Yesterday’s paper had a chirpy and cheery update from a local real estate agent.
The article claims that the average cost of a single family home is now just under a million. Meanwhile a January 2007 article from the same agency put the price at 1.325 million. That implies the average sales price of Bermuda real estate has dropped by more than 25% in one year.
(Another agency gave the average sales price as $1.6 million in January 2007, which implies the slump may be closer to 40%. I’d be happier if market numbers were coming from an independent source like Government’s statisticians or the economist Mr. Simmons at Bermuda College rather than a biased sales agency.)
But, am I surprised? No. This is the same drop seen in many prime areas of the US. Despite Bermuda’s lucky charms, we are not immune.
With the growing inventory of local properties and dodgy international economy, we can expect these numbers to go down further. There are good analyses of why at 21 Square and New Onion.
