Cantillon: The Irish could teach the Cubans about property

A Wall Street Journal item headline "Real-estate revolution hits Cuba" reports that ordinary Cubans have started to buy and sell their homes in droves. It seems the property bug is taking hold in one of communism's last bastions, where the average worker earns little more than €18 per month in real terms.

This is not an entirely new phenomenon, for Cubans have had the right to buy and sell their homes since 2011. However, the emergent detente between Washington and Havana is fanning a wave of speculation over the possibility of Americans legally buying Cuban real estate again.

In the enthusiasm for the trade at least, it all sounds rather Irish. Cuba’s long detachment from the world of regular property markets (and, indeed, all other markets) has gone on for decades. Far from inhibiting the urge to transact, the nascent opening of the market and the prospect of further liberalisation to come has fanned no small degree of innovation.

According to the Wall Street Journal, foreign buyers who are technically barred from the Cuban market are using loopholes to snap up properties in the hope of big profits down the line.

This is particularly true of Cuban-Americans, who are using relatives’ names and transacting in cash to buy up homes for themselves.

Back in the day, of course, the Irish might have figured they could teach a thing or two to the Cubans about the property market. No deal was spurned: from basic to luxury construction; to speculative investment; to foreign investment; and other exotic instruments.

We could teach a thing or two about how it ended too.