With no property taxes, owning land in Cayman is a solid and hassle free investment. You can build when you are ready, or sell the land for a profit when it is convenient or necessary.
Land continues to be in high demand as there are generally no costs to maintain it and buyers have the freedom to start building whenever they want to, so Caymanians like to invest in land for ‘land banking’. Traditionally, Caymanians offer land to newlyweds as wedding gifts, so good land is always in high demand but rarely comes onto the market, and when it does, it does not stay on for long.
There were 184 parcels of land sold in 2023, which was expectedly down on 2022 by 27%.
Key factors driving significant increases in value are house lots being built on, housing sub-divisions maturing and the inventory of desirable plots dwindling. Grand Harbour has been another very popular area for house lot sales, with the last sale price at Harbour Reach being CI$46.18 psf, which is a bout a 4% increase on the average price of 2022.
Landlocked parcels in Savannah have shown a 16% increase from 2022 to 2023, with average sale prices of CI$14.38 psf in 2023 compared with CI$12 psf in 2022. North Sound front parcels have shown a 39% increase from 2022 to mid-2023.
Land in West Bay sold for an average of US$26.08 psf. Land prices in Frank Sound, for a 0.3-acre plot, have also risen from CI$5.71 psf in 2021 to CI$7.93 psf in 2022. There's no viable data available to make a comparison for 2023.
In Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, there were 24 land sales in the first half of 2023 compared to 56 (Brac) and 33 (LC) in 2022, and they sold for 30% less than the asking price.