It’s a Caribbean island that’s like something from a tropical dream. Palm trees sway in the breeze…crystal-clear azure waters lap the serene shoreline…the glimmering white sand feels powder-soft underfoot.
The calm waters here are perfect for paddleboarding, diving, and snorkeling…the coral reefs offshore are home to a rich and vibrant marine life (whale watching is big here from January to March). The island’s north coast is popular with surfers, windsurfers, and kiteboarders, and if you’re into deep-sea fishing, marlin, sailfish, and mahi-mahi all call the waters around this island home.
If you’re after a more relaxing experience, you can lounge on the soft sand and listen to the gentle waves lapping the shore. Or spend the day at one of the islands many resort spas or wellness centers.
Thanks to ease of access from the U.S and Canada—and the stunning beaches—this Caribbean paradise has long been a vacation favorite. But it has seen a huge surge of visitors since the pandemic…
But this island paradise is so much more than just beaches and relaxing…
It’s one of the most geographically diverse nations in the region and is home to Pico Duarte, the Caribbean’s tallest mountain peak, and Lake Enriquillo, its largest lake. Here you can zipline, explore caves, mountain bike, or hike the many trails in the island’s interior.
In this island’s capital you’ll find street after street of historic buildings. The city was a model for many across the Spanish American empire. It’s where you’ll find the first university, the first cathedral and the first castle in the Americas.
Although this Caribbean island is famous for its beaches, it also had a stunningly beautiful, and verdant, interior.
This island is also well known for its high-end resorts with amazing amenities and luxury services. There you’ll find something for everyone…golf…a catamaran cruise down the coast…lunch at the sushi bar…dinner at a steakhouse…
It’s an enviable lifestyle. But one well within reach and a lot closer to home than you might think.
Luxury in the Caribbean
The Caribbean island I’m referring to is the Dominican Republic.
This a hugely popular tourism destination…
If you’ve never been to the Dominican Republic before, then you probably know someone who has. The small Caribbean country is a tourism juggernaut, attracting over 10 million tourists in 2023.
In fact, after Mexico the Dominican Republic is the most visited country in all of Latin America.
With beaches and waters like these, it’s no surprise that the Dominican Republic sees such high visitor numbers…and more are coming each year.
More than 11.5 million tourists are expected to visit the DR this year. That’s more people than the entire population of the country. Put another way, for a country half the size of Maine it’s punching way above its weight. For instance, much bigger Brazil hosted only 6 million tourists last year.
It helps the Dominican Republic is only a 2.5-hour flight from Miami and about four hours from New York…
And it’s insanely accessible, with direct flights from all across the U.S., Canada and main hubs in Europe. Many of them landing in Punta Cana airport—the busiest in the country.
Historically known as a mass-market tourism destination the Dominican Republic still attracts tourists looking for affordable all-inclusive resorts, but it’s been steadily increasing its share of the luxury travel market within the Caribbean, positioning itself as a premier destination for the wealthy.
The busiest private jet terminal in the Caribbean is in St. Maarten, which serves as the gateway to nearby luxury destinations like St. Barts, Anguilla, and the British Virgin Islands.
But Punta Cana, located on the east of the island, is now a serious contender…certainly one of the busiest and best-served private jet terminals in the region…
Luxury travel has boomed globally post-pandemic and nowhere is that more obvious than on the beaches and in the exclusive resorts of the Caribbean.
Destinations across the region have worked hard to cash in but the Dominican Republic was always poised to be a new leader…
The luxury travel market has changed. Today wealthy vacationers tend to look for experiential and personalized travel, sustainability, wellness tourism…there’s a growing emphasis on top-tier dining experiences…and cultural tourism…
The Dominican Republic was already aligned with all these trends, but more than that, for the past decade the country has been putting the money and planning into the right infrastructure, investment, and marketing to target the affluent.
The government has backed luxury tourism in a big way. Roads have rolled out. Airports have grown in size and sophistication. The big brands of luxury travel are all well established and more are pouring in while plenty of smaller exclusive boutique operations have planted their flags.
