FINANCIAL POST
FINANCIAL POST Highlight of Excerpt Published: Saturday, April 19, 2008
PARADISE ACRES
A-listers are buying up the Caribbean and Canadian banks are there for them.
The type of person who can afford to drop U.S $20 million on a second home in the Caribbean expects fabulous ocean views, infinity pools, multimedia room’s, tailored detailing such as hand carved stone walls and year round sunshine. They want a vacation home designed by a “starchitect,” built from materials sourced around the world and filled with elegant objets d’art.
But as much as they want the highest of high-end luxury, they want the deal to be conducted discreetly, and they usually need a mortgage.
Selling the properties involves no big marketing campaigns, no advertising, no public relations, no brokers. Yet sales are not a problem. The high-end market is strong in paradise.
After more than 30 years of banking in Toronto, Wayne Kendal moved to the islands a couple of years ago to head Royal Bank of Canada’s real estate group there. His small group of Bankers is servicing “a pent up need” for expensive homes in the region.
The expansion of top of the market vacation clubs, where pools of properties are purchased and then made available to rent, is fueling demand. A number of expensive hotels and resort chains are also expanding in the region. They will often build out private homes, condos or villas on adjacent pieces of land that are sold to help finance the development.
A shortage of high-end vacation home inventory in other parts of the world is also pushing up values in the Caribbean, says Kevin Clark, a senior vice-president with Bank of Novsa Scotia, one of the biggest banks in the Caribbean.
There’s a finite amount of property left in the Caribbean, too, says Mr. Clark. Properties in places such as Papagayo in Costa Rica and Turks and Caicos are selling for as U.S $19 million.
That’s all good news for the banks. Mortgage terms and conditions are similar to that of Canada or the United States. But the bankers and developers are counting on property values in that region to follow a different path than they have recently in the United States. Values in the region are fairly insulated from global trends and investors my prefer to park their money in the region rather than put it into more volatile markets in North America or Europe, the bankers say.
PARADISE ACRES
A-listers are buying up the Caribbean and Canadian banks are there for them.
The type of person who can afford to drop U.S $20 million on a second home in the Caribbean expects fabulous ocean views, infinity pools, multimedia room’s, tailored detailing such as hand carved stone walls and year round sunshine. They want a vacation home designed by a “starchitect,” built from materials sourced around the world and filled with elegant objets d’art.
But as much as they want the highest of high-end luxury, they want the deal to be conducted discreetly, and they usually need a mortgage.
Selling the properties involves no big marketing campaigns, no advertising, no public relations, no brokers. Yet sales are not a problem. The high-end market is strong in paradise.
After more than 30 years of banking in Toronto, Wayne Kendal moved to the islands a couple of years ago to head Royal Bank of Canada’s real estate group there. His small group of Bankers is servicing “a pent up need” for expensive homes in the region.
The expansion of top of the market vacation clubs, where pools of properties are purchased and then made available to rent, is fueling demand. A number of expensive hotels and resort chains are also expanding in the region. They will often build out private homes, condos or villas on adjacent pieces of land that are sold to help finance the development.
A shortage of high-end vacation home inventory in other parts of the world is also pushing up values in the Caribbean, says Kevin Clark, a senior vice-president with Bank of Novsa Scotia, one of the biggest banks in the Caribbean.
There’s a finite amount of property left in the Caribbean, too, says Mr. Clark. Properties in places such as Papagayo in Costa Rica and Turks and Caicos are selling for as U.S $19 million.
That’s all good news for the banks. Mortgage terms and conditions are similar to that of Canada or the United States. But the bankers and developers are counting on property values in that region to follow a different path than they have recently in the United States. Values in the region are fairly insulated from global trends and investors my prefer to park their money in the region rather than put it into more volatile markets in North America or Europe, the bankers say.
posted by The Out Island Explorer at
4:51 PM
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