Methodology
The index exists to be checked. Every number on this site traces to a public source URL and a capture date, and the raw data is published alongside the medians.
- Listings in current build
- Index month
- Last built
- Currency
- US$, at EC$2.70 = US$1
The state of the data, as at this build
Every rule above is enforced by the build: if one of them breaks, the site does not ship. The rules are written out in the repository at docs/DATA-STANDARD.md.
The four tiers, and what may be counted
Every value we hold belongs to exactly one tier, and the tiers are never quietly mixed. Any figure we publish names the tiers behind it.
- Tier A, official. Statutes and statutory instruments, government publications, the Central Statistics Office, published professional cost data such as BCQS, ECCB and IMF series.
- Tier B, observed market. A price anyone could have seen on a named website on a named date, captured by us with its URL and its capture date. This is every listing on this site. It is an asking price, and it is not evidence that anything sold.
- Tier C, owner-claimed. Anything a person tells us about their own property or their own sale. We store it, date it and keep it. It never enters an index, a median, a map pin or an estimate. Its only job is to become Tier D.
- Tier D, document-verified. A claim a named person has checked against a document: a registered transfer, a valuation report by a valuer licensed in Saint Lucia, a survey plan, or a written confirmation from the agency holding the listing. The record keeps who checked it, when, and what they saw. This is the only route out of Tier C.
The gate: an index or an estimate may use Tier A, B and D only. The build refuses to ship if a Tier C value reaches one.
The floors
A figure needs enough records behind it to be worth printing. A neighbourhood figure needs at least 10 records; below that we widen to the district and say we widened. Any figure resting on fewer than 5 records is not published at all: the page says how many records exist and stops. Between 5 and 9 the figure is published, labelled thin, and its confidence is forced to low.
An aggregate whose latest capture is more than 120 days old is labelled dated everywhere it appears. The build recomputes the age and refuses to ship if the label and the date disagree, in either direction, so the label can neither be dropped quietly nor left on to look cautious.
Asking is not sold
Saint Lucia publishes no sold-price register. Section 35 of the Land Registration Act limits Land Registry searches to attorneys, so registered consideration is not public data. Nothing on this site is a sold price. The gap between asking and sold on this island is unknown to us, because nobody publishes it, and we will not guess at it.
The full rule set, including the workflow that turns an owner claim into a document-verified record and the list of things we never store, is published in the repository as docs/DATA-STANDARD.md and is enforced by scripts/validate_data.py on every build.
Data rules
- Public, attributable sources only. We record facts: price, size, bedrooms, area, date, source URL and listing reference. We never copy listing prose or photographs.
- Every number carries a source URL and a capture date.
- Nothing is estimated. A size that is not stated is left empty in the data and the listing is excluded from the per-sq-ft median. Unverified values are marked. Gaps are reported as gaps.
- Currency is recorded as listed (US$, EC$ or £) and normalised to US$ at EC$2.70 = US$1. Sterling is converted at the rate on the capture date and the rate is noted.
- Areas: ten index areas, each a group of districts and named places from the gazetteer: Cap Estate; Rodney Bay & Gros Islet (incl. Rodney Heights, Reduit, Bonne Terre, Monchy, Cas-en-Bas); Castries (incl. Vigie, Morne Fortune, Cul de Sac, Babonneau); Marigot Bay & Anse la Raye (incl. Roseau, Canaries); Soufrière (incl. Val des Pitons, Sugar Beach); Choiseul & Laborie; Vieux Fort (incl. Beane Field, Savannes); Micoud & Praslin; Dennery; and Unspecified, for listings whose district cannot be placed on the island. A listing joins an area by its stated district or named place; every card shows both the place as listed and the index area.
Computing the index
For each area and property type (home, land, condo, commercial) we publish the count, the median asking price in US$, the minimum and maximum, and the month of the latest capture. Homes, condos and commercial are additionally expressed as the median of US$ per sq ft of built area. Land is expressed as the median of US$ per sq ft and US$ per acre of lot. Each per-unit median is computed only over listings that state the relevant size. A cell resting on five to nine listings is published and flagged thin; a cell below five publishes no figure at all, only its count and the reason, and a per sq ft median needs ten listings that state a size. The floors are set out below.
Medians, not means: a single trophy listing should not move the figure for a district.
Dedupe
The same property often appears with several agencies. Listings are matched on area, type, bedrooms, size (within 2 %) and price (within 2 %), and the earliest captured record is kept with the other source URLs noted. Price changes on the same listing replace the earlier price and keep the earlier first-seen date.
Update cadence
Listings are captured during the month and the index is rebuilt at month end. Intra-month rebuilds may happen when corrections arrive; the build date is shown on every page and in index.json.
What the index is not
It is an index of asking prices, not transactions. Saint Lucia does not publish a timely sold-price register; where one becomes available we will add it as a separate series rather than blend it in.
Submit or correct a listing
Agencies and owners can submit a listing or correct a captured fact by email. Send the source URL, the listing reference and the field to correct to data@saintluciahomes.com. Corrections are applied at the next build and the change is recorded in the listing's notes. We do not accept submissions without a public URL.
Deal signals
The deals page and card badges use these exact thresholds: a price cut is two differing captures of the same listing where the price fell by 1% or more (previous asking retained and shown); new this week means first seen in the index within 7 days of capture; listed 90+ days counts from the start of the month the listing first entered the index (month-granular until daily snapshots accumulate); below area median requires a stated size and a price per sq ft at least 10% under the area and type median, and only where that median rests on 10 or more sized listings. Signals are computed at build time from the public captures; they are indicators, not advice.
Agency or owner? Get a listing corrected or removed with the corrections form; requests ship in the next build.
Pipeline data
The development tracker records each project's category, status, location, reported value, units, price range, expected completion and the date and content of the latest public update, with one or more source links. Status definitions are on that page. Projects with a single source are marked unverified.
Independence
Saint Lucia Homes is an independent index and is not an agency. The cost-to-build model compares build systems on the same basis and the resilience rating applies the same ladder to every home. Builder brands are kept separate from the index.
Datasets
All data is published as JSON under a licensed licence. Attribute as "Saint Lucia Homes" with a link.
- Price index: computed medians per area and type, with counts, ranges and capture month.
- Development pipeline: every tracked development and infrastructure project with sources.
- Listings: every captured listing; facts only, schema documented in the repository's
data/SCHEMA.md. - Cost models: cost-to-build coefficients and every purchase and sale cost line with statute or source, date checked and confidence.
- Claims: listings verified by their holding agency through the claim flow; agency name, domain and date only, never contact details.
- Resilience Rating register: the public register of certificates.