Advice for buying land in Belize

What to Consider when buying land in Belize.

Today I just wanted to talk a little bit about buying land and what that process is like. I know a lot of people are interested in this topic. I get a lot of people reaching out saying, what are some things I need to take into consideration when it comes to buying land in Belize? So I thought I’d just cover a few of those main things here today.

Location

Number one is location. So where exactly is it? And like anything in real estate, the location is going to determine the value. Obviously, the price and the value are one thing, but also it matters what you want as the buyer, right?

Where exactly do you want to be located on the island? And, this is referring to the Cayes or the island of, Ambergris Caye specifically. As you know, Belize is a whole country, and this is just referring to the island of Ambergris Caye or San Pedro as it’s also known.

So where exactly is the land? And so you’ll look maybe online at different real estate listings and so forth, and you’ll see the prices are like all over the board. And the reason for that is because the location is going to determine the price for the most part. Now, anything right on the water, like anywhere, is going to be, a higher price for the most part. Right? So if you’re right on the ocean or just a lot or two back, those are gonna be your highest price lots.

Now, where exactly is it? Is it way up north? Is it in town? Is it over at secret beach? Is it on the east side? Is it on the west side? Does it have utilities? All those sorts of things are going to be things that are going to affect the value and, make a difference when it comes to the price of the land. So you could look at something and say, oh, that price is very low, but what you might not realize at the time is that it’s way far away from anything else, and it’d be difficult to actually build a home or vacation property or do any development there and that sort of thing.

Now it’s a small island and eventually, if you hold on long enough growth will catch up. But depending on what you want to do, and what your plans are, you’ll definitely want to take location into consideration because different locations are gonna present different challenges, right? So obviously the location matters. And when it comes to buying land, just find out where it is.

Your agent or whoever you’re dealing with should be able to help you understand the location. You can ask them for a map of the area and say, show me exactly where on the map it is. And a lot of times you’ll say, oh, can you send me a map? And you’ll get this map. And it’s zoomed all the way in and you can’t really get a sense of where on the island. That’s kind of a red flag, in my opinion. How come you’re not showing me exactly where it is? And so a lot of people will say, oh, it’s a good location. Or they’ll just kind of give you their opinion on it, but it matters as to what you want, where you want to be.
And it also matters as to exactly where it is on the island. So just be sure to take the location into consideration.

Land Title

Another consideration is going to be the title to the property. I’m from the U.S. and if you’re buying in the States, you want to make sure that you have, what’s called a clear and marketable title. This is basically when the owner has the right to sell you a title that’s free and clear of encumbrances and liens and, and any cloud on title, that sort of thing.

So you wanna make sure you’re getting a clean title and that you’re getting also the right kind of title. There are two types of titles that I’m aware of in Belize and one is more advantageous than the other.

One is a land certificate, that’s your best sort of most protective type of title is a land certificate.
And when you’re buying land, you want to get a land certificate. That’s going to give you the most protection and your most rights of ownership.

The other one is called a deed of conveyance. That’s the other type of title I would suggest staying away from – a deed of conveyance. There might be a situation in which you want to buy a deed of conveyance. But I would say in my opinion, nine times out of 10, don’t buy the deed of conveyance. There are some caveats that go along with a deed of conveyance that might not give you the full strength of ownership that you would like to have and should have when buying a piece of property.

So the land certificate is what you want, and with a deed of conveyance, just be sure to exercise caution. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Road Access

Lastly, is road access. I’ll talk a little bit about utility access as well, but for right now, let’s talk about road access. So there’s a lot of land on the island of Ambergris Caye that’s available for sale but it is also completely inaccessible. You can’t get there, it’s swamp land, so to speak. There’s no road, there’s no way to get to it. It’s practically underwater in some instances. So you wanna be very careful as to what kind of access you have to it.

You’ll see sometimes if you’re dealing with a Belize real estate agent or, or somebody who wants to sell you land, they’ll send you some information and you’ll see a plot map and it looks like there’s road access to it. But what that is, is basically just a surveyed road. It’s proposed road access based on a survey plot map. But in reality, there actually is no road cut to it. So you have to be very careful when, when buying this type of land.

It’s one thing if you want to just buy land for land banking, and you’re not going do anything with it for 10, or 20 years. But if you’re planning on building right away, or you want to use it in a reasonable amount of time, if there’s no road access, you’ll have to take into consideration the idea of building a road which can be very expensive depending on how much road would need to be developed.

If it’s real swampy or, kind of in a low-lying area, you’re gonna have to pay for a lot of backfill to come in to make it buildable. So just be cautious about exactly where it is and what kind of road access it has.

Utility Access

The other thing to consider is utility access. So if you don’t know this, basically the east side of the island has electricity, but the west side does not. The west side is secret beach and this area is obviously becoming very popular. But one of the things that have to be done at secret beach, for anyone who’s building a home or having a business is you have to take into consideration the cost of, of a solar system or some kind of generator system, uh, because there are no actual electrical utilities going to that area yet.

It’s, proposed that in the future it will, but as of right now, it’s all off-grid and you’ll have to get a solar system or some kind of alternative power.

On the east side, generally, there’s going to be electricity. Basically all the way up north, all the way south, there’s electricity. So depending on what you wanna do and what kind of setup you’d like to have, just take that into consideration.

So if you’re buying at secret beach, that’s all off-grid. If you’re buying on the east coast, you’ll probably have access to some kind of electricity.

So that’s that. I just wanted to give everyone a few pointers on buying land. If you have any other questions, you can always reach out to us here, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions.