Construction Buildup in Guam Aids Real Estate
A construction buildup in Guam is helping the local real estate market remain hot, even in the face of a pandemic that has made travel difficult across the island, real estate experts said.
Work in progress underway in Guam. The Navy has been using high-rise construction to fortify against the possibility of a missile attack from North Korea.
Guam realtors have noticed that the housing market is hot — especially in the Tamuning area. Construction in the territory has increased somewhat over the past several years, but that hasn’t translated into a strong fall in prices, says broker Marc E. MacDonald.
The main area had two separate sections: an inner area housing the Guam convention center and the outer area housing the rest of the convention facilities.
Real estate in the Pacific island territory rose in price by about 15 percent a year, fueled in part by a building boom that began in 2010, according to data from CoreLogic, a real estate data analytics company. The company’s data on prices and property values show that in 12 of the 16 months tracked, prices grew at least 3 percent a month, including a 22 percent gain in May. The median price, based on data from CoreLogic and from local brokers, was up 20 percent from a year earlier in the same period.
Evacuation centers have been set up in New Haven, CT, on the Yale campus, and on the Briarcliff campus of the New York City College of Technology.
The Guam Federation of Labor is planning a trade unionization drive for the territory’s hospital and health care workers, despite the fact that there are few of these workers in Guam, according to labor leaders and union officials.
In Guam, prices of existing homes soared even as the supply of new ones remained near a five-year low. The median price of an existing house rose about 19 percent in the year ended in May, according to data from CoreLogic. It was the largest year-over-year jump in prices since 2007.
Acreage near Guam is among the most productive for pacific blue water resources with some of the richest fish. Yet it’s also bound to become the object of military manuevers if tensions with North Korea continue to escalate, said Guam Economic Development Authority Vice President J.V. Bonacorsi.
Workers helped build what organizers called the world’s first medical marijuana dispensary in Guam. It opened in October on the grounds of the island’s only hospital, the Tri-Island Medical Center, in the capital of Agana Heights.
