Latest Astra verdict · 5-year hold · 7% personal hurdle
NO BUY
Primary valuation lens · advertised price per sq ft
$5,850,000 ask divided by 5,478 advertised sq ft. The measured interior area still requires reconciliation.
Premium to Walsingham
$779/sq ft · same parish · advertised ask
Premium to Glebe House
$915/sq ft · advertised ask
NO BUY at $5.85 million for your stated objective of a high-confidence, five-year investment return. Against your separate alternative of renting and leaving the entry cash compounding at 7% in equities, the conclusion remains the same. Over five years, renting wins by $1.98M. Bacardi on the Rocks would have to appreciate 10.3% a year to draw level under this rent-versus-invest test. Astra’s cash-only report requires 7.0% annual house-price growth merely to recover nominal cash invested.
$7.06M net sale in 2031, less $0.75M of carrying cost
$9.57M portfolio, less $1.29M of rent paid at $18,000/mo escalating 2.07%
$9.56M exit — a 63% gain on the ask in five years
and still match owning — against $18,000/mo for the comparable
The verdict only flips at a hurdle rate low enough that equities barely grow. At 7% — below the S&P 500's long-run nominal average, and well below what an AI-led capex cycle would need to deliver to justify current index levels — owning at this ask is not competitive. The house does not have to be a bad house for this to be true: it has to beat a compounding portfolio while charging you $125,000 a year to hold it and 5.5% to leave.
The recent reported trend: 2023, 2024 and 2025 at +1.9%, +2.1% and +2.2%. The fairest forward read if the current tightness in rental inventory persists.
Reported annual-average change, ten straight years. Cumulative rent inflation across the whole record is +9.1% — under 1% a year — and the index level was 109.1 at the end of 2025 against 107.7 reported for Feb 2026 (April 2015 = 100). Bermuda rents have not run away; Astra's flat 2.5% overstates them.
Bermuda publishes no dollar rent series at this end of the market, so the level stays a named input rather than a fabricated average. The escalation is measured. Anchors that do exist: the 2016 Census median of $1,705 a month across all rented dwellings — the last official dollar figure Bermuda has published — and statutory financial-assistance rent ceilings of $1,400 (studio), $1,800 (1 bedroom), $2,200 (2 bedroom), $2,800 (3 bedroom). Both describe ordinary housing, not a five-bedroom south-shore estate, so neither is used as the comparable.
This is not a judgement against Bermuda — it applies to the peer set too. Nothing in the island's published record supports high-single-digit appreciation for a house at this price point: leisure air arrivals remain about 30% below 2019, reinsurance headcount is flat across the last two industry surveys, and the resident population is at a twenty-year low. On the latest Astra comparison, Bacardi’s $1,068 per advertised square foot is 37.2% above Walsingham and 16.8% above Glebe House. No matched closed-price and comparable-area evidence substantiates that premium.
Control, permanence, and the ability to renovate — real things this model cannot price. At $18,000 a month, escalating at the 2.07% rate selected above, the five-year rent bill of about $1.29M in future-value terms is already netted off the portfolio figure. Renting also keeps the 12.5% licence fee and the buyer-approval process out of the equation entirely.
Three routes, in order of realism: a negotiated price low enough that the required 10.3% falls to something the market has actually delivered; verified closed comparables proving the ask is below replacement value; or a legally confirmed, lettable cottage producing income the model currently excludes. Any of those changes the arithmetic. A view does not.
The latest Astra report supplies the $5.85M ask, $6,824,713 all-in entry cash,$125,000 first-year owner costs, 2.5% cost inflation and 5.5% selling costs. The 5% appreciation shown in this interactive comparison is a sensitivity, not a forecast. Rent escalation is the reported Department of Statistics CPI Rent sub-index, not an assumption; the rent level is the input set above because no official dollar series exists for houses of this size. This is a comparison of financial outcomes over five years, not an appraisal, and it deliberately assigns no value to living in the house.
Bacardi on the Rocks: NO BUY at $5.85M.
A five-bedroom, 5,478 sq ft single-level estate on 0.9 acres of the Smith's Parish south shore. The latest Astra High Model 6 report tests whether the $1,068-per-square-foot ask can survive five years of acquisition, carrying and exit costs. Its answer is NO BUY.
Latest independent analysis · Astra High Model 6
NO BUY at $5.85M for a high-confidence, five-year investment return.
Keep it on a lifestyle shortlist only if independent valuation evidence, your actual buyer status and your cost of renting materially improve the economics. This is a decision under incomplete evidence, not a claim that the house cannot appreciate. The report’s base case is all cash, ordinary non-Bermudian freehold ownership, personal use, no rental receipts or rent savings, and a five-year exit. It assigns no numerical probability of appreciation.
“A desirable home. Not, on this evidence, an attractive price.”
- Advertised price / area
- $1,068/sq ft
- Cash needed at closing
- $6.82M
- Five-year cash break-even
- $8.21M
- To earn 5% annual cash IRR
- $10.36M
$5.85M ÷ 5,478 advertised sq ft
12.5% licence, half duty, $50K allowance
7.0% annual house-price growth
12.1% annual house-price growth
Price-per-square-foot comparison
Bacardi carries a material premium to the strongest lower-priced asks.
