The Bahamas
I have this image of the Bahamas as an old tourist country. People have been going there for decades for the winter sun, and the crystal clear waters, and the palm-fringed white beaches. The place has appeared in numerous films as a backdrop to jet-setting people doing their thing in an expensive setting. Heck, Nassau even appeared in a couple of James Bond movies. I expected to find that Nassau was a large, commercially slick place, and expected the out islands to be substantially developed. What I found was quite the opposite.
I landed at the airport where initially the impressions were favourable. Scattered around were two or three commercial airliners, but the place was crammed with light aircraft. Obviously this was a place where the rich lived, and they got around in their own planes.
However, the airport building, despite apparently recently having several millions of dollars spent on a face-lift, was quite simply a dump. It consisted of one long building that looked exceedingly drab, and contained virtually no facilities. There is a pub and a wine shop, a couple of sets of lavatories and a sad cafe. When i returned to the cafe to get something to eat I was told they'd sold out of hot food, but I could have a bun, or a packet of sweets. One curious omission is the existence of a clock. But then I found this to be typical of the Bahamas. They just dont seem to have clocks anywhere at all.
Outside is mayhem. There are several guys standing around a pile of boxes on which are a set of draughts. People are milling around, apparently quite aimlessly. I walk up and down for about twenty minutes trying to get orientated, and the same people are still milling around. Everywhere are stretch limos, which seem to be taxis. The other taxis are small ten-seater vans. The fare into Nassau is $22. The bad news is that if ten people sit in this van, each of you still have to pay $22, which seems an extortionate amount to pay for a twenty minute drive into town. Just one such trip of about ten miles will thus net the driver about £130. There is no bus service into town. I assume the taxi lobby is very strong.
The town itself is a sprawling mess. There is a small central area, with about three blocks of shops and businesses. To one side of this is the port, usually stacked out with cruise ships. There is a curious lack of basic tourist shops, which is, in one sense, rather nice. But I wanted to book a flight or a boat trip to Great Exuma and Long Island. The strange thing was that I could not see anywhere to book such flights. When I arrived everywhere was shut, yet it was only seven o'clock in the evening. I later discovered that the local flight companies operate from the far end of the airport building. But not Bahamas Air. There was also no travel company in the town. The only travel shop was shut, and I had to get a mini-bus, called a jitney, to a place called Marathon, where they had a shopping mall. This was about six miles out of town, thru a chaotic urban sprawl.
These jitneys are a great way to get about. There are hundreds of them whizzing about in every direction. They seat about a dozen people. They charge around at a great rate of knots, and only cost a dollar.
I stopped off at Cable Beach, just to the east of the Nassau, where there is a clutch of hotels right on the beach. They appear to be modern and slick until you actually get in, and then you notice they are rather old and fading. The plumbing looks to be about fifty years old, and everything is cracking, paint peeling, and generally looking rather tired. T.v.s are on everywhere, with loud muzak blaring from every point. I find it difficult checking in, trying to understand the heavy accent behind the racket from the loudspeakers above, and it was with a certain amount of relief that I made it to my room, which was deliciously cool. I made the mistake of opening the patio doors, and in rushed this wall of soggy heat.
I found it difficult to sleep. I had been up since five that morning, and it was now about three a.m. British time, so I should have been wacked, but after about two hours kip I was up and about again. It was dark of course, being about midnight local time. It was also still very warm. I put on my swimming costume and went swimming in the sea. I then spent the rest of the night swapping from the sea, to the hotel swimming pool, and then the jacuzzi.
Exuma:
Getting from one island to the other is not an organised thing. You have your yacht; use it. Or maybe you have your own plane. There simply aren't tourist boats that ply the islands. This isn't like the Greek island transport system.
I decided to fly to Exuma and then go on to Long Island. The main town in Exuma is George Town, which is really a small settlement no larger than the average small village in the UK. There is a cluster of houses around the petrol station, two hotels, a couple of bars, and a couple of churches. Most of the houses are small shed-like structures made of wood with felt roofs, and they are scattered around an amazing outer and inner harbour.
