Author: Jamaica Homes News

Publication Date: 3 March 1999 | Coverage Period: 3 February–2 March 1999 | Category: Monthly Review Month in Brief The United States Senate voted on 12 February 1999 to acquit President Clinton on both articles of impeachment — perjury and obstruction of justice — with neither article obtaining even a simple majority, far short of the two-thirds required for removal; the year-long political crisis is formally resolved. Jamaica’s residential property market has shown tentative signs of increased activity in February relative to the depressed levels of the past several months; Kingston estate agents report modestly higher inquiry volumes, though transaction…

Publication Date: 3 February 1999 | Coverage Period: 3 January–2 February 1999 | Category: Monthly Review Month in Brief The Euro was formally launched on 1 January 1999, with eleven European nations — Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Finland, and Ireland — adopting a single currency for financial market transactions; the United Kingdom remains outside the eurozone, maintaining sterling. The United States Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton is underway throughout January; the eventual vote is expected before mid-February, with most observers anticipating acquittal given the arithmetic of the Senate. Bank of Jamaica interest rates…

In its final twelve months, a century already defined by war, revolution, and rupture found itself reaching for a single album to speak for all of it — and landed on the work of a barefoot boy from Nine Mile, St. Ann. The events of 1999 did not simply honour Bob Marley’s legacy; they demonstrated, with the force of institutional consensus and popular feeling alike, that his music had become something the twentieth century could not do without.

January 1999 opens with the FINSAC crisis at its acute peak, Hurricane Georges’ reconstruction adding pressure, and commercial mortgage rates at historic extremes; NHT is the sole functioning formal housing finance institution as Jamaica’s housing market enters its most difficult year.

Publication Date: 3 January 1999 | Coverage Period: 3 December–2 January 1999 | Category: Monthly Review Month in Brief The United States House of Representatives voted on 19 December 1998 to impeach President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, only the second presidential impeachment in American history; the Senate trial is now scheduled to commence in January. Jamaica’s residential property market recorded a quiet December, consistent with seasonal patterns; the Christmas period reduced transaction activity while diaspora visits provided modest stimulus to the upper residential segment. Bank of Jamaica interest rates remain in the 20–25% corridor;…

The summer and autumn of 1998 are defined, for the Caribbean community in Britain, by a 50th anniversary that they have long believed this country would never properly mark. HMT Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury on 22 June 1948. Fifty years on, commemorations run from the Thames to the Caribbean, from Westminster to primary schools in Birmingham. But the anniversary unfolds in the shadow of the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry, whose sittings throughout 1998 keep the question of institutional racism in daily view.

Quarterly Update | Q4 1998 | October–December 1998 | Jamaica Homes News Key Takeaways: Q4 1998 in Six Lines Hurricane Mitch kills 11,000 in Central America; Caribbean diaspora mobilises aid Clinton impeached by House December 19 on perjury and obstruction charges Omagh bombing August 15 legacy: UK community remembers 29 dead as year ends Good Friday Agreement survives early tests; Ulster Unionist vote approves deal Jamaica’s financial crisis deepens; FINSAC interventions expand across the sector Diaspora Christmas remittances at record levels as island families face hardship Hurricane Mitch: A Catastrophe in the Caribbean’s Neighbourhood Hurricane Mitch, which struck Central America…

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from October to December 1998, a fourth quarter in which the Jamaica property market confronted the convergence of the domestic financial sector crisis’s FINSAC restructuring at its most acute phase with the global financial turbulence that the Asian currency contagion and Russia’s August debt default had visited upon international markets, the Christmas diaspora homecoming proceeded under conditions of considerable constraint and caution, and the property sector’s participants assessed the end of 1998 as the year in which the dual pressures of domestic financial crisis and international market turbulence had combined to produce the most challenging conditions the modern property market had experienced.

The combination of due diligence gaps, reliance on attorney assurances, and limited consumer awareness creates the conditions in which property fraud thrives in Jamaica. This report examines the role of title insurance as a risk management tool, the limitations of current due diligence practice, and what a strengthened verification framework would look like for Jamaican property buyers.

The fourth quarter of 1998 closed a year that would become a watershed in Jamaica’s reef history: the mass coral bleaching event driven by elevated sea surface temperatures had left large swathes of the island’s reef system bleached or dying, and the full extent of damage was still being assessed.

Publication Date: 3 December 1998 | Coverage Period: 3 November–2 December 1998 | Category: Monthly Review Month in Brief The 1998 Atlantic hurricane season closed on 30 November without further direct impact on Jamaica, though the island’s property sector remains engaged in the lengthy process of recovery and repair from September’s Hurricane Georges. Bank of Jamaica benchmark rates remained in the 20–25% corridor through November; commercial mortgage rates continue at 25–30%, maintaining acute affordability pressures for would-be home buyers across all income segments except those served by NHT’s subsidised programme. The global financial environment has stabilised somewhat following the US…

Publication Date: 3 November 1998 | Coverage Period: 3 October–2 November 1998 | Category: Monthly Review Month in Brief Hurricane Mitch — a catastrophic Category 5 storm at peak intensity — made landfall in Honduras and Nicaragua between 22 October and 1 November 1998, killing an estimated 11,000 people and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes; it ranks among the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes in recorded history. Jamaica was not in Mitch’s direct path, but the storm’s devastation has heightened regional awareness of Caribbean vulnerability to extreme weather events and renewed debate about building standards across the archipelago. Georges recovery continues:…

October 1998 finds Jamaica’s housing market facing a double emergency: the ongoing FINSAC financial crisis has collapsed the formal mortgage market, and Hurricane Georges has struck the island in September 1998, creating reconstruction demands that the formal financial system is too impaired to meet.

Publication Date: 3 October 1998 | Coverage Period: 3 September–2 October 1998 | Category: Monthly Review Month in Brief Hurricane Georges struck Jamaica on 20–21 September 1998 as a Category 2 storm, bringing sustained winds of approximately 155 km/h and catastrophic flooding across the island’s parishes. Preliminary government assessments suggest thousands of homes sustained damage, with concentrations in St. Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Clarendon, and the Kingston metropolitan area. Russia’s sovereign debt default and ruble collapse on 17 August — now two weeks behind us as this coverage period opens — has injected renewed anxiety into global emerging-market sentiment, with Jamaica’s external…

Quarterly Update | Q3 1998 | July–September 1998 | Jamaica Homes News Key Takeaways: Q3 1998 in Six Lines Omagh bombing August 15 kills 29; the worst atrocity of the Troubles strikes after peace Starr Report delivered to Congress September 9; Clinton presidency in existential crisis Russia defaults on debt August 17; rouble collapses as financial contagion spreads US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam kill 224 on August 7 Jamaica summer season holds despite global uncertainty; Sumfest draws record crowds Caribbean community in UK mourns Omagh victims alongside the wider British public Omagh: The Bombing That Came…