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Antigua and Barbuda Property | House Prices

By property | November 1, 2008

It is boom time in Antigua and Barbados. The logic of buying delightful beachfront property while the US dollar is weak has become apparent to retirees in the UK and Europe, now daily arriving on flights from London. The rich and famous are also being drawn to once-dowdy Antigua, the larger of the two islands.

The International Herald Tribune recently praised Antigua as ‘newly chic’, noting that it has attracted mansion-buyers like Giorgio Armani, Richard Branson, Timothy Dalton and Eric Clapton.

The highest price rises have been seen on Jolly Harbour beach on Antigua’s beautiful West coast, where prices have risen fourfold over the past two years. This is greater than the price-rise during the entire previous ten years. Property values have also risen 60% -100% over the past two years at Jumby Bay, Antigua’s equivalent to Mustique – which limits on the number of people who can come in every year. Detached town houses on the islands have also doubled in the same period.

One attraction this tiny tropical paradise (pop 70,000), previously frequently overlooked in favor of its flashier Caribbean cousins, is its picturesque English Harbor, where Admiral Horatio Nelson once based the British fleet. But more important is that Antigua has been so far been left out of the building boom in the rest of the Caribbean, despite some hotel construction in the 1980s. It is rare for lots to become available. The mountainous terrain makes it difficult to develop.

“We have 365 beaches, but not a lot of beachfront property is actually available for sale,†says Geoffey Pidduck, the head of Trade Wind Realty, who sees a very considerable increase in demand. “Despite the limited supply people continue to want to buy beachfront properties, so the prices of beachfront properties have gone up by four times during the past two years.â€

However, a significant amount of construction is now underway, with developers like La Perla International, an Amsterdam-based luxury home builder, moving in to sell projects like Princeton Estates. Princeton has five houses of as much as 5,000 square feet (465 sq. m.), each on a hillside with ocean views and priced at around $2.7 million. La Perla is also developing in JG Estates, with custom villas at $200,000. Both projects are sold out.

According to Global Property Guide figures, a 2 bedroomed house in Antigua might cost around US$400,000, while A 3-bedroomed house might be worth around US$640,000 (November 2007). But these are very rough estimates, and the range of variation is large.

Foreigners are required to get a license if they want to acquire property in Antigua and Barbuda.

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