. Given the cost of land and that developers make way more money on an given plot of land by building for the overseas owners or the professional elite a surge in the supply of low cost housing not likely, and absent a collapse in either the financial services sector or the stay over / second home tourism market, which in turn generate the demand for all the service industries and their work permit based labour force, a demand collapse doesn’t look likely either. Which would leave government regulatory action – requiring a certain percentage of low cost housing for every development, banning foreign ownership, or rent control. And given no Cayman government has ever had the testicular fortitude to do anything of the kind, suspect you will be saying the same thing in a years time. And the year after that. And the year after that.
Never been a better time to buy!
Or sell!
Ha ha ha! Or sell. Or anything to make commission.
I agree! If you have cash on the side to purchase now is an awesome time to buy land. Kass Coleman is my go to!
Realtors tend to toot their own horn loudly, just because they can. But in this case Mr. Joseph is just stating the obvious.
I pity the people who just bought new homes or those that just built to rent, unless they have deep pockets. The banks will soon be knocking at their door. And I don’t think minister Saunders will have enough surplus to bail out all the imperilled, maybe just his own constituency and bobos.
Put this way anything and everything will be at an increased premium until the system breaks again.
The buck has to stop somewhere but when is anyone’s guess.
A few short years ago, you could buy a cookie cutter 2 bed 2.5 bath in a decent area for 250,000 to 350,000. Those are now going for 500k to 600k + now. We’re talking just ‘nice’, nothing extraordinary.
It’s beyond stupid seeing these garbage new builds being cobbled together and packed in like sardines, with asking prices that would saddle a new buyer with a mortgage of several thousand dollars, plus a huge lump sum for other fees.
So depressing.
Given material supply constraints etc. I would not be buying anything new. Cheap materials and corners cut everywhere to maximize profits.
10:08, Yeah, I am amazed by the new condo developments with flat roofs.
Obviously a lot of people don’t know about what any good builder in Florida would say, “don’t buy a condo with a flat roof in a climate with rain like Florida”.
People who have bought a place with a flat roof are going to pay a high price in a few years time. But builders / developers want to maximize profits.
Wish people would do due diligence on flat roofs. Lots of tears to come for them.
Well said. But we still need to increase the population to 100,000…. Beyond ridiculous. When will the people in power here finally put society as a whole first, as opposed to the vested interests of a few.
Try 10-15 years ago.