These are advertised prices, not closed transactions. Astra found no qualified closed-sale observation with both verified consideration and consistently measured area. The Smith’s / Flatts transaction percentile is therefore not estimable.
| Property / parish | Ask | Area used | $/sq ft | Bacardi premium | Qualification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bacardi on the Rocks Smith’s | $5.85M | 5,478 | $1,068 | — | Advertised total area; measured interior area still needs reconciliation. |
| Walsingham Smith’s | $4.95M | 6,357.67 | $779 | +37.2% | Listing also describes a 6,000 sq ft residence; at that area Bacardi’s premium is 29.4%. |
| Glebe House Hamilton | $7.50M | 8,200 | $915 | +16.8% | Larger, elevated, multi-level home near Tucker’s Town; a value-per-foot control, not a budget equivalent. |
| Caper Collis Hamilton | $6.90M | 6,000 | $1,150 | -7.1% | The 6,000 sq ft describes the main house; separate pool-house accommodation may be additional. |
| Te Koko Warwick | $8.75M | 6,500 | $1,346 | -20.7% | Structured field says 6,500 sq ft; narrative says over 5,500 interior sq ft. |
Walsingham and Glebe’s raw ratios imply about $4.27M and $5.01M when multiplied by Bacardi’s advertised area. Astra calls these mechanical anchors, not appraised values.
Area normalization comes first
A square foot of finished main-house accommodation is not the same as a garage, veranda, cottage or storage room. These are sensitivities, not findings that area is overstated.
Negotiation discipline
Every $100,000 reduction saves about $116,175 of modeled upfront cash at this price level, but Astra says a modest discount cannot repair the five-year cost structure by itself.
Five-year cash-return scenarios
Even 5% annual appreciation loses cash.
These cases change only house-price growth. They are sensitivities, not forecasts, and no probability is assigned. At 5% appreciation the house reaches $7.47M, yet the modeled cash loss remains about $679,000 after acquisition, carrying and exit costs.
Personal use changes the question, not the base case
The report excludes rent savings from its cash-investment base case. These are illustrative first-year savings escalating at 2.5%, not verified achievable rents for Bacardi.
| Rent avoided | 3% growth | 5% growth | 7% growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 / $0 monthly | -4.0% | -2.0% | 0.0% |
| $150,000 / $12,500 monthly | -1.6% | +0.3% | +2.2% |
| $240,000 / $20,000 monthly | -0.1% | +1.7% | +3.5% |
Evidence required before changing to BUY
- Closed-sale schedule with date, consideration, common area standard, buyer eligibility, condition and concessions—starting in Knapton and Smith’s.
- Measured main-house, cottage, garage and veranda areas, plus occupancy approvals.
- Boundary plan, parcel ID, verified coordinates, elevations, easements, road and beach rights.
- Buyer category, exact licence fee base, cottage eligibility, letting permission and all assessment numbers.
- Structural inspection, ten-year component schedule, renovation invoices and permits.
- Binding insurance terms, storm deductible, claims history and five years of operating bills.
“I would not buy at $5.85M because I needed a high-probability five-year financial gain. I would consider it only as a personally valuable home, with independently supported pricing and a willingness to accept modest or negative financial returns—or after a sufficiently material change in price, legal costs or evidenced income.”
Public listings are seller representations, not surveys or completed sales. The report is decision-support research, not a certified appraisal, legal opinion or assurance of investment performance. The earlier downloadable spreadsheet is a separate ten-year model and does not supersede this newer five-year decision analysis.
Thesis
A desirable home. Not, on this evidence, an attractive price.
Bermuda's high end bottomed in 2016, and in April 2016 the government cut the minimum ARV for a non-Bermudian house purchase from $153,000 to $126,000 to restart foreign demand. Ten years later the island average home is around $1M. What the record does not show is a measured price trajectory for this house: no verified purchase consideration, transfer date or annual valuation for 2016–2025 was obtainable.
The demand story that does hold up is executive housing, not tourism. Employees receiving housing or mortgage benefits rose 28.4% between 2018 and 2023, while leisure air arrivals in 2025 were still about 29.6% below 2019 and reinsurance headcount was broadly flat across the last two ABIR surveys. Real, but not a surge.
The years ahead could add two things the last decade did not have: a rebuilt Fairmont Southampton, and a five-star Loren at Elbow Beach. Astra found no financed, dated construction schedule for either, so neither is credited as an appreciation uplift in the latest report. It instead asks how much appreciation is required to survive known transaction and ownership costs: about 7.0% annually for nominal cash break-even, or 12.1% annually to earn a 5% cash IRR over five years.
Read this first
Every figure below is a model output, not a certified appraisal, title opinion or offer. No verified purchase consideration, transfer date or annual valuation for this house was obtained for 2016–2025 — the only established subject price is the current $5.85M ask. The history is reconstructed from published Bermuda government statistics and reported agency asks; nearby prices are marketing asks, not verified closings. Those gaps are identified rather than filled with invented valuations.
