When Dean Jones reimagined his website Jamaica-Homes.com almost three years ago, he wanted to create a digital portal that would allow most, if not all, Jamaicans from different walks of life to own a piece of The Rock.

For Jones, the real estate market in Jamaica was already fragmented as most agencies and agents operated in silos on their own platform. However, with this realisation he committed to bringing to market a platform that would foster collaboration with real estate players and transparency in the market.

It is for this reason that he has issued an invitation to property managers, real estate agents, and realty agencies to register and advertise properties for free on Jamaica-Homes.com.

“It’s definitely a collaborative effort. That’s the only way to bring everybody together to one platform while they still continue to use their own,” Jones said about Jamaica-Homes.com.

“So my main thing is… transparency,” he continued.

Jamaica-Homes.com is described as a comprehensive platform for selling, buying, renting, and financing. Banking on innovation, accessibility, and community-building, Jones said the website goes beyond just offering real estate services to helping Jamaicans on their journey towards homeownership.

As part of that journey, the platform is offering its users financial education free of cost to help them make informed decisions.

“One of the key things that we want to do is to work with some of the financial institutions in relation to mortgage products. So we want to act as a bridge, rightfully, between the agencies and the realtors who will register with us, the architects, the developers, and the financial institutions to see if we can get them to develop more friendly products that can enable some of our hard-working Jamaicans to get on that housing ladder,” Jones shared with Jamaica Observer.

The Briton, who is of Jamaican heritage, being born to Windrush emigrants, and who has been living in the country for the last decade, argued that there is so much red tape that makes homeownership in Jamaica almost prohibitive. By working with banks, realtors, and developers, Jones believes that Jamaica-Homes.com will also become a digital access point for mortgages.

“The key things is open up access to mortgages for our people, access to credit, which is a very big thing. I think that we’re using it, we’ve got this digital platform, we want to develop that further. I don’t see why in Jamaica we can’t get to the point of offering digital mortgages,” he asserted, adding that it will eliminate waiting in a banking hall or sitting in an agent’s office.

With the aim of making
Jamaica-Homes.com a help desk or community resource for people interested in buying or renting a home, Jones said he is now in talks with government departments and ministries to ascertain as much information that can guide them through either.

For 2024, the Jamaican real estate market is projected to reach US$93.95 billion. Jones believes that this number is driven by the rapid development of a number of luxury and upper middle-income housing solutions coming to market. But he is concerned that there is very little affordable housing stock being built.

“Affordable homes should be the norm in Jamaica, not the status quo,” the proprietor stated, highlighting the pressing need for accessible housing solutions in the country.

“[Instead] property prices starting from around half-a-million US dollars upwards are becoming the norm,” he observed.

Drawing on his country of birth, he proposed that the Government of Jamaica can work with developers to design a programme similar to the £50,000 housing programme introduced in the United Kingdom by John Prescott. He also posited that both parties may need to consider using affordable yet sustainable building materials such as shipping containers.

Moreover, he argued that providing affordable housing solutions could be one measure the Government uses to stymie brain drain.

For now, though, Jones is focused on leveraging digital solutions to streamline the home-buying process and reduce barriers to entry while enhancing customer.