On October 20, 1968, Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis between the flashes of the photographers stationed in the wooden boats rented from the fishermen of Skorpios, the Ionian island bought five years earlier by the Greek shipowner. Back then, owning an island equaled the ultimate in exclusivity, a luxury imaginable only for a very lucky few. Today the situation has changed: a private island is no longer just the whim of moguls and Hollywood stars, but an investment within the reach of many people.
Colin Lightbourn, head of the Engel real estate agency
Lightbourn currently manages thirteen properties in the Bahamas, whose price fluctuates between 450,000 and 40 million euros and where you can find neighbors like Shakira, David Copperfield or Johnny Depp. In the world there are at least a thousand islands currently for sale, although in many cases confidentiality is absolute: operations are carried out by specialized brokers, auction houses or portals such as Private Island Online. The options range from the Caribbean to the North Sea, passing through the Mediterranean, Asia and Oceania.
Prices can vary greatly depending on the location, size, infrastructure present and the type of operation carried out. Then there are the special demands, like that of Angelina Jolie who, in 2013, spent 14 million euros to give her then-husband Brad Bitt a heart-shaped island 1.5 km from New York. The ability of the agencies lies precisely in finding the perfect place for each need. "Among our clients - they explain in Private Islands - we have large resort developers but also people with modest incomes who save to buy a vacation home, or a property to rent."
The most expensive island on his page is Rangyai, in Thailand, with a price of 144 million euros, while the cheapest is an atoll of about 3,000 square meters in Belize, for sale for 25,000 euros. In second place among the most expensive properties appears the only Spanish reference, of which only an estimate of size and price is revealed: between 40 and 80 hectares for 90-180 million euros. According to the Fotocasa portal, however, in Spain there are twelve islands for sale or rent, distributed among the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Murcia or Galicia.
For lovers of cold climates, in Finland you can buy the island of Salonpää for 94,000 euros: about 3,000 square meters presided over by a small chalet equipped with a sauna. 280,000 euros, on the other hand, are enough to get hold of one of the Shetland islands, in Scotland, very close to Norway and the Faroe Islands: 25,000 square meters with a house and a ruined mill, surrounded by the wildest nature. On the portal there are also numerous Greek islands put up for sale by the government after the 2009 crisis, and even an islet in the Venetian lagoon, whose price, certainly not low, is hidden.
Among the possible investments, the island of Burgh Island stands out, a small emerged land in the southwest of England, for sale for around 17 million euros. This sort of British Mont Saint-Michel provided the inspiration for Agatha Christie's writing Ten Little Blacks and Evil Under the Sun, and later became the setting for several films based on the two novels. The island is embellished by the discreet charm of an Art Deco hotel with 25 rooms, a wellness area and a heliport, very useful when arriving by land (a strip of sand that appears and disappears with the tides) is impossible. A literary paradise loved by royalty and celebrities.
Of course, those who wish to embark on the adventure of buying an island must take into account some fundamental aspects. Both in the Americas and in Europe, transactions usually attribute an absolute property right, while concessions are a lease for a period ranging from 10 to 99 years. In the countries of Asia and the South Pacific, the legislation tends to limit purchases, especially to foreigners. It should be clarified, in fact, that an island is not an independent territory and responds to the regulations of the country to which it belongs.
In France, for example, the Littoral Law, like the Coastal Law in Spain, prohibits any type of construction less than 100 meters from the shore and establishes, at the same time, a public right of way. In Croatia, most of the islands are not buildable, so it is better to choose one that is already habitable. In many countries, moreover, private property exists only up to the high tide mark, so beaches below that limit remain state property.
As Heigo Protten, broker at the Island Seeker agency, explains, “some people prefer a virgin island where they can spend time in nature and others want a turnkey property that they can use as a vacation home for their family.” Those who opt for a desert island should know that the installation of supplies such as water, electricity or telephone lines will be at their expense, adding the cost incurred by the land.
In general, compared to the mainland, a minimum surcharge of 30% should be considered for any type of work, including berths or the installation of solar panels and tanks to store water. Security is also a necessary cost, and most property owners hire resident guardians (there's even a dedicated page: Caretaker Gazette), while others pay local fishermen to watch over their properties.
This trend may seem like the umpteenth human invasion of nature, but there are also sustainable initiatives related to islands, opposed, for example, to the controversial artificial atolls in Dubai. The project of the international study Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is still to be built, but it has already been auctioned -along with the island that should host it- through Sotheby's Concierge Auctions. The initiative gets its name and soul from Vollebak, an innovative and ethical English clothing brand that chose a 4.5-hectare strip of uninhabited land off the Canadian coast of Nova Scotia to experiment with a new way of living in symbiosis with the land. , the sun and the wind.
The heart of the design is the Earth House, a set of nine interconnected buildings, similar to a village, halfway between architecture and land art. “Vollebak Island is a model of how we can build a more sustainable future. If it works here, we can apply the same principles to a neighborhood, to a city and to the planet,” says Steve Tidball, co-founder of Vollebak. The project has already attracted the attention of many bidders, who are competing for the chance to own the island.
Finally, in terms of social sustainability, the Irish government's Our Living Islands initiative deserves mention, which does not put its islands up for sale but offers the possibility of reviving 23 of them in a similar way to the plans to repopulate emptied Spain. Provided certain conditions are met, Dublin allocates up to €84,000 to anyone wishing to move to some of the most unspoilt corners of the country, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and with no direct connections to the mainland. There are no paparazzi, but green fields and wild cliffs, clean air and windswept beaches.