Scrub ten years back, ten years forward.
Whole-property USD sale value for Bacardi on the Rocks and eleven south-shore comparables. The subject's forward path is the Astra assessment verbatim — −1% / +2% / +4% nominal off the $5.85M ask, selectable below as bear, base and bull. These are unweighted stress cases, not probabilities.
Source · ValueAtlas hedonic + event model · whole-property USD · index anchored to the reported 2021 Rego Sotheby’s luxury average ($6.0M), the 2024–25 Coldwell Banker / Royal Gazette island average (≈$1M) and Land Valuation unit counts; years with no published figure are labelled as estimates in the market record below. Comparables are anonymised composites of the Knapton / Harrington Sound / Tucker’s Town sets.
Official market-data audit
What Bermuda publishes—and what it does not.
There is no Bermuda house-price index and no official average or median sale price. There is, every single year, an audited record of the duty and licence fees collected when property changes hands — printed in the Budget Statement's revenue tables. That is the real transaction-value series the forecast leans on, alongside published dwelling completions and valuation-unit counts. Interpolated prices and invented sales counts have been removed; the gaps stay gaps.
- Conveyance duty · 3-yr avg
- $28.1M
- Non-Bermudian fees · 2020/21
- $5.8M
- Official price index
- None
- Residential units · 2025
- ≈32,900
| Fiscal year | Stamp duties (Head 38) | Land to non-Bermudians (Head 27) | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017/18 | $26.7M | $6.1M | actual |
| 2018/19 | $25.7M | $2.8M | actual |
| 2019/20 | $19.6M | $3.1M | actual |
| 2020/21 | $23.7M | $5.8M | actual |
| 2021/22 | $30.0M | $9.0M | revised |
| 2022/23 | $28.8M | — | actual |
| 2023/24 | $24.1M | — | actual |
| 2024/25 | $31.2M | — | actual |
| 2025/26 | $26.0M | — | revised |
Only rows marked actual — printed outturns — feed the forecast signal. Fiscal years run April–March and the figures are cash receipts, not accrual transaction values. Head 38 also covers wills, probate and certain leases, so it is an upper bound on conveyancing activity and cannot separate rising prices from rising volumes. No printed outturn was located for 2021/22.
| Year | Completed dwellings | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 60 | Government |
| 2017 | 146 | Government |
| 2018 | 66 | Government |
| 2019 | 81 | Government |
| 2020 | 41 | Government |
| 2021 | 89 | Government |
| 2022 | 56 | Government |
New housing supply · completed units
- 201660
- 2017146
- 201866
- 201981
- 202041
- 202189
- 202256
Completed dwellings measure new supply, not sales. They cannot be divided by housing stock to create absorption. No official completion figures after 2022 were located. Residential valuation units ran from 32,136 in 2016 to approximately 32,900 in 2025.
Official sources
- Budget Statement 2026/27 · Analysis of Current Account Revenue
- Budget Statement 2025/26
- Budget Statement 2024/25
- Budget Statement 2022/23
- Budget Statement 2021/22
- Budget Statement 2019/20 (earliest year used)
- Land-Holding Charges Regulations 2007 (basis of the non-Bermudian licence fee)
- Bermuda Digest of Statistics 2024 (Department of Statistics)
- Land Valuation Statistics, 31 Dec 2025 (≈32,900 residential units)
- Housing Land Audit and Analysis 2022 (Planning Department)
- Residential property valuation methodology (ARV definition)
- Annual Statistical Return for Real Estate Brokers (regulatory filing, not a published market series)
Bermuda market dashboard
The forecast uses only data Bermuda publishes.
The Government publishes no house-price index — but the two brokerages with Land Title Registry access print transacted average sale prices, and those now drive the price side of this forecast: $1.21M average in 2016, a $1.23M pandemic peak in 2015, and $1.00M in 2025 — -2.1% a year nominal. Registered sale counts, Budget Statement transfer revenue and BTA arrivals sit alongside them. Together they can tilt Astra's −1% / +2% / +4% scenarios by up to 1.5 percentage points a year. Inventory and months-of-supply are still unpublished and stay marked as such.
2025 reported · -2.1%/yr since 2016
2021 reported · the ask sits just under it
3-yr average · +17% vs pre-2020
2024 · 0.91% of 32,900 units
70% of 2019
Transacted average sale price, mainstream (non-luxury) Bermuda residential, in the years the brokerages actually printed a number off Land Title Registry records — 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2025. Bars are spaced evenly for legibility, not by time. The market averaged $1.21M in 2016, peaked at $1.23M in 2015 on pandemic-era demand, and Coldwell Banker described it as hovering around $1.00M in 2025: -17% over 9 years, -2.1% a year nominal and -19% off the peak — a real-terms decline against Bermuda CPI.
