The re­al es­tate mar­ket in Trinidad and To­ba­go is strange­ly placed.

There is no short­age of de­mand for home­own­er­ship in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as past and present hous­ing min­is­ters can at­test. There are thou­sands of ap­pli­ca­tions that re­main in the sys­tem of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion.

How­ev­er, in the pri­vate mar­ket, re­al es­tate agents are strug­gling to sell prop­er­ties that have been on the mar­ket for years, while new homes are ap­pear­ing on the mar­ket with high­er prices.

Pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion Re­al Es­tate Agents of T&T, Sal­ly Singh, feels her col­leagues have a tough road ahead.

“The re­al es­tate sec­tor in T&T sits at a cross­roads. While it re­mains a buy­ers’ mar­ket with sta­ble re­sale prices, the con­tin­ued up­ward push on new home prices threat­ens to ex­ac­er­bate af­ford­abil­i­ty is­sues. For the mar­ket to re­main healthy and in­clu­sive, stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing de­vel­op­ers, fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers, must work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to ad­dress the sys­temic bar­ri­ers that lim­it ac­cess to home­own­er­ship,” Singh told the Busi­ness Guardian, via an emailed re­sponse to ques­tions sent to her.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Bank’s An­nu­al Eco­nom­ic Sur­vey 2024, there had been a 20.3 per cent in­crease in land and re­al es­tate lend­ing, with the bank’s mon­e­tary pol­i­cy com­mit­tee stat­ing there had been an in­crease in re­al es­tate in­vest­ment.

Singh, a bro­ker at Sal­ly Singh Re­al Es­tate Ser­vices, how­ev­er, said the mar­ket has large­ly been un­changed de­spite this ob­ser­va­tion.

She ex­plained, “De­spite wide­spread per­cep­tions of in­creas­ing re­al es­tate prices in T&T, the mar­ket has re­mained rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble over the past three years, at least for re­sale prop­er­ties. While new de­vel­op­ments are en­ter­ing the mar­ket at high­er price points, old­er hous­ing stock has large­ly seen flat or mar­gin­al move­ment in val­ues. This split dy­nam­ic be­tween the re­sale and new con­struc­tion seg­ments is re­shap­ing the land­scape for both buy­ers and sell­ers.”

She stat­ed there had been mar­gin­al price growth dri­ven by new de­vel­op­ments, but it was not re­flec­tive of the wider state of the mar­ket.

“While the broad­er mar­ket hasn’t ex­pe­ri­enced a sig­nif­i­cant surge in res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty prices, new de­vel­op­ments are telling a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. De­vel­op­ers are in­cre­men­tal­ly in­creas­ing their ask­ing prices, a trend large­ly dri­ven by ris­ing con­struc­tion and fi­nanc­ing costs. In some cas­es, projects that launch at one price point see price hikes of up to 10 per cent dur­ing the de­vel­op­ment cy­cle, par­tic­u­lar­ly when de­mand is strong,” Singh said, “This up­ward pres­sure on new hous­ing prices cre­ates the im­pres­sion of a boom­ing mar­ket. How­ev­er, it pri­mar­i­ly re­flects the pric­ing strate­gies of de­vel­op­ers and the costs they in­cur, rather than a uni­form ap­pre­ci­a­tion in prop­er­ty val­ues across the board.”

She how­ev­er, felt while the new op­tions on the mar­ket com­mand­ed high­er prices, there are old­er prop­er­ties on the mar­ket which could be vi­able op­tions for those search­ing for a new home.

Singh said, “In con­trast, the re­sale mar­ket, par­tic­u­lar­ly old­er hous­ing stock, has seen very lit­tle price vari­a­tion. Sell­ers in this seg­ment are find­ing it in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to close deals quick­ly, with longer mar­ket­ing pe­ri­ods and more buy­er ne­go­ti­a­tions be­com­ing the norm. As such, re­sale prop­er­ties of­ten present bet­ter val­ue and more room for ne­go­ti­a­tion, po­si­tion­ing them as at­trac­tive op­tions for dis­cern­ing buy­ers.”

She said this has cre­at­ed the view that the re­al es­tate mar­ket is cur­rent­ly a buy­er’s mar­ket.

The AREA pres­i­dent said, “This has ce­ment­ed T&T’s re­al es­tate land­scape as a buy­ers’ mar­ket, es­pe­cial­ly in the re­sale sec­tor. Buy­ers to­day hold more lever­age in ne­go­ti­a­tions, and sell­ers are of­ten re­quired to show flex­i­bil­i­ty on both price and terms in or­der to se­cure sales.”