Elizabeth harbour is a large enclosed area, with a couple of islands in the middle. The beaches are white sand, and on the southern stretch there is a clutch of modern tourist houses. There is also a small inlet running under the main road (the only road actually) into a small pond-like area, where smaller boats are moored, and there is a jetty and boat chandler and repair shop. At the other end of the village is a concrete jetty where the ferries tie up with their loads of concrete blocks, cement, and various goods for the island. There is also a largish shed which houses the island's supermarket.
All the folks are very freiendly, and it is almost impossible to go for a walk anywhere without half the population smiling and wishing you Good Day.
T.v. is everywhere, usually running US programs, so it is largely unwatchable. The radio blares away in the buses of course, with masses of ads, including one bizarre ad which extolled the virtues of some laxative which, it is claimed "works even while you sleep", which sounds a bit worrying.
I cant get my head around the property situation here. On the one hand, the place is gorgeous, with fabulous weather, amazing beaches, wonderful warm clear seas, friendly natives, virtually no crime, and close to the U.S. On the other hand there are patches which have been set out for development, and planning was agreed forty years ago, and yet no development has taken place. I find that very strange. What stopped it? And yet, here and there are small developments with 2 million dollar houses on them. And yet, further down the island are plots for sale for $20,000. It is all very confusing.
Everything is screaming out at me that this place is ready to go, and prices can only go thru the roof. And yet I hear a politician on the box arguing with great vehemence that the government does not want the out islands to go the way of Nassau, with masses of hotel and tourist development.
I sit under a poinciana tree, which is covered in bracts of bright red, with the red petals littering the ground below. It is disgustingly hot, and I am hiding from the fierce sun. I look out over Elizabeth harbour and wonder what it is all about.
It is an amazing place to come for a quiet relaxing holiday. There is zero night-life. There is a plethora of churches to attend on sunday morning. One can go fishing, or snorkelling over the reefs, or go for a stroll, or sleep. This does not appear to be a place where one can live for any length of time, without being able to 'go back to nature', or survive on one's own resources.
Long Island:
I flew over from GreatExuma to Long Island. There was no scheduled flight. There were no inter-island boats. This is a do-it-yourself place. This is where the rich travel in their own planes or yachts, and the poor stay put. Tourists are the rich people with their own transport, or they come in by charter flight, and stay on the beach.
Exuma airport was a simple strip with a simple shed. There were two members of staff and me. The rest of the place was deserted. It is the only time I have been in an airport where I was the only passenger.
I arrived at the strip in Stella Maris. This used to be the main airfield for Long Island, but now it is largely deserted and the flights usually go from Deadmans Cay, down in the south.
I walk to the hotel, which is about a mile away. It is only half past ten but it is getting seriously hot, so I shuffle from shade to shade. Everywhere is the bush. On all sides is this upgrowth of short, tangled trees, almost impenetrable. There is a chequer-board of roads cut thru this bush. They were paved fifty years ago and are now overgrown, with pot-holes. The trees and shrubs make a strange sound in the breeze, like the scraping of paper.
The hotel is a series of buildings amongst coconut palms, which curve up from the ground. There are three swimming pools, one a sea-water infinity pool overlooking miles of rocky coastline. There are crabs climbing up rock walls, and mudskippers on the rocks.
The next day is a day of storms and I am hotel-bound. The maid comes in to clean my room, singing gospel songs. I have already noticed that there are almost as many churches as there are homes on the islands. Later I drive the length of the island, and find that each settlement has at least one church and maybe three. There are no towns, only small settlements. There are in fact three categories of habitation. There are the odd huts, sheds, or houses stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Then there are the tiny settlements of anything from three to twenty houses, with anything from one to three chapels. Then there are the full grown villages, often a couple on each island.
The maid tells me with great excitement how she is going on a church convention on thursday. She goes every year and they sing hymns for three days. It is the highlight of her year. And she toddles round the room with her broom singing softly another hymn.
The day after the storm there are crabs everywhere. Small pink things with claws stuck up in the air. They are on the patio, in the bar, climbing up the walls, and even crawling over the roofs. I walk round the main hotel building and count over 200 of them. They are whizzing about in the grass, and crawling over the stone walls. I expect we'll have crab soup for dinner. Actually I have a conch soup, and some grouper with a guava sauce. The conch meat seems rather like mince. This is followed by a gamey chicken with peppers, and the whole is washed down with an excellent Chilean burgundy.