| Year | Segment | Average sale | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | single family | $1.23M | reportedColdwell Banker Bermuda Realty, Jul 2015 sales update — Average of single-family homes sold and registered in Government records; single-family was 28% of sales. |
| 2015 | condominium | $590K | reportedColdwell Banker Bermuda Realty, Jul 2015 sales update — Average condo price from sold properties registered in Government records. |
| 2016 | single family | $1.21M | reportedColdwell Banker Bermuda Realty, Jan 2017 market update — Full-year average of sold single-family dwellings. |
| 2016 | condominium | $681K | reportedColdwell Banker Bermuda Realty, Jan 2017 market update |
| 2016 | land | $366K | reportedColdwell Banker Bermuda Realty, Jan 2017 market update |
| 2020 | mainstream | $874K | derivedDerived from Rego SIR 2021 review (+17% to $1,023,000) — Rego SIR printed the 2021 average and the year-over-year change; the 2020 level is the arithmetic implication, not a separately printed figure. |
| 2020 | condominium entry | $248K | derivedDerived from Rego SIR 2021 review (+30% to $322,000) |
| 2020 | land | $331K | reportedRego SIR, Bermuda Real Estate Market 2021 Review |
| 2021 | mainstream | $1.02M | reportedRego SIR, Bermuda Real Estate Market 2021 Review — Non-luxury residential average sale price, +17% on 2020 — the pandemic-era peak of the mainstream market. |
| 2021 | condominium entry | $322K | reportedRego SIR, Bermuda Real Estate Market 2021 Review — Condominiums under ARV $25,800, +30% on 2020. |
| 2021 | land | $1.00M | reportedRego SIR, Bermuda Real Estate Market 2021 Review — Lifted above $1M from $331,000 in 2020 by the Riddell's Bay estate lots — a one-off mix shift, not a market-wide trebling. |
| 2021 | luxury | $6.00M | reportedRego SIR, Bermuda Real Estate Market 2021 Review — Luxury residential average sale price in the strongest year on record for the segment, 73% bought by Bermudians, PRC holders, BOTCs and trusts. The subject's $5.85M ask sits just under this island-wide luxury average. |
| 2025 | mainstream | $1.00M | reportedColdwell Banker Bermuda (Susan Thompson), Royal Gazette, May 2025 — "Bermuda's residential real estate market continues to hover around an average home price of $1 million." Central-parish three-bed/two-bath stock starts at $1.3M–$2.0M; the single-family sweet spot is $1.05M–$2.5M; condos run $500K to $850K+. |
Head 38 Stamp Duties, BD$ millions by fiscal year, as printed in the Budget Statements. The dashed line is the pre-2020 average of $24.0M. The last three published outturns average $28.1M — +17%, or about +3.2% a year nominal, which is close to general inflation rather than ahead of it. The series is volatile: 2019/20 came in at $19.6M and 2024/25 at $31.2M. 2021/22 and 2025/26 have no printed outturn, so they are shown but excluded from the trend maths.
Head 27, 2020/21 outturn, against a pre-2020 average of $4.0M. This is the only official series that isolates the international buyer segment this house would be sold into. Published outturns are thin and a few high-value licences move the line, so the signal is damped.
Duty is charged on consideration, so the take rises when prices rise, when more properties sell, or both — it cannot separate them. Head 38 also captures wills, probate and some leases, so it is an upper bound on conveyancing. Fiscal years run April–March and receipts are cash, not accruals. There is still no official average or median sale price, and ARV is a rental assessment, not a price.
The Government prints no price index, but the two firms with Land Title Registry access print transacted averages. Mainstream Bermuda residential sold for an average $1.21M in 2016, peaked at $1.23M in 2015 on pandemic demand, and Coldwell Banker put the market "hovering around an average home price of $1 million" in 2025 — -17% over 9 years, about -2.1% a year nominal, i.e. a real-terms decline. Luxury has only one printed average: $6.0M in 2021, its strongest year, which is where this $5.8M ask already sits. These are means over thin volume and the registry lags, so they set direction, not precision.
Bermuda publishes no price index, so the forecast uses the money the Government actually collects on property transfers: Head 38 Stamp Duties. The last three printed outturns (2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25) average $28.1M against $24.0M before the pandemic — about 3.2% a year nominal, roughly in line with general inflation rather than ahead of it. The series is volatile (2019/20 $19.6M to 2024/25 $31.2M) and the Government's own 2026/27 forecast assumes no further growth. Duty is charged on consideration, so this moves with prices and volumes together and cannot separate them.
Head 27 "Sale of Land to Non-Bermudians" is the licence-fee revenue foreign buyers pay to acquire Bermuda land — the segment this house would be sold into. It is the only official series that isolates international demand. Outturns are thin (the last printed actual is 2020/21) and a handful of high-value licences can move the line, so the score is damped by half relative to the duty signal.
Land Title Registry counts, as reported by Coldwell Banker: 204 registered sales in 2024 with the true figure put nearer 300, against roughly 300 a decade earlier and about 200 in 2019. Turnover is therefore flat at well under 1% of the 32,900 residential units, versus the 450 transactions a year Coldwell Banker calls a balanced market (1.37%). This is thin liquidity, not momentum: at 2019 volumes average days on market ran past 470. Bermuda still publishes no inventory or months-of-supply series, so this is turnover, not true absorption.
