Anguilla - Time to Fish or Cut Bait?

We have visited Anguilla for years now and at no other time have we sensed a country so out of touch with its own reality.

Real estate pricing is still far out of balance with the rest of the world and the reality of this island.   We have become concerned about the market overall and are on Island this week of June 1 2010 to evaluate whether or not Anguilla is really a place for us.   We have funds at NBA and are considering moving them off Anguilla on this trip.  The core issue with the real estate market here is that the primary offshore buyer in Anguilla remains the monopoly money buyer as I term it.   This is a person that really does not care about the value of the property because to this buyer the million here and the million there is just not important.  These villas are mere toys.  Bragging rights.

Unfortuneately like having Tiger Woods as a role model, you will never reach his level.  Too, Just like Tiger, most Anguilians are using as a role model the one or two full priced sales and the crazy construction projects of the uber rich to prove the market is good.  90% of real estate on Anguilla simply is overpriced by 20-40%.

The agents of course do not have to care either.  If they sell a million dollar villa they get $50,000 so to them a sale is a sale is a sale and the market is HOT HOT HOT.

What we have seen over the years since 2006 particularly is an unwillingness to realize that no one will play golf for $300 per round and that Anguilla is not a golf mecca.  We also are worried that the Fairmont and the OWN Shoal Bay Project (in this post I referred to Own Shoal Bay Project as Shoal Bay Villas - Shoal Bay Villas and the KU are HIGHLY recommended by me as places to stay.  I just do not want them ruined by a piece of land staying vacant for years as this project is likely to do)  are nothing more than glorified Time Shares just like the Viceroy (except this one for the very rich).  With limitations on the length of time an owner can stay in a villa without paying rates and fees, they are just those in addition to being pie in the sky dreams.

We will seek to find if they will be scuttled as they should or if they will hang over the market for the next decade.  Meantime we will visit again the opaque real estate market that seems to be half truths and partial knowledge driven to see if we can find still the reality that should be this market.

In short, if you have 3 or 4 hundred thousand in equity and are willing to find a good property at a decent value, you are being crowed out by crazy buyers of a very FEW properties causing owners to hold property rather than take realistic offers.  

Everyone here thinks this island is special.  I am not so sure anymore.  I wonder how many islands these folks have actually been to.  I have been to 14 more than a few times.   I think they need to go elsewhere and see the reality.

Ok It is pretty....but the Economy is a Bust on this Island - Government Policy is way off.

Now on with the fun.  We will stay at the KU and be on the beach a whole lot and eat at Elodia's and Uncle Ernie's as per usual.   All is not lost on Anguilla it is still full of great beaches, but unfortunately everything and I mean EVERYTHING is for sale.