Looking for the unique selling point that makes Realtors Limited, winner of Overseas Living’s Luxury Lifestyle Award for Best Real Estate Agency, Barbados – 2010, a success, apart from excellent service and a fine understanding of its market, it would be the company’s sheer longevity.

It is more than 55 years since the current chairman, Nick Parravicino, and his wife Sheila, bought out the firm, which had only a couple of staff at the time, and since then it has grown to some 35 employees in two offices, with Nick and Sheila’s grandson Bruce Parravicino now the manager of Villa Rentals and Property Management.

Along the way, when the now internationally known Sandy Lane Hotel first started in the 1950s, Nick Parravicino was friendly with the developer, who was also developing the adjacent Sandy Lane Estate. Nick sold off the lots of the Sandy Lane Estate that were around the Sandy Lane Golf Course, these were bought by many very wealthy overseas clients to build their holiday mansions. Thus, Realtors Limited became the main real estate agent for these homes. Sandy Lane became some of the most prestigious real estate on the planet, where properties sell for between US$3m to US$20m. Today, Suzanne Davis, manager of sales and business development of Realtors Limited, says, “we still manage most of the properties on the Sandy Lane Estate all these years later, although they have changed hands several times.”

Personal service
Realtors Limited, Davis says, “is one of the longest standing companies in Barbados, so we are very well respected on the island, and we’re very well thought of. We have a great repeat clientele, so obviously they are very happy with us. It’s very easy for overseas buyers to conduct business in Barbados, we have well qualified attorneys and most of the recognized banks on the island, and therefore, transferring money is easy. If they need a mortgage we can put them in touch with the right people.

“What differentiates us from other real estate companies on the island is our personalised service – that is our mainstay. We believe in giving personal service to our clients, many of whom have been with us many years and have become personal friends of ours. We try to make them feel at home with us and they become part of our family. I think that is one of the reasons that they are loyal to us. When we sell a client a property we quite often manage it for them, so stay in contact with the client all the time. If the client wishes to rent their home as a holiday home when they are not using it themselves, our short-term department achieves rentals for them and our house administrators take care of the renters while they are on the island. This personalised service has gained us many repeat clients.”

Because so many expatriate buyers stay in their properties for perhaps only three months in the year, during the remaining nine months they look to rent those homes out to holidaying families, and they turn to Realtors Limited to manage those rentals. “Our short-term rental side has always been extremely good,” Davis says. “The short-term rentals went down slightly in the recession last year but they’ve certainly come back almost to right where they used to be.”

Customers, Davis explains, “are mostly coming from the UK and Europe, and secondly Canada and then the United States.

We have found that the Americans are quite happy to come on holiday away from their homeland, but when it comes to investing in a property they like to invest in something that’s connected to the States. I don’t know whether they just feel more comfortable that way – but the British and the Canadians have never been like that. They have always invested heavily in Barbados and still do.”

Realtors Limited sells “all sorts of properties”, Davis says, “we are a full real estate agency and our services include sales, property  management, villa rentals, and long term rentals and have a wide selection of villas, townhouses, condos, commercial properties and land, island-wide. Therefore, we cater to all walks of life and to all budgets.”

Indeed, although Barbados saw business slacken off considerably from about February 2009, during the heart of the recession, we still saw several overseas buyers purchase Plantation-Style homes and the local market was also very stable.”

Since December 2009 “it has been extremely busy with people looking for property to purchase,” Davis says. “The higher end properties are what are starting to move now and this is trickling down to the middle price range.”

On the Platinum Coast, the west coast of the island, there are many types of holiday homes available; from the most luxurious properties to townhouses and condominiums, both on the beach and inland. There are many prime areas such as Sandy Lane Estate, Royal Westmoreland, Sugar Hill, and Apes Hill with price ranges from US$350,000 to US$20m.

Stable market
Davis has been with Realtors Limited for 23 years and says the main change she has seen is the growth in the condominium sector. “Condominiums were never a part of our landscape up until the last five to 10 years. The reason for this is, as we are an island, beachfront land is at a premium and when a sizeable lot comes on the market, it is snapped up by a developer who maximizes the returns by building condominiums or townhouses.” Another recent change, she says, “are groups of friends or investment clubs purchasing holiday homes around the world, including Barbados. This has been the trend for the last 18 months to two years.”

Property prices on the island have been very stable and have not fallen the way they have in other parts of the world, due to the recession, “Over the years our prices have increased and plateaued for a period of time and then increased again, making property in Barbados a very lucrative investment.” Overall, Davis sees business continuing to grow for both Barbados and Realtors Limited.

Realtors Limited is not restricted to Barbados; “We have some property we deal with in Grenada and St. Lucia and we’re looking at a couple of the other islands,” Davis says. “We were planning to branch out into those islands just prior to the recession, and then had to draw back a bit, but I think as things pick back up we will pursue that more actively.”
Realtors looks forward to being of service both to existing and to potential clients.