The Dominican Republic is now competing successfully with traditionally dominant luxury destinations like St. Barts, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands.
Punta Cana: Where the Tourists Go
The far eastern tip of this island is easily the country’s biggest destination and site of its busiest international airport, Punta Cana, accounting for 67% of arriving tourists (remember, 10 million folks visited the Dominican Republic in 2023).
With 20 miles of Caribbean beaches and a tropical climate with warm temperatures all year long, it’s not hard to see so many tourists find this part of the island so appealing.
Punta Cana is where most Americans (and Europeans looking for some Caribbean sunshine) head to for their all-inclusive vacation. They are drawn here by the white-sand beaches, myriad of water activities, the vibrant nightlife scene, markets selling everything from beachwear to handmade jewelry, and entertainment complexes.
Punta Cana has firmly established itself as the DR’s most popular resort town.
You’ll find some affordable properties on the market in Punta Cana.
For example, take this pre-construction three-bedroom townhouse. Located in a gated community, it features a small private pool on the terrace. The community doesn’t offer many common amenities. It’s on offer at $165,000.
The sale price for this three-bedroom townhouse is $165,000.
As far as resales, this two-bedroom penthouse condo is an example of what’s on offer in the local market. The price was recently reduced for this property, which is well inland from the beach but has a large rooftop terrace. It’s now listed for $99,000.
This two-bedroom penthouse is available for $99,000.
Another two-bedroom condo, this one with a golf and pool view from the balcony, is located within a resort community. Owners do get beach access, as well as discounts at the resort amenities. It’s listed at $190,000.
This two-bedroom condo in a gated golf community is listed at $190,000.
While you’ll find all the amenities you’ll need for a fun vacation in Punta Cana, if you’re looking for something more luxurious (and with far less tourists), then I’ve found another location, and an incredible opportunity…
Introducing Cap Cana:
The “Cabo of the Caribbean”
Within Punta Cana, there’s a reserve of the ultra-wealthy, a tranquil paradise that feels a million miles away from the all-inclusive resorts and tourist markets…
Cap Cana is an out-of-this-world luxury beach and golf community on the pristine shores of the Dominican Republic. A place where my team and I have uncovered an incredible real estate opportunity…
Cap Cana is in the far east of the Dominican Republic, and with an international airport it’s within easy reach of the U.S. and Canada.
At 30,000 acres, the master-planned community of Cap Cana is twice the size of Manhattan.
This is a veritable city-state devoted to high-end luxury. It has over three miles of white-sand beaches and miles more of coastline. You have schools, world-class golf, a huge inland marina, a university campus, fitness centers, convention centers, one of the Caribbean’s finest equestrian facilities…a fire station, a clinic…and the Caribbean’s largest water park just opened, its amphitheater inaugurated by Elton John.
Everything in Cap Cana screams luxury.
Everything in Cap Cana is set against the backdrop of a tropical Caribbean beach.
I scouted here twice in 2022. Members of my team have since returned several times. Everything we’ve seen confirms how special and luxurious this place is…
It’s home to a St. Regis. You’ll find Hyatt…Secrets…and a stunning Eden Roc. It also has…
• Top-tier golf courses, including Punta Espada, a Jack Nicklaus signature course that has hosted the PGA’s Champions Tour.
Portions of Punta Espada, the Jack Nicklaus signature course, are along the Caribbean.
• More than 30 upmarket dining establishments, including fine dining, steak houses, beach clubs, chic cocktail bars, Spanish and Italian restaurants, sushi and other Japanese cuisine, charming cafes, ice cream parlors and candy shops, and much, much more.
• An adventure park, complete with animal encounters, ziplines, offroad trails for ATVs, and more. The stables offer horseback riding.
• The usual resort-type shops with beachwear and sunscreen and such, but also upscale boutiques offering fashion and home décor.
• An expansive, pristine marina with 150 slips. It can accommodate yachts of up to 150 feet.