The food is okay. There is a lot of fish of course, and conch seems to be the staple diet. On my trip down the length of the island I stop at Ed's conch bar and have cracked conch with potato salad and fried plantain. Rather nice!
The breakfasts are dull. They do a seriously watered down version of the American style breakfast, with ham and eggs and omlettes, and lousy coffee, plus grits, which is some kind of cracked maize, which looks like porridge and tastes of nothing in particular.
A local speciality is conch fritters, which is conch meat, mashed into a paste together with spices and then deep fried till golden brown. They are delicious.
I spend a day out in the boat, snorkelling over some reefs, watching the pretty coloured fish. Another day is spent exploring the island. It is half a mile wide at its narrowest and a couple of miles wide at its fattest. There is really only one road, the Queens Highway, which runs from the lagoons in the north beyond Cape Santa Maria to the south at Gordons. I drive right down till the road just stops. There is a side track across a small causeway onto the ubiquitous white sand beach. There is a small herd of goats lazing under a coconut tree, and beyond them the sand, and then the wide expanse of blue-green, under-lit sparkling sea. I stand there staring thru the tree at the magical water. It really is just like the trourist pictures.
Each village seems to have its quota of poinciana trees with the red bracts dropping small red leaves underneath. I drive thru settlements with quaint names. There is Slow Down Bend, there is Hard Bargain. And there are settlement names posted up by the side of the road, but I cant actually see any settlement.
So what am I going to do? Do I buy or dont I?
The Stella Maris complex is criss-crossed by a series of roads laid down in the sixties when planning consent was originally given for this large estate covering several square miles. There must be at least 1000 lots for development. On a hill overlooking the Atlantic is an area designated for hotels and shops. On the Caribbean side is a small marina, but this is scheduled to be vastly increased, and behind that is an area scheduled for a golf course.
This is all fine and dandy, but what has been happening over the past forty years? As far as I can tell during that time perhaps twenty homes have been developed. Obviously the development is continuing, and over the course of the next twenty years, if things carry on at their present rate, we might find the development has reached some kind of critical mass, when suddenly things will accelerate, and the whole concept will come alive and the crucial infrastructure to make the place viable as a tourist project that can be sold to the outside world will be installed. Pending that, I am not sure what is for sale in terms of concept.
Let's look at a few basics.
Access to the islands, and between them, is difficult. There are a couple of planes a day, but no boats. Flights to Exuma are scheduled from Florida, and these could easily be extended. All it needs is for the island developments to reach critical mass. Access from Europe is always going to be slow. You will need to get to your airport in Europe, wait for your flight to Nassau, then wait at Nassau for a connecting flight to the island of your choice, then pay for a taxi to deliver you to the part of the island where your house is. That is likely to cost roughly £1000 per person, and take the best part of an entire day. You will arrive jetlagged. You've got the same rigmarole getting back, and local planes never seem to fly on time. My flight to Exuma was delayed by an hour. My flight out from Long Island was two hours late.
Facilities on the islands are sparse. There are shops, but everything is imported, and items are not as cheap as they are across the water in the U.S.A. There are no builders' merchants. All building materials have to be imported. On top of this taxes are collected not on income but on imports. This makes purchases even more expensive.
There are no cinemas or nightclubs. No theatre or music. In fact, all entertainment is either village style or via satellite dish. This means life will be based on one's own resources. It might be great for a holiday home, but living in this environment assumes that the person wants to escape from the everyday chaos of the rest of the world. There is a very small local population. There is virtually no crime, and certainly I had no key to my hotel room on Long Island. If something goes wrong with your car, a new part will have to be imported from the States. If you need to earn a living you would have to do it over the internet, as there is actually nowhere to go to work. Obviously there are the usual trades: builder, mechanic, boat charter, maid, etc, but not a lot else. You could start a crab farm, and export quality crabs. You could start a flying school, and offer a few leisure sports, but until the population increases to a critical mass, you will probably not be able to support a decent living.
