Belize has all the potential to be one of the fastest moving, most exciting and multi-tiered emerging real estate markets in the world. After all, there’s no denying the nation’s intense attraction to tourists and its almost inimitable appeal to retirees looking for a low-tax, low-cost, safe, and well-developed country in which to live…
…and yet, and yet…Belize has yet to promote its appeal widely enough or successfully enough to attract the number of tourists, wealthy retirees, or even investors that it so deserves and certainly needs if it wants to boost its economy, tackle poverty and manage its large trade deficit and foreign debt
This means that Belize is not reaching its real estate market potential and that 2007 will likely be another slow year for real estate in Belize.
Now, that’s not to say that profits can’t be made and released in the short term, it just means that it’s harder to find any form of fast-moving market and the best investment strategy that can be applied to the Belize real estate economy. at the moment. it is a long-term one where land and real estate is stored in banks, properties are held and held, when possible rented for income acquisition, but most importantly purchased at today’s low prices and will remain until Belize reaches the point where it surely should, making it recognized as one of the most attractive places in the world to live, work, visit or retire.
In terms of efforts being made to raise Belize’s profile internationally, the Belizean government seems relatively committed to marketing the nation’s attractiveness as a tourist destination, for example, which is positive and necessary, especially because Belize’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism. However, the tourism-based economy is not growing particularly fast and Belize has also not developed much as an attractive tax shelter economy, which is the other side of the economy that the government is trying to promote. Furthermore, most of the retirees who come to live in Belize are from North America, and European buyers are virtually unaware of Belize’s charms.
So what’s the problem then? Well, if one looks at the World Travel and Tourism Council statistics on Belize, its economy based on travel and tourism should have grown about 6% in 2006, which is fine, but the WTTC predicts that average increases Annually from 2007 onwards are only around 4.6%, which is not enough if Belize wants to become a player in the global travel and tourism market.
Part of the problem seems to be related to the amount of government spending that goes into the travel and tourism sector. The government currently spends 12.2% of its total budget on tourism, which may sound like a lot, but when you realize that the government considers and requires tourism to be Belize’s primary source of foreign exchange, shouldn’t they Willing to invest more to get more back? The WTTC does not miss out on the possibility that this situation will change a lot in 2007 with its predictions that public spending will expand by only 12.7% over the next 9 years.
Thus, there are no sustained efforts aimed at increasing Belize’s potential as a notable offshore haven, a distinguished retirement location, and a tourist destination with broad and varied appeal and this is what disappoints Belize as an investment hotspot. Potentially profitable real estate in 2007, but since all the rationales are in place for Belize to have one of the most exciting emerging real estate markets in the world, investors should not ignore Belize. The nation will remain a slow burner through 2007 and beyond until the rest of the world wakes up to the potential embodied by Belize, which it surely will.