Guyana

The Caribbean real estate market is valued at US$1.87 trillion and growing, yet Caribbean developers continue to face persistent difficulty securing viable development financing. The gap between market scale and available capital is one of the region’s most significant structural challenges and a direct contributor to housing undersupply across Jamaica and the wider Caribbean.

Two US-backed residential developments associated with TAJ are reported to be entering vertical construction in Guyana, with a combined stated value exceeding US$500 million. The projects signal a maturing private real estate market driven by oil wealth.

Guyana is planning thousands of social homes to address a backlog of up to 78,000 housing applications, with significant implications for the Caribbean’s construction and mortgage markets.

Guyana has become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies on the back of offshore oil. Jamaica cannot copy it, but the lessons for land, wealth and housing are real.

A company acting for Mennonite farmers was reported to be seeking more than 5,000 hectares of farmland in Guyana’s Berbice area for soy, corn and livestock, as conservation groups warned of deforestation linked to Mennonite settlements in Peru.

Guyana’s Anglican diocese completed a major rehabilitation of Georgetown’s St George’s Cathedral, one of the world’s tallest wooden churches, at a cost of more than $200 million, most of it paid by the church, with the main roof still to be restored.