Property News Jamaica

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from January to March 2009, the first full quarter in which the global financial crisis that erupted with Lehman Brothers’ September 2008 collapse was working its effects through Jamaica’s tourism arrivals, diaspora remittances, investor confidence, and fiscal position, in which the winter diaspora season delivered markedly reduced property market activity relative to pre-crisis benchmarks, the North Coast winter peak was sustained but at levels below the preceding years’ performance, and the property market began the process of recalibrating its expectations, pricing dynamics, and operational patterns for an extended period of external demand constraint.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from October to December 2008, the first full quarter after the September 2008 global financial crisis’s acute phase, in which the confirmation of a severe global recession suppressed the Christmas diaspora season’s property market activity, the North Coast’s holiday period delivered occupancy that held above catastrophic lows through rate discounting, the Kingston residential market entered the most significant demand contraction since the 1990s financial sector crisis, and Jamaica’s property sector entered the new year with the recognition that the adjustment period ahead would be measured in years rather than quarters.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from July to September 2008, a quarter that began with record oil prices suppressing global consumer confidence and the North Coast’s summer performance, proceeded through the Bear Stearns aftermath’s continuing credit market stress, and ended with the Lehman Brothers collapse of September 15 — seventeen days ago as this edition goes to press — an event whose consequences for the Jamaican property market’s most important demand sources are still unfolding and whose full dimensions cannot yet be assessed with the confidence that a quarterly review of completed events normally provides.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from April to June 2008, a period in which the US sub-prime crisis’s credit market consequences were becoming increasingly visible through the Bear Stearns rescue of March 2008, record oil prices were approaching their peak and compressing consumer spending power globally, Jamaica’s property market was absorbing the first external headwinds from the credit environment’s deterioration, and the North Coast’s spring shoulder season was navigating the early signs of the demand compression that the oil price and credit market combination was beginning to impose on Caribbean leisure travel.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from January to March 2008, a quarter that opened with a winter diaspora season performing strongly against the established pre-crisis benchmarks and closed with the Bear Stearns rescue of March 16-17 — sixteen days ago as this edition goes to press — introducing the first acute signal that the US sub-prime crisis’s credit market consequences were producing systemic vulnerabilities whose resolution was neither complete nor certain, and raising for the Jamaica property market’s attentive participants the question of how deeply the credit environment’s deterioration would penetrate the tourism and diaspora investment flows that the market’s boom years had depended on.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from October to December 2007, the first full quarter under the new JLP government of Bruce Golding elected in September, in which the Christmas diaspora season delivered the boom period’s characteristic energy to the property market, the North Coast resort communities welcomed their winter visitors in a post-Hurricane Dean environment whose recovery from the August storm was more rapid than initially feared, and the Kingston residential market sustained the premium segment’s exceptional performance while the US sub-prime crisis’s credit market implications were being watched by the attentive participants of a market whose most important international demand sources were based in the affected economies.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from July to September 2007, a quarter that delivered two historic events within six weeks: Hurricane Dean’s direct Category 4 landfall on Jamaica on August 19-20, the most powerful storm to strike the island in decades, and the September 3 general election that returned the Jamaica Labour Party to government under Bruce Golding after eighteen years of PNP administration, in which the summer tourism season was disrupted by the hurricane, the property market absorbed the storm’s immediate damage and the election’s political transition simultaneously, and the Kingston residential and North Coast resort markets entered Q4 2007 in conditions that the quarter’s upheavals had tested but not fundamentally undermined.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from April to June 2007, the spring shoulder season of what would prove to be the Portia Simpson Miller PNP government’s final months in office before the September election, in which the North Coast’s international buyer pipeline was performing at peak boom levels, the Kingston residential market was sustaining the price appreciation and transaction velocity that the extended growth cycle had established, and the broader global credit environment’s sub-prime difficulties were not yet visibly penetrating the tourism and diaspora investment flows that the Jamaica property market’s most important demand sources depended on.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from January to March 2007, the boom period’s most energetic winter season to date, in which the diaspora community’s January presence generated property market enquiry and transaction activity at levels the market had not previously experienced, the North Coast winter peak delivered exceptional international visitor and buyer engagement, the Kingston residential market’s premium segment was completing transactions at price levels that the decade’s appreciation cycle had established as its new benchmark, and the Portia Simpson Miller PNP government’s administration provided the stable political backdrop within which the boom’s full expression was occurring.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from October to December 2006, a Christmas and New Year diaspora season of exceptional energy in which the boom period’s full confidence was expressed through the highest diaspora property engagement levels the market had recorded, the North Coast’s holiday occupancy reached the peak levels that the resort expansion of the preceding years had been building toward, the Kingston residential market sustained the premium and mid-market momentum that the boom cycle had established, and the property sector entered 2007 in the most confident market conditions of the modern era.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from July to September 2006, the third quarter of the Portia Simpson Miller PNP government’s first year in which the summer tourism season performed with its full boom-period energy, the North Coast resort and residential communities maintained the international demand that the cycle’s growth conditions had been building, and the Kingston and wider Jamaican residential market extended its sustained appreciation through what the sector’s participants recognised as the most productive summer and early autumn the modern market had experienced.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from April to June 2006, the first full quarter under Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s PNP government, in which the spring season delivered the property market’s most confident second quarter in the modern era, the North Coast prepared for what the sector anticipated would be its most productive summer season, Kingston’s residential market sustained the boom cycle’s sustained appreciation, and the diaspora community demonstrated its continued engagement with the Jamaica property market at levels consistent with the peak period’s demand.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from January to March 2006, a first quarter that delivered the boom cycle’s most energetic winter diaspora season and concluded with the historic accession of Portia Simpson Miller to the Prime Ministership on March 30th — just three days before this edition’s publication — marking the end of P.J. Patterson’s fourteen years in office and opening a question that the property market must now assess: whether the new administration’s stewardship will sustain the conditions that the boom cycle’s continuation requires.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from October to December 2005, a fourth quarter in which the property sector demonstrated the resilience and confidence that the boom cycle’s accumulated momentum had established, recovering through the autumn from the hurricane season’s disruptions — including Hurricane Emily’s July path and Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact on the American Gulf Coast — to deliver a Christmas diaspora season that affirmed the Jamaica market’s underlying strength and sent the property sector into 2006 with confidence in the cycle’s continuation under the P.J. Patterson PNP government’s final months.

A quarterly review of Jamaica’s property market from July to September 2005, a third quarter that tested the boom period’s resilience with a series of storm events of unusual severity: Hurricane Emily’s July passage brought significant damage to Jamaica’s eastern parishes, and Hurricane Katrina’s August devastation of the American Gulf Coast introduced a degree of economic and psychological disruption into the United States diaspora community’s environment that the Jamaica property market must now assess as it enters the fourth quarter and the approaching winter season.