Is Cape Verde the new Canary Islands?

The pictures in the sales brochures and the property shops are of wonderful looking complexes, but they actually don’t exist. They show the proposed finished complexes with lovely gardens and surrounding areas with lots of grass and trees but how they propose to make these grow as they do not have any natural water on the island, I do not know.  Water is a precious commodity as there is at present only one de-salination plant which supplies the entire island and one of the first things you are told on arrival is not to waste water as it is in short supply. They are in the process of building a second plant, but as they are not able to provide enough water for the resident population and the tourist industry as it stands at present, is only one other plant going to solve the problem? 

Many investors are looking to buy at this stage of development with the hope that the island project will be completed within the next 3 years and their investment will have increased in value greatly during that time. Theoretically this should be true but after meeting with the biggest developer on the island and discussing amongst other things the infrastructure, it looks very doubtful whether this will be the case.

It is also going to be years before the infrastructure is in place to support the development. As previously mentioned, there is no natural water on the island of Sal as it never rains and all the water is taken from the sea and processed through the only de-salination plant. This is a very expensive process and although they are constructing a second plant, you have to ask at what cost. The electricity is currently supplied by diesel run generators which could be generated by wind power as this is a windy island. When I suggested a wind farm, my idea was dismissed saying it was an expensive option and there was the noise problem. As a large percentage of the island is barren, I could not quite understand the reasoning behind this.

There is a lot of high pressure selling going on with inspection trips being arranged in the UK and once the prospective clients arrive, they are ferried around on a daily basis to different developments and different islands and at the end of the trip they receive the usual closing speech. The pitch being “as the islands are in the early stages of development, it is now a good time to buy as the prices are low and when it is fully developed in 3 years time the property will have doubled in price”.

Ultimately you have to make your own assessment, but personally I would not advise anyone to purchase at this time unless you are prepared for a long wait and have the finances to support it as the developers ask for stage payments so you are paying from the day you sign the contract.