By Business & Finance 
The launch of Royal Westmoreland Group’s Barbados properties in Ireland suggests that Irish investors are looking abroad again.
As the property market in Ireland is on the up again, the option of overseas investment has also returned. With sharply rising property prices, and – earlier this summer – OECD warnings of another housing bubble, there are signs that some investors are looking overseas to find value propositions and attractive investments once again.
But while the Celtic Tiger years saw eastern European countries such as Poland and Bulgaria as the focus of Irish overseas property investment, a decade on some developers and agents are urging people to look west instead. Barbados is one such spot aimed at Irish investors, with UK firm Royal Westmoreland Group recently launching properties from its luxury portfolio into the Irish market to service demand.
The market has several attractive qualities beyond the guaranteed sunshine, however, with tax to the forefront: there is no inheritance tax and no capital gains tax. Thanks to its Commonwealth status the island is stable and prosperous and has been rated by The Daily Telegraph as the fifth-best place in the world to buy a property and by the Financial Times as one of the top 10 most attractive locations to buy abroad.
The Royal Westmoreland offerings are priced in sterling, which is on a downward curve amid Brexit uncertainties. The setting is a gated community with a Robert Trent Jones-designed 18-hole golf course, a spa and gym, swimming pools and a beach club.
Two options are available: Royal Palm Villas are colonial-style four-bedroomed 250 square-metre houses with a long list of luxury facilities, costing €1m and upwards. Meanwhile, fully furnished detatched golf cottages including membership and legal costs are available for €674,000. In both cases fractional, two-week-per-annum ownership transacted in the Isle of Man is available.
Director of sales Kim Goddard (kim.goddard@royal-westmoreland