Actually getting one's house built might take some time as builders and materials all have to be imported. There are builders on the island, but if more than three houses are being built at the same time there is going to be a shortage of labour which will have to come from another island or the mainland. These builders will have to be housed somewhere, which is a cost that will have to be added to the normal labour costs. There could well be an income to be had from importing trailers and setting up a trailer park and renting out the living space to itinerant builders.
Looking at things from a different point of view, one can see there is value here. The scenary, including the beaches and the reefs, and the sheer beauty and clarity of the water itself are amazing assets. The island hideaway character of the place makes it desirable. America is 300 miles away, which is just a short air-hop. Similar lots on the coast in Florida or on the American Cays cost ten times what they do in the Bahamas. Increasingly Americans are going to be looking to these coastlines to invest for holiday homes or their retirement. It is only a matter of time before the place fills up, and prises rise.
The climate is tropical, in fact the Tropic of Cancer runs through both Exuma and Long Island. The sea is warm all thru the year. The climate runs from pleasantly hot, to slightly too hot, but the island breezes and extensive trees make it a pleasant climate to live and work in. Older people will probably love it, and teenagers will go mad with frustration. But with a boat, a holiday here could be magic. Everywhere is within a mile of the sea, but to buy a lot without a sea view would be insanity. There are many lots at Stella Maris which have no view of the sea. (I'll come back to this problem.) Obviously the best lots are those with ocean frontage, and the preference is probably to have a westerly aspect, the leeward side. This is calmer, but hotter in the summer. It is obviously nice to be able to walk to the edge of your garden, cross the beach and either dive into the water or get into your boat, but quite honestly, I cant image it can be much of a pain to walk 500 yards to the beach or landing stage.
Choosing a suitable lot really comes down to a combination of points. Sea-view is essential. Because of the access problems from the outside world one really does need to be less than half an hour from the nearest airport. One also needs to be within 500 yards of a landing stage for one's boat, for to live on an island without having a boat is ridiculous.
The most expensive and probably the most desirable lots in terms of investment are going to be beach frontage lots on the Caribbean side of the islands. Beach lots on the eastern side come next, and then those lots which have a good sea view and are a short stroll to the beach. Anything else isn't worth buying. This means there are problems in Stella Maris.
Many of the central lots here have no sea view at all. Even the lots that are on the coastal strip will only have a sea view if the houses are frontline or second line. This means anything further back will look out to the backyards of the houses in front. It is difficult to work out what views there are from lots on the ridges as the trees impeded my view. Even with climbing the trees I found the views from most of the lots were seriously restricted. You would have to choose your lot very carefully to make sure it had a sea view. I do seriously wonder whether there are better deals available down the road. In any event, I wonder whether a massive resort is what people will be looking for in choosing to invest on the island. I would have thought an investment in one of the smaller settlements would have been a better deal.
I have changed my lot and have gone for a large site on a bluff overlooking the proposed golf course and out across the bay. The views are what will sell here. No view equals no deal in my opinion.
I also think the real development area will be around Elizabeth Harbour on Exuma. It is a spectacular site, and there is miles of it.
The investment potential is probably to be measured in the mid to long term. Short term prices have been ramped up over the past few years. I think the value of lots here will be directly related to prices of real estate in the U.S.A. There has been five or six years of rampant house price inflation in America, and this has caused people to look abroad for good holiday deals, and has given them the equity in their existing properties to be able to afford this. We are also just entering the period when the boomers are starting to retire. There are a lot of them, and they mostly do have money. I guess a lot of them are going to be looking in this direction. Prices will undoubtedly rise over the next decade, but they may suffer a relapse if there is a crisis in the American housing market. I would be inclined to buy now, but I would much prefer to buy after a slight price collapse. I guess waiting for any collapse could prove counter-productive.
The real problem is not about investing here, it is about whether to invest in real estate at all at the moment with oil prices climbing ever higher, and the prospect of a related economic slowdown feeding thru to the housing market. I still feel an oil related crisis is very likely, and as such I would be investing in real estate very gingerly at the moment. But with lots as low as $25,000 it would be hard to go seriously wrong.