Land and development in Belize

[Jovelyn Punzal]

Hello! My family and I are looking to invest in Belize! Would love to hear some experience and insight with anyone who's doing this currently!

[Greg Scott]

Have you been there?

Your profile says you are beginning your investment journey.  If this were one of your first investments, I would advise against it.

We've been hearing about Belize real estate for a long time.  Last year my wife and I decided to travel there.  We spent a day in Belize city, traveled to Tikal Guatemala, then spent a week on Ambergris Caye.  For background, I'm not a sheltered American. I've traveled extensively and lived in Mexico and Venezuela as a student, so I'm not turned off by cultural differences.

I know some people love traveling to Belize regularly.  We met several ex-pats living there.  They seemed to be divided into three camps.  1) Retirees who came for the warm weather and somewhat lower cost of living 2) People who bought a business and are living there 3) People who love to scuba dive and were coming there all the time anyway.

Before going, I talked to a friend who's mom had a condo in Belize.  She wintered there.  He said the biggest problem was that every year, upon return, they would find various things had been stolen from their condo.

I found Belize City unimpressive.  The waterfront and port areas were under-developed, looking very industrial. They did not take advantage of their great water frontage to develop a tourist destination.

Amgergris Caye was more touristy and we found many good restaurants and bars.  There were very few sandy beaches. Most of their sand was hardpacked with sea walls. To go swimming, you generally had to walk out on a pier.  Most of the hotels in the area were essentially small condos rented out as hotels. The one we stayed in was highly rated, and had about 25 units.  

Were staying near Mohagany Bay. This is a very large Hilton development. They were selling off units there which you could use as rentals when you were not staying there.  On the positive side, they built it will all the comforts of the US and it had recreational facilities.  On the negative side, it was like going to a hotel in the US, and from what I can gather, the investment returns would be terrible.  The coffee shop we went there was easily 2x the price of local coffee shops.  The units were also priced much higher than things you could find outside the development. In my experience, resorts like that make a lot of money off of management, basically consuming all potential cashflow.  I would never buy one of those as an investment. I would only buy if that was where I wanted to live a large portion of the year.  Yes, you might get some appreciation.  Net, net, net, you probably won't make a lot of money because of all the fees.

We love exploring local places, so drove our golf cart an hour South of there and two hours North. Once you get out of the built-up areas, it gets odd. It seems like there are a bunch of people looking to build one-off houses and condo complexes.  There are numerous lots with half-built houses, lots of for-sale signs on buildings, and also vacant land for sale.  

In the city of San Pedro, people are cleaning off the shoreline.  Once you get outside, we noted that the on-shore breaze push sargassum on to the land. The rotting sargassum smells like rotten eggs, so most of the rural ocean-side areas smelled bad.

Assuming none if what I wrote bothers you, like any international investment, you now have currency risk, political risk, and added costs from managing all that, plus the on-going requirements for filing taxes.

For us, it made a lot more sense to keep investing in the US where we know how to get great returns on our money.  With that money, we can go visit Belize any time we like.