BTA reported vacation/leisure air visitors against the 2019 benchmark of 191,417. A market still ~30% below its pre-pandemic visitor base does not support above-trend resort pricing.
Astra's own 2036 base is $7.13M. At the current weight the data-tilted base is $6.97M — a -2.3% difference. The tilt is deliberately capped: a handful of published fiscal-year revenue outturns and a still-recovering arrivals series, both of them noisy proxies rather than prices, cannot justify moving a ten-year forecast further than that. Even the top of the band leaves the five-year hurdle test at the head of this page unchanged.
Bermuda has no government house-price index, no average or median sale price, no annual residential transaction-count series, and no inventory, days-on-market or months-of-inventory series. The official broker return is an anti-money-laundering filing, not a published dataset. What this dashboard uses instead is real published money — conveyance duty and non-Bermudian land licence fees — which tracks transaction value without separating price from volume. Absorption still contributes zero signal.
- Budget Statement 2026/27 · Analysis of Current Account Revenue
- Budget Statement 2025/26
- Budget Statement 2024/25
- Budget Statement 2022/23
- Budget Statement 2021/22
- Budget Statement 2019/20 (earliest year used)
- Land-Holding Charges Regulations 2007 (basis of the non-Bermudian licence fee)
- BTA · 2025 Visitor Arrivals Report (full year)
- BTA · 2024 Visitor Arrivals Report (full year)
- BTA · 2019 Visitor Arrivals Report (pre-pandemic benchmark)
- Bermuda Digest of Statistics 2024 (Department of Statistics)
- Land Valuation Statistics, 31 Dec 2025 (≈32,900 residential units)
- Housing Land Audit and Analysis 2022 (Planning Department)
- Residential property valuation methodology (ARV definition)
- Annual Statistical Return for Real Estate Brokers (regulatory filing, not a published market series)
Weighted signals
Six signals decide this forecast.
- Highest weight
Executive housing demand grew; reinsurance headcount did not
The Chamber of Commerce's March 2025 report is the most direct housing indicator available: international-business employees receiving housing or mortgage benefits rose from 1,227 in 2018 to 1,575 in 2023, about 28.4% (1,406 housing allowances plus 169 mortgage benefits). ABIR's own surveys are flatter — 2,121 employees and roughly $1.21bn of economic contribution across 31 respondents in 2024, against 2,140 across 30 respondents the year before. Different samples, so not a same-company index, but no hiring boom either.
- High weight
The property clears the numerical buyer bar; approval is separate
Legal guidance indicates a $126,000 minimum house ARV and a 12.5% licence fee for an ordinary non-Bermudian house acquisition. The advertised $138,000 ARV clears the numerical threshold, but eligibility still requires approval — marketing eligibility is not legal approval for this buyer and this multi-unit configuration.
- High weight
The separate cottage is a gating issue, not a bonus
Restrictions apply to multiple dwelling units, with exceptions involving existing non-Bermudian ownership and qualifying assessments. Obtain the existing licence, title, approved plans and all assessment numbers before assuming the main-house ARV authorises the cottage or any future letting: letting and profit-making use can require permission. Cottage income is excluded from the model for that reason.
- Medium weight
Hotel redevelopment is progressing, but is not dated or financed
The Palmetto Beach Club opening marked a Fairmont Southampton milestone in August 2026, and The Loren took its Elbow Beach redesign forward that same month. Neither has a financed, dated construction schedule in the public record, and hotel openings are not guaranteed appreciation. Hotel reopening and airline expansion are also interdependent — counting both would overstate one tourism recovery.
- Medium weight
Tourism has recovered, but not to 2019
Leisure air arrivals ran 164,321 in 2016 and 191,417 in 2019, collapsed to 25,704 in 2020, and reached 134,744 in 2025 — still about 29.6% below 2019. First-half 2026 air arrivals rose 2.5% while available air seats rose only 0.1%. These are leisure air arrivals, not prospective homebuyers or a residential price index.
- Low weight, high variance
Supply cannot respond
The Land Valuation Department counts roughly 32,900 residential units on the entire island, and there is no meaningful development pipeline at this price point in Smith's Parish. That argues a demand shock lands in price rather than volume — a structural argument, not measured evidence for this house.
The asset
28 Knapton Estates Road, Smith's FL 08
Just under an acre of landscaped grounds on the south shore: five bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, 5,478 sq ft on a single level, a wet bar and an ocean-view veranda, every bedroom with French doors to the water and its own bathroom and walk-in closet. Outside there is a pool, a one-bedroom guest cottage, a secret garden, a banana patch and a gated moongate. A short walk to the beach, twelve minutes from the airport, fifteen from Hamilton. Offered fully furnished.
- Beds / baths
- 5 / 5.5
- Interior
- 5,478 sq ft
- Land
- 0.90 acre
- Zoning
- Residential 2
- ARV
- $138,000
- Land tax p.a.
- $29,756
- Intl. eligible
- Yes
- Licence fee
- 12.5% of price
- Est. all-in entry
- $6.82M
All-in entry assumes the 12.5% non-Bermudian house licence fee plus legal and stamp costs on the $5.85M ask. A Bermudian buyer pays materially less.
