The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Real Estate Association’s (BREA) president yesterday identified New Providence’s rental market as a segment that will be particularly “strong over the next 12 months” due to the boost from multiple investment projects.

Nikki Boeuf told Tribune Business that demand for rental properties was being bolstered by expatriate workers arriving in The Bahamas to work on construction projects and other developments. This is offsetting the drop-off in post-Dorian rentals as Grand Bahama and Abaco residents who relocated are increasingly looking to return home.

“We still have the international market that’s picked up tremendously, and we are seeing a lot of rentals with international rentals now. These are a lot of condos, condos in general,” Mrs Boeuf said. Expatriate construction employees working on developments such as GoldWynn and at Love Beach are “primarily” behind this new surge in rental demand. The only thing that may cool the market at this point is a lack of available inventory.

Mrs Boeuf said: “I’m finding that inventory is a little harder to locate, but it depends on what our clients want, of course. But again, I expect at some point it will start to slow in any case because normally after such a long period of strong sales we always will see a cyclical market where we’ll see things start to level off.”

As for the “sellers market” in the domestic real estate niche, Mrs Boeuf said it was difficult to predict how long this trend will last.

She said: “It’s very difficult to say the length of time.

“We’re noticing this thing in the US that they’ve now started to hit a recession, so I don’t know if we’ll have a full two-year run, but I do certainly see this trend going on for a while yet.”