Banking
Fiji's Denarau's Proving Popular for Retirement
Sales graph hasn't dipped since May 2000
Sales graphics displayed jubilantly by Martin Darveniza demonstrates that despite rocky times since the May 2000 coup toppled the then government, lots of overseas people remain sold on investing and living in Fiji.
Seventy-five percent of them are Australians and New Zealanders, who want a holiday or retirement villa in the big integrated resort located at Denarau Island, near Nadi Airport, rather than say at Sanctuary Bay, or Noosa, or other upmarket resorts scattered along the Queensland coast, a few thousand kilometres over the sea from Denarau. Despite bouts of political unrest since the coup, the graph line has not dipped by an iota, but is now ascending at a steadily sharper and accelerating rate, according to Darveniza, managing director of Tabua Investments, the now 100 percent Brierley Investments subsidiary behind the villa estate schemes shaping up at Denarau. It's almost a "fire sale," he says.
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Nearly all the 49 lots on the Fairway Palms have gone for an average of F$100,000 (US$42,000) a piece. Well over half of the lots on the Mariner¹s Reach Estate have gone for an average of F$145,000 (US$60,900) and the 31 premium waterfront lots in The Cove Estate are being taken at a fast rate for an average of F$240,000 (US$100,800).
Darveniza expects that a total of 15 to 20 villas will be constructed on the estates this year at a cost corresponding to the price of the lots they are built on. "We are very affordable in terms of Hawaii and similar international golf course resorts," he says. "Our prices are extremely competitive and the buyers are people who really love Fiji. They are invariably people with a long history of repeat visits to it."
Some sales have been made to buyers in France, South Africa, Canada and Britain. Significantly, Darveniza says, more sales are being made to Fiji nationals wanting retirement residence who previously would have chose to retire to Australia or New Zealand. The first few privately-owned villas have been completed and Tabua Investments opened a model villa last month.
The villa estates are located around a marina that will grow to become a small resort town. Darveniza says a fourth estate, to be called Mariner's Point, is in the planning stage. It is located between Denarau's Sheraton and Trendwest properties, a development similar to an apartment complex between two Sheraton resorts.
The 82 apartments in the first complex sold for a total of F$38.5 million (US$16.17 million) for an average of F$470,000 (US$197,400) and a top price of F$690,000 (US$289,800). Owners contract them for use by Sheraton when not occupying them themselves.