ValueAtlas extension
A separate ten-year scenario extension.
Legacy workbook bear case: nominal value falls to $5.29M gross by 2036. This is not a latest-report forecast or probability.
Legacy workbook base case: $7.13M gross by 2036. This separate extension includes assumptions the latest five-year report deliberately excludes.
Legacy workbook bull case: $8.66M gross by 2036. It is retained for the map only and is not a validated market forecast.
These older −1% / +2% / +4% ten-year scenarios are retained as a ValueAtlas extension for the 2036 map. They are not the latest Astra report’s five-year return cases and no probability is assigned to them.
Residency, tax and the North American question
The demand this house depends on is created by policy, not by the market.
A $5.85M house north of South Road is not bought by Bermuda's domestic trade-up chain. It is bought by someone who is allowed to buy it, and who wants Bermudian residency badly enough to pay a 12.5% licence fee for the privilege. That makes immigration policy and foreign tax law the real drivers — and the Astra 6 assessment, which stays deliberately inside verified evidence, does not model them. This section does, and labels every judgement as a judgement.
Income per person, 2016–2024
World Bank · current US$GDP per capita rose from about $108,700 in 2016 to roughly $142,250 in 2024 — around 31% over eight years, and about 19% in the last two alone. Total real GDP reached $7.1 billion in 2024, up 1.9%. Some of that per-person rise is genuine income growth and some of it is arithmetic: the denominator is shrinking, because the population is falling.
Where the data does not exist
You asked for average net worth over time. There is no such series for Bermuda. Neither the Department of Statistics nor any wealth-migration report publishes resident net worth, a millionaire count, or the net worth of inbound residents. Income per person is the closest honest proxy, and it measures a different thing. Anyone showing you a Bermudian net-worth trend line has produced it, not measured it.
- Apr 2016capital
Minimum ARV for a non-Bermudian house cut to $126,000
The threshold dropped from $153,000, widening the pool of houses a non-Bermudian may buy. It has not moved in a decade. The subject's advertised $138,000 ARV clears it — which is precisely why this listing is marketed to international buyers at all.
Bermuda land-holding policy ↗ - Aug 2020labour
Work From Bermuda digital-nomad certificate launched
1,315 applications and 1,127 approvals by its second anniversary, but only 234 active holders and an estimated $28M into the economy. Renters, overwhelmingly — not buyers of $5.85M estates.
Government update, Aug 2022 ↗ - Dec 2021labour
Permanent Resident's Certificate pathway comes into force
The Bermuda Immigration and Protection Amendment Act 2021 created a PRC route for long-term non-Bermudian residents. A PRC holder may buy at a lower ARV threshold than other non-Bermudians — the single most valuable status short of Bermudian.
Amendment Act 2021:41 ↗ - Feb 2023 → Jun 2024capital
EIC consolidated into the Economic Investment Residential Certificate
A June 2024 policy replaced the 2003, 2015 and 2021 residential-certificate regimes with a single EIRC, and the qualifying investment list was broadened that same month. Residential property is a recognised qualifying category, historically at a $2.5M minimum investment.
EIRC Policy, June 2024 ↗ - Feb 2025labour
Work From Bermuda programme concluded
Applications closed 28 February 2025, with the stated intent of returning focus to multi-year residency. The pandemic-era rental demand impulse is over.
Government WFB notice ↗ - Nov 2025labour
Work Permit Policy 2025 takes effect
The first rewrite since 2017, laid before the House in September 2025 and effective 1 November. Practitioner briefings read it as tightening employer compliance and hiring obligations — not liberalising the ordinary labour route.
Government, Sep 2025 ↗ - Dec 2025capital
EIRC investment passes $600 million
Government publicised the cumulative milestone in December 2025 and marked the programme's fifth anniversary in April 2026 still citing the same figure. The number of certificates issued is not published — only the dollar total.
Government, Dec 2025 ↗
Read the two tracks together and the answer to your question is: more inviting to high-net-worth capital, less inviting to ordinary work-permit labour. The EIRC has been consolidated, broadened and publicised; the digital-nomad certificate was closed and the work-permit policy rewritten toward tighter employer compliance. That bifurcation is good for this house's buyer pool and bad for the rental depth beneath it.
Why a Canadian can live here tax-free and an American effectively cannot.
