Land at $15b testing real estate highs

L ocal real estate continues to test new highs with resort land in Trelawny being listed for sale at US$100 million, or the equivalent of $15.5 billion.

It represents the largest listing currently on the MLS, or open-market listings platform, utilised by Jamaican real estate professionals, with the closest listing at US$60 million also a beachfront property for development on the north coast.

The Trelawny property was put on the market in late November, said realtor Andre Alston of Coldwell Banker Jamaica, the realty firm handling the listing.

“It is an ambitious price, but the owners are not in a rush to sell,” Alston told the Financial Gleaner on Thursday. He declined to name the family holding the property, but said they came into possession of it through inheritance.

“They recognise that beachfront development opportunities are increasingly rare and are open to seeing the market response,” the realtor said.

The Trelawny property, located at New Court, which is close to the capital town of Falmouth, spans 89 acres of thick, tropical forests that drape down to the Caribbean Sea, the listing states. The average cost per acre, based on the listing price, would be around US$1.12 million, or nearly $175 million at current exchange rates.

As to determining comparative values for beachfront properties, valuator Alister Smith said it would be a complex undertaking.

“It is difficult to give an average square footage of beachfront property on the north coast because the value changes depending on the parish you are in,” said Smith, a valuator at D.C. Tavares & Finson Realty.

The prices in Portland and St Mary will not command the same value as in St Ann, Trelawny or St James, he said.

“There are many components that go into the price and the market value,” he said, including the size of the beachfront relative to the total land parcel, its access to public infrastructure and amenities, and the development pattern around the land.

When asked the largest land sale in memory, Smith said most of the large real estate transactions are done outside of the public MLS platform.

The family that owns th Trelawny property will sell to either an individual or investor group, said Alston.

“There are a few inquiries so far, and they are primarily from overseas,” he said. “This isn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill property; rather, its primarily for investors.”

The listing comes within the context of a travel and tourism market that is still trying to get back to pre-pandemic levels of business, but remains hobbled by the new strains of the COVID-19 coronavirus that keep emerging.

Omicron, which is the most recent variant, is already causing airlines and hospitality companies to recalibrate the levels of business they were anticipating for the peak winter tourist season, including reports of cancelled travel bookings and new restrictions on foreign travellers in some jurisdictions.

Alston described Jamaica’s real estate market as bullish but with soft spots, including short-term rentals, due to travel restrictions.

Jamaica has seen some recovery in inbound travel and hotel stays, as well as re-emergent cruise ship calls. The main gateway, Sangster International Airport, has seen a 50 per cent increase in passenger flow to 2.24 million between January and November, relative to 2020, but is still 47 per cent below pre-COVID travel, which recorded 4.26 million passengers in the same 11-month period in 2019.

business@gleanerjm.com