Price adjustments on Bahamas real estate

Coldwell Banker Lightbourn President Mike Lightbourn on Jan. 29th told a large group of investors that the Bahamas real state market was brisk until last year, but prices are now adjusting to more realistic levels. Speaking to members of FreedomFest at the flagship Atlantis resort on Paradise Island, Mr. Lightbourn ‘guesstimated' that prices have probably dropped by 10 percent from “what they should have been” a year ago. FreedomFest is described as the world's largest annual gathering of free minds. Mr. Lightbourn said worldwide events obviously affected the local market.
He said that as the Bahamas MLS service was only introduced last year, it is difficult to present at this point statistical figures as to price reductions and so on. “We have had a long period of time where over-priced listings dominated the market and I would suggest that last year many price reductions were actually bringing prices down to where they should have been in the first place,” he said.
His ‘guesstimate' of a 10 percent drop in prices from what they should have been one year ago applies to the high end market.
He said that for the lower end, generally under $500,000, the market has held “fairly firm” and “sales are relatively brisk.” Mr. Lightbourn also noted that due to its close proximity to the United States, the Bahamas is a very popular stop-off point for US visitors who comprise approximately 90 percent of our tourists. Approximately 70 percent of our tourists come by cruise ships and visit many islands throughout the archipelago. Approximately 70 percent of the country's GDP is derived from tourism and related industries. The financial sector accounts for approximately 20 percent of the economy and the remainder is miscellaneous.
Since the world downturn, Mr. Lightbourn said the country's tourism figures have gone down somewhere - in the region of six-eight percent – “which to me is a remarkably small decrease considering all the factors. We have had job layoffs as have other countries, including 10 percent of the work force at Atlantis. Government revenues are down by probably percent”. “The long and the short of it is that we are doing better than I personally expected considering all the exterior influences. However, we will have to wait and see what happens down the road later this year,” Mr. Lightbourn said.