You put this exactly right, and it is the most under-priced structural fact about Bermudian real estate. A Canadian keeps the passport and gives up residency. An American keeps residency in the eyes of the IRS no matter where they sleep, and can only escape it by giving up the passport. Same island, same 0% rate — radically different entry price.
| Canadian citizen | US citizen | |
|---|---|---|
| Basis of taxation | Residency. A Canadian citizen who is non-resident is generally outside Canadian tax on non-Canadian-source income. | Citizenship. A US citizen is taxed on worldwide income wherever they live, for life. |
| Cost of leaving | Deemed disposition under s.128.1 ITA — unrealised gains are taxed on the day residency ceases. An acceleration, not a surcharge. | Nothing, unless citizenship is renounced: then the §877A mark-to-market exit tax applies to covered expatriates. |
| What you give up | Residential ties: the home, provincial health cover, day-count. Citizenship and passport are retained. | To reach a genuinely tax-free Bermuda life, citizenship itself — an irreversible step with family, estate and re-entry consequences. |
| Recent policy movement | The proposed 66.67% capital-gains inclusion rate was deferred in January 2025 and cancelled outright on 21 March 2025. Departure remains a 50%-inclusion event. | The renunciation fee was cut roughly 80%, from $2,350 to $450, effective 12 April 2026 — friction reduced, the exit tax untouched. |
| Observed behaviour | Published expatriation counts are a US series; Canada publishes no equivalent. Canadian travel to the US collapsed: one industry survey put winter US travel intent at 26%, down 37%. | Quarterly Federal Register expatriate counts: about 1,285 in Q1 2025 and 954 in Q4 2025, roughly +2% year over year. Elevated, but not a stampede. |
The US is one of very few countries taxing on citizenship, and it has not changed in a century. A Bermuda purchase by an American is a lifestyle and diversification decision; by a Canadian it can be a tax-residency decision. Only one of those two produces a price-insensitive buyer.
Renunciation now costs $450 rather than $2,350, effective April 2026, and published expatriate counts sit near 1,000 a quarter. The exit tax under §877A is untouched, so the binding constraint remains the mark-to-market bill, not the paperwork.
Winter travel intent to the US fell to about 26%, a 37% drop, and press coverage documents Canadian travel redirecting toward the Caribbean and Bermuda specifically. What does not exist is any Bermudian statistic showing those visitors converting into buyers. Sentiment is measured; purchases are not.
ValueAtlas predictions · not in the Astra model
How this plays out, priced.
Each line adjusts the Astra base case of $7.13M — itself +2% a year on the $5.85M ask — for a policy or geopolitical outcome Astra deliberately excluded for lack of hard evidence. The probabilities are our judgement, not measurements, and they do not sum to 100 because the downside can occur alongside any of the upsides. Click a row for the reasoning.
Bermuda keeps promoting the EIRC while tightening ordinary work permits, and neither materially changes the buyer pool for a $5.85M Smith's Parish house. Nominal growth stays near inflation. This is the Astra base case, unchanged.
Not much, and that is the point. Weighting every policy and geopolitical scenario above lifts the 2036 figure from $7.13M to about $7.40M — roughly 4% more. Against a 12.5% licence fee, about $140,000 a year in carrying cost, 5.5% selling costs and a 5% opportunity-cost rate, an uplift of that size does not turn a 0.8% economic return into an investment case. The residency and tax story is a good reason to want to live in Bermuda, and a weak reason to pay this ask on appreciation grounds. If the Canadian bid or an expanded EIRC does show up in verified closed transactions, that is the moment to revisit — with evidence, rather than ahead of it.
Six policy levers decide whether $5.85M is ever recoverable.
Every lever starts at its current setting. The resulting ten-year price is a ValueAtlas policy sensitivity based on the earlier workbook, not the latest Astra report’s five-year forecast. $7.13M gross in September 2036 exactly. Move a lever and the scenario-adjusted price, the entry cost, the carrying cost and the ten-year economic return all update. The deltas are ValueAtlas judgements layered on Astra, not Astra's own figures.
What the scenario price has to beat in the real market.
Every figure below is a published asking price or asking rent from a named agent or listing page — not a modelled number. Bermuda has no public sold-price register, so these are asks, not sales. Move a lever above and each comparison updates.
| Property | Parish | Ask | $/sq ft | Rent / mo | Vs scenario 2036 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bacardi on the Rocks — 28 Knapton Estates Roadreported | Smith's | $5,850,000 | $1,068 | $18,000 (estimate) | 1.22× |
| Walsingham — 5-acre homestead estatereported | Smith's | $4,950,000 | $779 | — | 1.44× |
| Glebe Housereported | Hamilton | $7,500,000 | $915 | — | 0.95× |
| Caper Collisreported | Hamilton | $6,900,000 | $1,150 | — | 1.03× |
| Te Kokoreported | Warwick | $8,750,000 | $1,346 | — | 0.81× |
| Shoreby House — 27 Harbour Roadreported | Paget | $3,250,000 | $1,192 | — | 2.19× |
| Inverurie Executive Suites — waterfront boutique hotelreported | Paget | $5,000,000 | $385 | — | 1.43× |
| Soundwinds — 5-bed on 1.325 acres, Harrington Soundestimate | Hamilton | not for sale | — | $25,000 (reported) | — |
Rental fallback: the only published luxury asking rent in this set is $25,000 a month for Soundwinds — a 5-bed on 1.325 acres with a private dock and tennis court. Astra's $18,000 avoided-rent assumption for this house sits -28.0% below it, so the modelled rent basis is conservative against the one real rent on the board. Full peer comparison
Minimum ARV a non-Bermudian may buy
$126,000 since April 2016 · subject advertised at $138,000
Unmoved for a decade. The listing is marketed to international buyers precisely because the advertised ARV clears this floor.
