Latest / IMI Podcasts / Price Hike Possible Also for CBI Real Estate Option, Reveals Grenada Developer
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Grenada has had a record year in terms of CBI revenue, exceeding one billion East Caribbean dollars, some 370 million US dollars, in 2023 on the back of an anticipated price hike that's driving up investors' appetites before it takes effect this June 30th, a deadline Grenada's CBI boss, Thomas Anthony, has told IMI he expects to meet, but one that at least one agent indicates may be unrealistic.
- 0:30SPEAKER_00: At Global Citizen Week, Cairo 2024, Richard Hallam, CBI director at Aura Caribbean, spoke to IMI about how the price increase for the donation option might influence demand for the real estate route.
- 0:47SPEAKER_00: Hallam's company has developed several real estate projects for potential CBI investors in Grenada and recently took over the Kawana Bay project, which saw its construction halted two years ago following the previous developer's acrimonious dispute with the former government.
- 1:05SPEAKER_00: With nearly 5,000 citizenships issued in 2023 and about 1,800 in the backlog, Grenada is looking at historically unprecedented CBI application volumes.
- 1:19SPEAKER_00: The elevated figures, however, were due to surging Russian application numbers from the first half of 2023, when Grenada's CIP was the only one in the region to accept that nationality.
- 1:34SPEAKER_00: Now that Russians are barred from Grenada as well, it would be reasonable to expect a dip in demand.
- 1:41SPEAKER_00: But as Hallam explains, high application volume has never been a priority for Grenada.
- 1:48SPEAKER_00: I think Granada has always been a boutique program.
- 1:51SPEAKER_00: We've never gone after thousands of applications, said Hallam.
- 1:55SPEAKER_00: I don't think we've had a strive to achieve a lot of applications.
- 1:58SPEAKER_00: But the anticipated price increase is giving the program a bit of a bump.
- 2:03SPEAKER_00: People will want to get in earlier before june thirtieth, he added.
- 2:08SPEAKER_00: Hallam is referring to the memorandum of agreement signed by Granada and three other Caribbean nations in which they all agreed to harmonize their programs, raise investment thresholds to two hundred thousand US dollars, and apply stringent due diligence and security measures come June 30th.
- 2:28SPEAKER_00: Interested applicants are now seeking to lock in their applications before the price increases.
- 2:35SPEAKER_00: Now, applicants can get Grenada citizenship via one of two main routes, a donation route, section 10, requiring at least 150,000 US dollars, or a real estate purchase, section eleven, of at least two hundred twenty thousand US dollars.
- 2:53SPEAKER_00: Hallam expects that the real estate might soon see some changes.
- 2:57SPEAKER_00: They will want to keep a delta between Section ten and Section eleven to keep the donation option competitive, said Hallam.
- 3:05SPEAKER_00: We're kind of anticipating possibly somewhat of a price hike in Section eleven, although trying to get that information is proving difficult.
- 3:13SPEAKER_00: But I know discussions have been had, he revealed.
- 3:18SPEAKER_00: In the full seven minute interview, which our IMI Pro members can find in the IMI Pro members lounge, Hallam also discusses the discussions with the government that led Aura to take over the Kawana Bay project, the challenges of stepping into a half finished project compared to launching one from scratch, how many CBI citizenships Aura will be able to sell through the Kawana Bay Project, and how soon he expects to be able to complete each phase of the project.
- 3:50SPEAKER_00: This episode first appeared as an article by Mustafa Dali on IMIDaily.com.
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