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“By 2019, most of the hurricane-bashed homes were sold or had been rebuilt, though not all,” said Chris Smith, a managing broker with Coldwell Banker British Virgin Islands Real Estate, which has the listing for this home. “We were trying to get back to normal in 2019 when Covid hit.”
The pandemic brought a lockdown and curfews, as well as some of the more onerous travel restrictions in the Caribbean, said Edward de Mallet Morgan, a partner in global super prime residential at Knight Frank. “I think the main reason for the prohibitive restrictions is the islands are a big financial center, a big insurance center, so tourism isn’t as important as it is in some other Caribbean countries,” he said.
Once again, domestic buyers stepped in to sustain the housing market, buoyed by a stamp-duty exemption for local purchasers introduced in 2020 and extended into 2021. Foreign investors began returning to the Virgin Islands in 2021, as they have throughout much of the Caribbean, Mr. Childs said.
“For the last two years, we’ve been used to seeing hardly anybody around in the high season, but now we’ve got the cruise ships back, we’ve got people staying in hotels and villas, and we’ve got the yachts back,” he said. “You get the sense that for this high season, we’ve really got people back in the British Virgin Islands, and it’s about time.”
Data on housing trends in the Virgin Islands is not always current, because of landholding license processing times for foreigners, and the Department of Land Registry doesn’t issue reports, brokers said. However, according to Mr. Childs, from 2018 to the third quarter of 2021 there were 271 house sales, most on Tortola, where the seat of government and the financial sector are located, and on Virgin Gorda, a tourist island with spectacular beaches.
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