I think it is safe to say that most people are glad to see 2020 in the rear view mirror. Other than the first two months of the year which showed tremendous promise, we hit the wall in March. With the world economies grinding to a halt, there was no doubt that the TCI would be dragged down with it. Make no mistake, 2020 was a terrible year for the country, but there were some bright spots. Namely, the Turks and Caicos Real Estate sales figures.
If we look back at the housing market over the past 10 years in TCI, we will see that there was a fairly steady increase year over year. Part of that was coming out of the great recession but a lot of it had to do with TCI becoming a much more well known destination. As you might expect, 2020 saw a drop-off with the pandemic interrupting a hot market in the first quarter. What may surprise you however was that 2020 was the 2nd best year over the past decade!
Looking at the Turks and Caicos Real Estate Market Report provided by Sotheby’s, sales volume was down just 14.5% last year. Sales prices down just 5%. This is really quite impressive when you consider the overall state of the tourism industry. 2020 was over 10% higher than 2018, which was the 3rd best year over the past decade. I am not going to go into the reasons for this again, as we touched on it on our last post, however it speaks highly of the Turks and Caicos as a whole.
The year finished strong, thanks to a stamp duty reduction implemented by the local government. However, a number of the homes that sold during this period did not actually qualify due to the amount of dollars involved. Looking at the past year, we saw 16 homes sold over the 3M USD mark. Including one sale which set a new record in the country, at 13M USD (pictured above). The average price was down to 1.68M USD. Not too shabby for a year that was decimated by a global pandemic.
All in all, 2020 was not a bad year for the Turks and Caicos real estate market. As we climb out of the pandemic, we hope to see this trend continue with even better numbers in 2021.
If you are considering a Caribbean safe haven, contact us today to discuss your real estate and financing options.