GUAM: Military build up drives house prices through the roof
Updated
House prices on Guam are going through the roof, as the island prepares for a major US military build-up. 8,000 US Marines will relocate from the Japanese island of Okinawa to Guam by 2012. As a result investors from around the world have targetted Guam's property market leaving some low-income families no option but to sleep in their cars.
Presenter: Barbara Heggen
Speakers: Debbie Quinata, Women's Leader of the Guam's Chamorro Nation; Siska Hutapea, chief appraiser of Captain Realty; Jesse Catahay, acting project director for Transitional Housing at the Catholic Social Services
HEGGEN: Captain Realty is one of Guam's largest real estate firms. Chief Appraiser, Siska Hutapea says it's been some years since the market has been this hot.
HUTAPEA: Just to give you a perspective on how hot the market is between 2001 to 2003. The real estate sales on Guam is only about 120 to 130 million annually. Now in 2007 the total real estate sales based on the Captain real estate group database is 686 million, nearly five times what it was in the downturn.
HEGGEN: There's no doubt in Siska's opinion that Guam's impending military build-up is the driving force behind the property upturn. She says everyone is jumping on the real estate boom.
HUTAPEA: Right now we have buyers from locally, we also have investors from Hawaii, small and big, and then also from the mainland, they do the same thing, and most recently even Korean investors.
HEGGEN: So I understand you've also had a group of Australians in your office today?
HUTAPEA: Oh yeah, that too. They are looking at tourist related development and some renovation project here.
HEGGEN: Like everywhere else in the world there are winners and losers in a property boom. Higher prices mean higher rents which affect people on lower incomes the most. Jesse Catahay runs a transitional housing project for the Catholic Social Services. He says there's definitely been an increase in the number of people needing housing assistance.
CATAHAY: Just over the rental market last year a person can get probably get to their own apartment for like 500, now we're looking at they're jumping up to probably about 800 now. Also the military rental benefits are pretty hefty and sometimes for example an officer might have probably $1,900 that he can pay for rent out in the civilian market.
HEGGEN: So now you say you have a waiting list for your services, where do these people go when they're on the waiting list? Where do they live?
CATAHAY: They look at relatives and they stay in their current situations wherever they can stay here. There are some who stay in their car, where they can they just stay, on beaches.
HEGGEN: Debbie Quinata is a representative of the Chamorro Nation, the indigenous people of Guam. She says the situation is desperate.
QUINATA: It's rather sad, we have way too many children that are not even able to attend school regularly because they don't have a regular home, they don't have a home life, they don't have a capability to do their homework or to bathe and have adequate rest and adequate housing. So what it's doing is it's of course ruining the structure of our community.
HEGGEN: The Guam government does provide a limited number of subsidised housing for low income earners, but according to Debbie Quinata the number of people on that waiting list is in the thousands. After several attempts to contact the Executive Director of Guam's Housing and Urban Renewal Authority, I was told that no one from the authority would be available for comment for this story. Debbie Quinata says the situation needs urgent attention and that the local community needs to receive the same housing assistance that military personnel do.
QUINATA: The difference in funding that is available to the local community and to the military personnel or corporate employees is they're world's apart. And I think that at the very least there needs to be some type of regulation that be setup so that the playing grounds are equal.