Cap Cana has a world-class full-service marina.
• It’s rated as one of the #1 spots in the world for billfish. You’ll also find marlin, sailfish, wahoo, and tuna abundant offshore.
• If you’re wanting to get out on the water without fishing, you can take a catamaran cruise from the marina…or a kayak from the beach. There is also world-class scuba and snorkeling in surrounding waters.
• Not to mention, a tennis club, spa and wellness offerings, a hospital and bilingual school. There’s even a polo ground and facilities for dressage.
As I say, incredible luxury. And it’s all set against a backdrop of stunning beach…azure Caribbean waters, an expanse of sugar-white sand, all fringed by swaying palm trees.
Cap Cana is the perfect place to be enveloped in luxury, enjoying cold drinks and dips in the warm Caribbean. Here’s a video taste of what Cap Cana is all about (click the image below to watch):
This video gives you a taste of what Cap Cana is all about…click the image above to play.
As you can see, billions of dollars of thoughtful and ambitious infrastructure has been rolled out here already.
But much more is planned…
On the immediate horizon for Cap Cana is a huge water park…a massive amphitheater for shows and events…a second Jack Nicklaus golf course…and a huge sports training center for international teams…
The development I’ve seen in Cap Cana is most reminiscent of what I observed over the past decade in Cabo…I think of Cap Cana as “Cabo of the Caribbean.”
Cabo, also known as Los Cabos, is on the very southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula and encompasses the thriving towns of Cabo San Lucas on the west side of the peninsula and San Jose del Cabo to the east…and the development in between.
I know Cabo well because I spend a lot of time there in the winter.
Cabo had long been a playground of Hollywood and the ultra-rich. But in the mid-2010s, a number of factors converged there to create an enormous opportunity.
Investment was flowing into new infrastructure, particularly the roads, and airport, making it cheaper to get to Cabo and easier to get around it.
As Cabo became more accessible, what I call the “ordinary rich” began coming in greater numbers. Think doctors, lawyers, executives, self-made entrepreneurs, work-from-anywhere professionals, small-business owners…
I class myself as among this group. We have money but don’t fly in private jets. We don’t want to pay millions for homes or thousands per night for a hotel stay…but we want incredible amenities in perfect locations. And more than ever, we’re going to the world’s most desirable locations…to stay for part or all of the year.
In Cabo, my Real Estate Trend Alert group saw that the ordinary rich were being underserved. I got to work looking for exclusive off-market deals for our group…deals for exactly the kind of real estate that the ordinary rich wanted to stay in. And because of this, we’ve seen enormous uplifts.
To give you some examples…
• $388,844 More—Our first RETA deal in Cabo was in 2015 in the 5-star Quivira resort. Our RETA-only price on a two-bed, two-bath ocean-view condo in the best-in-class Copala community was $336,156. I bought one alongside RETA members. In 2023, an identical condo to mine two floors above me listed for $725,000—an uplift of $388,844.
• Uplift of $250,000—In August 2021, RETA members could get a penthouse in a community called Cabo Costa for $249,000. I got one. A penthouse in Cabo Costa in 2024 lists for $499,000—that’s $250,000 more.
• Boost of $421,778—Also in Quivira, a RETA member bought a villa in Mavila for $428,222 in June 2018. A villa there was on the market in 2023 for $850,000.
• $602,885 More—In 2017, a RETA member bought a luxury villa in Copala, in the Quivira master-planned community, for $385,115. In 2023 saw the same Copala villa listed for $988,000—that’s an enormous uplift of $602,885.
The opportunity in Cap Cana is also to buy the kind of real estate this group wants.
And that’s what I’m working on right now…a stunning deal to own best-in-class real estate in Cap Cana.
Cap Cana has miles of stunning white-sand Caribbean beach.
I’m very excited about the opportunity that’s developing here.
I’ll be sharing more about this opportunity in Your Overseas Dream Home along side all the other opportunities my team of scouts and researchers uncover across our global beat.
