Month: April 2020

Kingston, Jamaica, 22 April 2020 — Jamaica’s construction sector defied the broader economic contraction of the pandemic period, recording modest…

A straw buyer scheme involves using a third party — the straw buyer — to purchase property on behalf of the true buyer, who remains in the background. In Jamaica, straw buyer arrangements are used to circumvent lending restrictions, conceal the identity of the beneficial owner in a property transaction, or assist in money laundering. Both the straw buyer and the orchestrator of the scheme face serious legal consequences.

We are writing this account of Jamaica’s second quarter of 2019 in April 2020, sitting in the ruins of everything…

Black lives matter has seen a new wave of protests and demands for justice with the recent deaths of George…

Three weeks into a global pandemic, Jamaica’s borders are closed and its housing market is in shock. This review examines the channels through which COVID-19 will reach Jamaican households, and what the institutional safety net can realistically provide.

Jamaica records its first COVID-19 case on March 10, inaugurating the most consequential quarter in recent economic history. A property market that entered 2020 with confidence and momentum confronts pandemic uncertainty in a matter of weeks. Digital tools that property professionals had dismissed as optional become overnight essentials.

The seventh consecutive tourism record was tracking on schedule in January. By March 23, the resorts were empty and the world had stopped flying.

Publication date: 5 April 2020 | Covering: March 2020 Monthly Briefing WHO declares COVID-19 pandemic March 11; global lockdowns; unprecedented…

Jamaica records its first COVID-19 case on March 10. By month’s end, curfews are in force, construction sites are paused, and the housing market confronts its greatest shock in a generation.

Private lenders operating outside Jamaica’s regulated financial system have extended mortgage-style credit at extremely high interest rates to property owners in financial distress, structuring their loans with default terms that effectively guarantee the transfer of the property to the lender when repayments are missed. Understanding how predatory private lending operates and what legal protections exist is essential for any property owner considering this type of financing.

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review | Published 3 April 2020 | Reporting Period: 3 January – 2…

The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, transforming the Caribbean overnight. Borders have closed across the region, hotels are emptying, and governments are scrambling to implement emergency fiscal measures as the tourism industry faces an unprecedented crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the Caribbean overnight. Borders are closing, hotels emptying, and tourism — the lifeblood of most island economies — has ground to a halt. Emergency measures are racing to protect workers and property markets.

The quarterly intelligence report on Jamaica’s global diaspora for January–March 2020: the COVID-19 pandemic is declared a global pandemic on 11 March, Jamaica records its first confirmed cases in late March and closes its borders to visitors, the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference faces mounting postponement uncertainty, enormous economic shock hits diaspora communities globally, and remittances end the quarter in deep uncertainty.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from January to March 2020, covering a sector that entered the year with solid momentum from a strong 2019, a positive January-February winter season for tourism, and a property market in active transaction before COVID-19 arrived in Jamaica on March 10 and, within weeks, had suspended economic life, shuttered tourism, forced emergency BOJ rate cuts and left the property market in a state of shock that no forecast had prepared it for.