After a very rocky roller coaster ride in 2009/2010, all of us who survived and are still involved in the Dominican Republic real estate market are certainly in a bit of a shock. Many of the local real estate markets in North America are in the same situation and we ALL know that real estate is cyclical, but wow! Things have definitely changed since the third quarter of 2008, before Lehman Brother pulled the rug out on all of us (and our mutual funds).

Initially, it seemed that here in the DR we were going to emerge relatively unscathed. The number of appointments at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 was stable and we still had (almost) as many clients looking for real estate; to us everything seemed as usual and we really felt that perhaps we had escaped disaster. The bad news came in the second quarter of 2009 when we realized that all the clients who had visited us during the high season and had traveled with us to view real estate in the Dominican Republic had kept their pockets tightly closed.

Most of the people who visited the island during the high season of 2008-2009 with the purpose of buying real estate in the Dominican Republic, contacted us and booked their vacations before the collapse of October 2008. Therefore, we had almost the same number of customers visiting and business seemed as usual. Reality hit us when we realized that the deals were almost non-existent (compared to the previous year where at least 1 in 4 customers bought), but of course our expenses were the same because everyone who had planned or scheduled to view property, still met with us and toured the property. In hindsight, this situation is the obvious result of the side effects of a North American market downturn in a vacation destination (where vacations were booked in advance), but for some reason we didn’t anticipate this.

However, now it appears that we have been through the worst, and the market has started to heat up again. Prices have adjusted, inquiries are almost as numerous as they were in 2008, and offers are up slightly from 2009. The most significant indicator of the rebound is the substantial increase in the number of inquiries for commercial real estate in the Dominican Republic. . Investors, who have not existed since the end of 2008, have returned and they are numerous. Commercial offers have generally been low offers and many require seller financing, but the activity is there and indicates that investors believe now is the time to invest in this emerging market.

If you are an investor interested in taking advantage of the real estate investment opportunities in the Dominican Republic and are waiting for the market to hit bottom, it seems that we have reached it and 2010 will be the year where the best transactions are made. Don’t be one of the unlucky ones who look back ruefully on 2012 and wish they had taken advantage of the 2010 prices. Now is the time!