Rent-to-Own Has Been Promised in Jamaica Since the 1990s. It Still Doesn’t Exist

• Experts have floated rent-to-own since the 1990s
• PNP promised 130,000 units under the model in 2020
• Holness announced it was coming in 2022, no timeline given
• JN Group renewed the call in 2024, still nothing concrete

Earl Samuels, assistant general manager and chief development financing officer at the JN Group, called on government to revisit implementing a rent-to-own housing policy, speaking on a wealth-creation panel at the Jamaica Diaspora Conference in Montego Bay. His call joined a list of similar appeals stretching back decades: rent-to-own has been touted by various experts in Jamaica dating back to the 1990s, and it still does not exist as a formal government programme.

The most concrete version came from the Opposition PNP’s 2020 election manifesto, promising 130,000 housing solutions over five years, with a portion of monthly rent applied toward a down payment before transitioning to a mortgage, and up to a year’s income tax claimable toward a first home purchase. The party specified allocations down to the group: 25,000 units for buyers under 35, 5,000 each for teachers, nurses, hospitality and transport workers, 3,000 for vendors, 2,000 for soldiers. NHT declined to publicly assess the plan’s feasibility when asked, noting the numbers came from political manifestos rather than an actual funded proposal.

Government took up a version of the idea two years later: in 2022, Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced a rent-to-own programme would be coming to ease housing demand. No timeline was ever provided, and none has emerged since, a fact realtor Deborah Cumming had flagged even earlier, in 2020, when she noted she had never heard of Jamaica’s government actually running such a scheme, individual vendor-financed arrangements existed, but nothing at government scale.

Samuels’s 2024 renewal of the call framed the persistent gap in blunt terms: real estate prices, inflation and rising mortgage rates had made the affordability problem worse, not better, since the idea was first floated, and he pointed specifically to residents of informal settlements near tourism zones, workers who make a significant economic contribution and deserve decent housing, as a group a properly structured lease-to-own arrangement could reach that conventional mortgage lending cannot.

Four years after the PNP’s manifesto pledge and two years after Holness’s own announcement, rent-to-own in Jamaica remains what it was in the 1990s: a policy idea multiple governments have endorsed in principle and none have actually built, while the affordability gap it was meant to close has only widened in the meantime.

Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com