Smiths Gore analyses, compiles, and publishes BVI real estate data. This helps us provide better advice to clients, whether they are buyers, sellers or investors. The data that we collect and analyse helps us to understand market trends. It informs our valuations and appraisals and, in turn, helps our to assist clients to make informed better investment decisions.
Property owners seeking to exit their investment will often receive wide-ranging opinions on value from the property industry, which can lead to uncertainty about where the exit price for an investment should be. Market data compiled by Smiths Gore can help investors interpret market trends and evaluate their options. In addition to historical sales data, Smiths Gore can provide a competitive market analysis to give property owners an insight into the competitive set of listed properties.
Overall real estate market activity in the BVI slowed in 2023 and 2024. The total volume of transactions, measured by dollar value fell by more than half, from $156M in 2022 to $69M in 2024. The record high figure in 2022 was skewed by a single land sale of $45M in Oil Nut Bay Estate. Excluding this transaction, the market peaked in 2021.
Sales to Belongers, which were strengthened in 2020 and 2021 by the Government’s stamp duty waiver program, also fell, from a peak of $83M in 2021 to $38M in 2024.Sales to Non-Belongers declined more sharply, from a record high of $116M in 2022 to $30M in 2024.
The number of sales to Non-Belongers in the BVI, which has rarely been above 30 over the last 15 years, fell to just 22 in 2024. This was the lowest number of sales recorded to Non-Belongers since 2012.
Although there were only 22 sales to Non-Belongers in 2024 the total value of those sales was approximately $30M compared with 194 sales to Belongers with a value of $38M during the same period.
Non Belongers purchased an almost equal number of homes as vacant land parcels in 2024, as shown in the following graph.
The high value real estate sales in Little Dix Bay, Oil Nut Bay and Moskito Island on Virgin Gorda have had a significant impact on the BVI real estate market. The chart below shows that since 2010, sales in these luxury estates have represented at least 15% of the total volume of transactions in the BVI. In 2015 and 2022 sales in these estates represented over 60% of the total market sales volume.
In 2024 there was one sale each in Little Dix Bay, Moskito Island and Oil Nut Bay Estate.
The majority of homes sold in the BVI are priced below $1.0M. In 2024, there were 35 home sales recorded below $1.0M, down from 52 in 2023. In 2024, there were 12 home sales above $1.0M, down from 19 in 2022. The following graph shows the number of homes sold in the BVI by price range since 2019.
Average prices in the BVI can be misleading as a single transaction in such a small market can have a significant impact on the figures. In 2022, for example, the sale of a $12.6M home on Virgin Gorda increased the average price for sales to Non-Belongers by $500,000 in that year.
Allowing for that unusual sale in 2022, the chart below shows that average prices for both Belongers and Non-Belongers have remained quite steady since 2021.
The market for residential lots remained strong in 2024. The number of residential lot sales increased from 96 sales in 2023 to 137 in 2024. The $50,000 to $100,000 per lot price range comprises 39% of the total market while sales above $150,000 account for 15%.
The sale of residential lots on Tortola between 2019 and 2024 in the graph above shows that the market peaked in 2021 with 185 sales, falling back in 2022 and 2023 before a modest increase in 2024. The average price for hillside residential lots on Tortola in 2024 remained almost the same as the previous year at $4.09 per square foot.
The map shows the distribution of sales on Tortola and the dominance of the local market (marked green) against foreign investors (marked red)
