If you come down here and give yourself enough time to get over the initial excitement, you may soon come to realize that virtually everything is 4-Sale here.
Anywhere there are tourists and residential tourism, there are a huge amount of Real Estate companies... a few professional and many... well... I'll leave that to each one to categorize some of them.
So, what's going on with prices?
On one side there is a substantial share of owners who really want or have to sell. Some, would kiss your feet if you would only get them out of what ever they got themselves into and if possible offer them a ride to the airport. What was to be paradise has and is turning into hell to many. Do they advertise their properties at a price to sell? Many, probably not because they may being ill advised by several groups: Unscrupulous or unprofessional "agents", neighbors and other would be investors who don't want to see homes around theirs being offered to low and high prices from surrounding "kite fliers".
Kite fliers... well, there are many and sometimes it's like a storm which take on a whole road, community, town or region like a fire. And the phenomenon does not limit itself to foreigners then it is quite well represented among Dominican neighborhoods. How so? Well, let's say the good people at street number 6 have a relative "working" at a local Real Estate "company". He might suggest to offer the home for sale. They don't want to sell but the "agent" reminds them of the gringo loco fairy tale... (Gringos have a three on which money grows... it's endless!), and that their house may fetch a sum the owners had never really thought of. "Now, would such a gringo loco appear and offer that sum, wouldn't you sell?". Sure they would, so the home gets listed. Funny thing is, even some gringos who have lived here under the sun a little too long, seem to have come to believe the gringo loco fairy tale.
Anyway, the neighbor in house # 12 finds out that at # 6 they're SELLING and for so-and-so many Miliones! Obviously their house has to be worth more. So there you go, another listing.. just for a little more. And on and on goes the fire!
In Dominican Spanish, in casual discussions there is no difference between trying to sell and actually having SOLD... "... las casas en esta urbanisacion se estan vendiendo en 10 Miliones e incluso mas! (*)" even though they may have been bearing 4 Sale signs FOR YEARS without a sale. An then, they keep on going up, because, well, there is inflation and real estate has to go up, really.
An other issue is that you can't just go to the court house and pull the records of all sales in the last year of a specific sector or find any other reliable data base as to at what price properties really have SOLD for.
So, investigate and do so on-site. You can't buy online. You have to get to know each neighborhood and it's issues and advantages. You have to familiarize yourself with typical construction defects and issues (when compared to your home country), like humidity problems (because of bad building techniques), water problems (because of bad planning an not taking into account traditional problems with water and electricity supply), flooding and so forth.
And do let your heart do the decision making... select a couple of properties you would feel comfortable living in and then BARGAIN, and BARGAIN hard... until you find a real seller who will just be happy if you offer him that ride out.
(*) homes in this development are being sold at 10 millions (pesos) and up!
... J-D.
