Risk and reward for real estate in Central America
March 21st, 2007
The real estate opportunities available in Central America span a range of risk / reward profiles. There is real estate on offer to suit different investment goals. Properties that are good candidates for short term capital appreciation exist as well as properties in lower risk environments with the promise of an immediate rental income. A good way to envisage this is by considering the ‘development curve’ that emerging real estate markets pass through as they mature.
Of course there are markets within markets so the graphic provides only a general representation of relative position of the country as a whole. The Costa Rica real estate market is the most mature, Panama and Belize real estate represent classic middle markets - not quite emerging and not quite developed - with Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala at earlier stages of the development curve.
From Reveal Real Estate - charting overseas property trends in Central America.Related posts:
- At what stage of a “development curve” are we investing?
- What’s the cheapest real estate you can find in a master planned community in Central America?
- Is Belize ‘the next big thing’ in Caribbean real estate?
- Who is buying property in Central America?
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Market development curves, Market statistics and data. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I found this article during my recent research for purchasing investment property in Costa Rica. This definitely helped to ease the reservations I had with purchasing land in Central America. Thank you for taking the time to detail these statistics.
Thanks,
Keith
[...] You’ll find regular commentary on real estate markets in Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua and Belize in mainstream press. But it’s Costa Rica that racks up the highest amount of coverage on the blogosphere. Costa Rica has been a destination for vacation home buyers for decades and is now home to an impressive array of hospitality brands. The other markets are newer and at an earlier stage in their development cycles. [...]
I am from Belize, Central America and owner of Beach Front property located in Southern Belize. I would like to advise Investors to protect themselves by retaining an Attorney or reputable Real estate Agent prior to purchasing properties in Belize.
As a Belizean, I am ashame of my observation of fraudulent Land conveyance that has occured in my country, that is causing Investors/Developers to lose their finances and leaving the country empty handed.
I was selling a 2.92 acre Beach Front property with ligitimate title and was unable to complete transaction due to the fact that, the buyer had made the mistake in purchasing another property and was unable to get title conveyed to him.
I am aware that things like this happens anywhere but, one has to be very carefull when investing in another country. As a paralegal and having knowledge of Land Matters in my country, I am trying to assist the investor to hopefully get his title as much as I would like to sell my property to pay my wife’s medical treatment for cancer. Please, Buyer beware my country is still a great country to invest or to live in. Have a very Blessed Day.
Respectfully,
Terry,
[...] Real estate developments located in Nicaragua tend to rank lower (ie are lower in price) than those in Costa Rica, with Belize and Panama falling somewhere in between. This pattern mirrors the level of maturity of the real estate markets - from emerging (Nicaragua) to middle markets (Panama and Belize) to the most mature (Costa Rica). We’ve analysed this before by plotting ‘development curves’ to show the relative levels of each of the markets. [...]
[...] by International Living to describe markets that are not quite emerging; not quite developed. The risk/reward profile is perhaps more comfortable than purely speculative real estate markets elsewhere in Central [...]
[...] plan to plot counties in Central America on this graph and also dig deeper into individual regions. There may be instances that a property hot spot in a [...]