The pric­ing of new prop­er­ties would have been alarm­ing to prospec­tive home own­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly young pro­fes­sion­als who are now so­lid­i­fy­ing their ca­reers and are aim­ing to buy a house. Singh said in some cas­es the pric­ing did sug­gest that young pro­fes­sion­als were locked out of home own­er­ship.

“A crit­i­cal con­cern in the cur­rent re­al es­tate en­vi­ron­ment is the af­ford­abil­i­ty cri­sis fac­ing young pro­fes­sion­als aged 25–40. De­spite a steady lev­el of in­ter­est in home­own­er­ship among this group, ac­tu­al pur­chas­es re­main low. High prop­er­ty prices, strin­gent mort­gage qual­i­fi­ca­tion cri­te­ria and lim­it­ed af­ford­able hous­ing op­tions have placed home­own­er­ship out of reach for many,” she said.

“Many in this de­mo­graph­ic con­tin­ue to re­side in fam­i­ly homes or turn to the rental mar­ket, rather than pur­chas­ing. The sup­ply of rea­son­ably priced, move-in-ready homes in de­sir­able lo­ca­tions is sim­ply not meet­ing the de­mand from mid­dle-in­come buy­ers. In many cas­es, prop­er­ties priced un­der $1 mil­lion are fix­er-up­pers, and the cost of up­grad­ing these homes makes them not on­ly un­af­ford­able but al­so un­at­trac­tive to this seg­ment, who are pri­mar­i­ly seek­ing mod­ern, new­ly built homes.”

She ad­mit­ted the new de­vel­op­ments did man­age to se­cure some mem­bers of this de­mo­graph­ic.

Singh said, “De­spite these chal­lenges, de­vel­op­ers are con­tin­u­ing to find op­por­tu­ni­ty in the de­mand for turnkey, mod­ern hous­ing, es­pe­cial­ly among younger buy­ers who val­ue con­ve­nience and ameni­ties. These projects of­ten come at a pre­mi­um, but they ap­peal to buy­ers will­ing to pay for move-in-ready so­lu­tions. The strat­e­gy has worked well in high-de­mand pock­ets, where lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty dri­ves quick­er sales and even mid-de­vel­op­ment price in­creas­es.”

The AREA pres­i­dent is un­sure whether this ap­proach is sus­tain­able if the af­ford­abil­i­ty gap is not ad­dressed.

She said, ”If mid­dle-in­come buy­ers re­main priced out, de­mand may be­gin to ta­per, im­pact­ing fu­ture project vi­a­bil­i­ty.”

She list­ed sev­er­al is­sues that need­ed to be ad­dressed in or­der to break the ap­par­ent stale­mate in the mar­ket.

“Ef­forts such as in­cen­tivis­ing af­ford­able hous­ing de­vel­op­ment, re­vis­ing mort­gage qual­i­fi­ca­tion stan­dards, and stream­lin­ing reg­u­la­to­ry process­es could go a long way in cre­at­ing a more bal­anced and ac­ces­si­ble re­al es­tate mar­ket,” she said.

“Un­til then, buy­ers es­pe­cial­ly first-time ones, will need to nav­i­gate the mar­ket care­ful­ly, weigh­ing the trade-offs be­tween new and re­sale prop­er­ties while watch­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ties in a land­scape marked more by com­plex­i­ty than con­sis­ten­cy.”

• Af­ford­abil­i­ty: Prop­er­ty prices re­main dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high com­pared to the av­er­age in­come of mid­dle-class earn­ers, es­pe­cial­ly young pro­fes­sion­als;

• Mort­gage Ac­cess: Many po­ten­tial buy­ers fail to meet the in­come-to-loan ra­tios re­quired by banks, mak­ing fi­nanc­ing a sig­nif­i­cant hur­dle;

• Con­struc­tion Costs: Ris­ing costs for ma­te­ri­als and labour are mak­ing it more ex­pen­sive to build, push­ing de­vel­op­ers to in­crease prices to main­tain prof­itabil­i­ty;

• Sup­ply Con­straints: There’s a short­age of qual­i­ty, well-priced hous­ing in lo­ca­tions that meet the ex­pec­ta­tions of mod­ern buy­ers as well as ap­proved res­i­den­tial land use;

• Eco­nom­ic Un­cer­tain­ty: Lin­ger­ing con­cerns over job se­cu­ri­ty, in­fla­tion, and broad­er eco­nom­ic per­for­mance have damp­ened buy­er con­fi­dence and made banks more con­ser­v­a­tive in their lend­ing prac­tices; and

• Reg­u­la­to­ry De­lays: Lengthy ap­proval process­es and bu­reau­crat­ic hur­dles con­tin­ue to slow down de­vel­op­ment time­lines and in­crease costs.