The current economic crisis that has been affecting Cuba for months, as well as the drop in tourism and the mass exodus of Cubans abroad, have left Cuba’s real estate market in a deplorable state.
According to the media Radio Martiseveral residents have complained about this from the interior of the Island, where everyone is looking to sell their homes and there is almost no demand for them.
Independent journalist Vladímir Turró indicated that this is the case in the capital municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, where most of the advertisements related to the real estate market have to do with the sale of homes.
The situation has also affected the price at which a property sells, with homes that previously would have cost around $20,000 being offered at a quarter of that price.
“The great desire of the majority of Cubans to want to leave the island, due to the economic, social and political situation that we are experiencing, has generated an excessively large downturn, houses that in the past perhaps cost between 15, 20 thousand, today They are over five thousand dollars,” he stated.
Sociologist Ángel Marcelo Rodríguez Pita indicated that the drop in tourism, which brings with it a decrease in demand for hostels and rental apartments in Cuba, has played an important factor in the drop in prices.
“In Central Havana and Old Havana, the value has depreciated significantly, until apartments are sold for 2,000, 3,000 US dollars. We would be talking about apartments with between one and two rooms intended to be hostels, a very central place and, above all, very favorable for tourism,” he explained.
Additionally, the competition to sell these places has become a race against time, due to zero demand.
“Every day it becomes more difficult to sell an apartment,” he added.
The independent journalist, Guillermo del Sol, also indicated to the aforementioned media that the real estate buying and selling scenario in Santa Clara suffers from the same problems, with more and more people wanting to sell their homes to leave the country.
“It is incredible how the price of housing in Cuba has been devalued. There is not a block that does not have four or five signs.”
In his opinion, the houses are being sold at such a low price because people only have the goal of flying to Nicaragua to start emigrating.
“House prices are at sick chicken prices. The only thing people aspire to do is raise 7, 8 thousand pesos to flee from here via Nicaragua, to the United States border, or to Brazil, which is emigrating a lot,” he added.
The news outlet shared several other examples of cases in which houses, which were purchased for tens of thousands of dollars, have not been able to sell for a fraction of that price.
“I have another friend who is a musician; I would like you to see the house that man is selling for $4,500. It’s not that the properties are not worth it, it’s that people express their desire to leave the country. What people want is to leave here,” explained one of them.
The situation makes it clear that a good part of the Cuban population has the goal of escaping the shortage that plagues the country, regardless of how much they have to lose in the sale of a home that cost them much more to build and care for for decades.
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