Land valuation list and land tax
New valuation list due 31 December 2026 · $29,756 land tax today
Non-Bermudian licence fee
12.5% of purchase price on a house · policy lever, not a fixed feature
Economic Investment Residential Certificate throughput
Cumulative investment past $600M · certificate counts not published
Work Permit Policy 2025
Effective 1 November 2025 · first rewrite since 2017
Canada–US tax asymmetry
Canada taxes residence · the US taxes citizenship for life
Method: the scenario price multiplies Astra's $7.13M base by each active lever's effect. Entry cost is the ask plus the licence fee plus $243,750 of duty, legal and survey. Exit deducts 5.5% selling costs, and carrying cost of $125,000 in year one inflates 2.5% a year and is compounded at the 5% opportunity rate. The verdict compares the resulting wealth against the same cash invested at the 7% hurdle. Lever deltas are judgements, not published forecasts; sources describe the policy, not the effect.
Downside register
What would break the thesis
Coastal storm exposure
The brochure map places the house inland, north of South Road: treat it as an ocean-view property, not established waterfront, and the advertised short walk to the beach is not proof of a legal right of access. Bermuda's climate study identifies coastal and storm risks, and the Bermuda Monetary Authority's catastrophe reporting shows insurers retaining more disaster risk. A named-storm loss is the fastest route to the bear line, and market value is not insured rebuilding cost.
Step-change in carrying cost; two binding insurance quotes requiredFairmont or Loren never gets financed
Astra found no financed, dated construction schedule for either south-shore hotel, so neither is credited in the forecast. Hotel reopening and airline expansion are also interdependent — treating both as independent valuation uplifts would double-count the same tourism recovery.
No uplift assumed; a delivered hotel is upside, not the base caseThe premium is unsubstantiated
The latest Astra analysis finds Bacardi at $1,068 per advertised square foot: 37.2% above Walsingham and 16.8% above Glebe House. Caper Collis and Te Koko print higher ratios, but their area denominators are materially qualified. No matched closed-sale evidence validates the subject’s ask.
No demonstrated entry margin of safetyA work permit is not a five-year stay
The latest report assumes five years of ownership. Owning the house does not extend a work permit or guarantee continued residence, and a work-related departure could force an early sale or a need for approved letting. A lawyer should also establish road rights, boundaries and any estate covenants.
Forced-sale risk inside the five-year horizonCarrying cost and land tax drift up
The latest report budgets $125,000 in year one: $29,756 land tax, $20,000 insurance, $40,000 repairs and renewal, $20,000 gardening and pool, $15,000 utilities/security/other, and $244 contingency. Only land tax is listing-supported; quotes and inspection must replace the other allowances.
$657,041 of modeled carrying cost over five yearsOwnership policy tightens again
The 12.5% licence fee and the $126,000 minimum ARV are policy levers, not fixed features. Any tightening of non-Bermudian purchase rules, or an increase in that fee, compresses the international bid this valuation depends on.
Direct compression of the international clearing priceAir convenience erodes
First-half 2026 arrivals rose 2.5% while available seats rose 0.1%: a larger aircraft with fewer frequencies can reduce convenience even when total seats hold flat. Watch nonstop frequency, winter service, departure times and fares across JFK, Newark and Westchester rather than aircraft type.
Weakens the airport-proximity premium
Verdict
Not a buy on an appreciation thesis alone.
Astra High Model 6’s conclusion, which this page adopts verbatim: “NO BUY at $5.85 million” for a high-confidence, five-year investment return. Keep it on a lifestyle shortlist only if independent valuation evidence, actual buyer status and the cost of renting materially improve the economics.
What supports ownership: ocean views, a single-level layout, pool and cottage in a desirable established location; hotel recovery and international-business housing demand; and long personal use that can justify a lifestyle premium. What limits the case: unverified achieved comparables, possible ageing systems, unresolved beach access and cottage legality, hotel openings that are not guaranteed appreciation, and a work permit that neither removes the 12.5% licence fee nor guarantees a ten-year stay.
At $1,068 per advertised square foot, Bacardi is 37.2% above Walsingham and 16.8% above Glebe House. Two higher-ratio asks exist, but their floor-area definitions are materially qualified. Astra found no adequate closed-price plus comparable-area dataset, so a verified transaction percentile is not estimable.
Astra’s cash-only base case requires a $8.21M sale after five years—7.0% annual house-price growth—just to recover nominal cash. To earn a 5% annual cash IRR requires $10.36M, or 12.1% annual house-price growth. Even 5% annual appreciation produces a modeled cash loss of about $679,000 after assumed costs.
Bermuda deep dives
Price-per-square-foot peer comparison
Compare Bacardi’s $1,068 per advertised sq ft with Walsingham, Glebe House, Caper Collis and Te Koko, including every area-definition caveat.
Buyer profile and HNW demographics
Household wealth by parish from the 2016 Census, permit and international-business employment trends, EIRC flows, and why high earners rent.
Purchase checklist and cost stack
Licence to acquire land, the 12.5% fee, progressive stamp duty, closing costs and the diligence list for this kind of property.