Jamaica Property Hit $100 Billion Last Year

Kingston, Jamaica, 29 June 2026

Jamaica’s residential property market generated approximately $100 billion in transactions in 2025, according to Multiple Listing Service data released by the Realtors Association of Jamaica. The figures, compiled from reports submitted by approximately 2,000 registered realtors, place the market in an unusual position: resilient in volume and value despite the economic disruption caused by Hurricane Melissa in October and a contracting economy in the first quarter of 2026.

A Dual-Market Dynamic

The Realtors Association describes what the data reveals as a dual-market dynamic. High-volume urban markets, primarily Kingston and St Andrew, are driving transaction numbers. High-value, tourism-driven parishes, principally St Ann, are generating strong returns on fewer transactions. St Andrew recorded the highest overall sales volume in 2025. St Ann achieved the highest average residential selling price, reflecting sustained demand from diaspora buyers and investors along the north coast corridor. St Catherine, anchored by Portmore and the expanding Bernard Lodge and Old Harbour developments, continues to feature strongly as infrastructure investment makes more of the parish accessible.

Data as a Policy Tool

The MLS platform offers something Jamaica’s housing sector has historically lacked: systematic, real-time visibility into pricing trends, buyer demand, inventory levels and transaction patterns across parishes. That data has value well beyond the individual transaction. It can identify underserved markets, map affordability gaps and flag where infrastructure investment would most directly unlock housing supply. The Realtors Association has emphasised the role this information can play in guiding national housing strategies, particularly in parishes outside the dominant three where demand exists but supply remains thin.

What Buoyancy in a Contracting Economy Means

The fact that Jamaica’s property market maintained strong transaction volumes through a period that included a Category 5 hurricane and a first-quarter economic contraction of 5.9 per cent is significant. It reflects the structural reality that housing demand in Jamaica is driven by necessity, by household formation, by diaspora capital and by long-term confidence in land as a store of value, rather than purely by short-term economic conditions. That structural demand does not make the market immune to pressure. But it does mean the property sector continues to function as one of the more stable pillars of economic activity even when other sectors weaken. The $100 billion figure is not simply a transaction total. It is a measure of how deeply embedded land and property ownership are in how Jamaicans think about their economic future.