Don Glanville, president of the Realtors Association of Jamaica, addressing the RAJ's fourth quarterly meeting on Tuesday at Terra Nova Hotel, Waterloo Road.
- Junior Dowie photoTHE REALTORS Associa-tion of Jamaica is in the process of amassing real estate data in order to start tracking the performance of the sector in a more formal way.
Presently, realtors have no means by which to value the industry and is looking to get to the stage where it can provide members with up to date information on matters such as which properties are changing hands, how often, and volume sales throughout the sector.
Currently, such data reside in the Stamp Office and at the Registrar of Titles, both Government agencies, but not in a formally structured way that is easily accessible to the public. Stamp duty, a closing cost incurred in property sale, is usually calculated at $55 for every $1,000 of the value of the property, and is an indicator of the turnover in the sector.
"We're hoping to make the information commonplace," said Don Glanville, RAJ president, addressing the fourth quarterly meeting of the association this week in Kingston. The RAJ, he said, is already in discussions with the agencies.
The drive to formalise the data was announced alongside plans to make market information more centralised. In that regard, the association is negotiating a dedicated page for real estate listings in the newspapers to run once per week, Thursdays, giving information on the properties that are on the market islandwide.
In the meantime, members of the association depend on each other to keep tabs on how the market is developing.
Over the past five to six years, the market has been very soft, moreso for property in the middle to upper price brackets, with the overall decline estimated at between 20 and 30 per cent. But Glanville indicated Tuesday that the situation was changing.
UPTURN
"The Jamaica property market is experiencing an upturn," he told the meeting, but "it is not as robust as we would want."
His optimism is fuelled partly by signals from Government that Jamaica could be emerging from years of negative growth, he had told Builders Forum in a November interview. The real estate market has direct correlation to the health of the economy, and does well when the country is earning.
An indicator of performance is mortgage financing, which for the upscale side of the market is provided largely by the island's building societies. For the low income side of the market, financing usually comes via the state-owned National Housing Trust. Between 1996 and 2000, mortgage financing declined 16 per cent, based on Planning Institute of Jamaica figures.
Not everyone agreed with Glanville's view. According to Joan Marsh who practises in Ocho Rios, St. Ann where the market is largely in villas and condominiums, properties have been going up for sale but no one is buying because the properties are not affordable.
Most of the demand, she said, is in the price range of up to $3m, a segment in which Ocho Rios has few prospects to fill.
"Jamaica is not yet up as an alternative investment site," said Mrs. Marsh.
Glanville, determined to remain upbeat, responded that: "What I hear Mrs. Marsh saying-is that you should convince your investors to buy and wait for the upswing."
Trevor Blythe of Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, was also upbeat. The western Jamaica market was "bouncing back", but activity he said was mainly in low income housing on properties between $1.5m to $2.5m.
He characterised demand in this area as "great", and also told the meeting that from his connections with the Minister of Water and Housing, he also has information that "there are plans afoot to get seriously into that market."
The take on the market in Montego Bay said opportunities were largely in land lots, as houses were expensive, and property owners were opting to build their own homes, over purchasing.
The realtors were advised to watch for opportunities in areas where infrastructure developments such as roads were being planned and/or implemented. In this regard, Highway 2000 was touted as an opportunity, and a catalyst for a market in rentals opening up along the development's route.
