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Geographically the Caribbean is quite close to the doldrums. Metaphorically its second-homes market is bang in the middle of it.
Overseas second-home buyers stayed away from the region during the winter, traditionally the busiest time of year for this housing market.
They are slowly coming back into the market now, tempted by a round of cuts in asking prices.
'The buying season has started late this year,' Georgina Richards, associate at estate agency Knight Frank,  said. 'It usually starts mid-January, but this year it started in March, because people were sitting on the fence. Prices were not coming down as fast as buyers were expecting, but they are coming down now. Vendors are offering 10 to 15 per cent reductions.'
According to home finder Quintessentially Estates,  vendors are slashing up to US$500,000 off prices.
Examples of big price cuts include Colina del Mar, a Barbados beachfront villa, which has had its price reduced from US$3.5 million to US$3 million.
The story is similar on the  western side of the Caribbean. The asking price for luxury Casa Sul Mare on the Cayman Islands has been cut from  US$1.9 million to  US$1.53 million. Both properties are marketed by Knight Frank.
Ms Richards said Barbados and other islands that were easily accessible by air and had good infrastructure and security would survive the downturn best in the Caribbean.
'A couple of years ago people were looking for islands that were up and coming and where they could get more for their money, such as St Lucia and Antigua. But in the past few months they have focused on the more mature markets, such as Barbados and British Virgin Islands,' she said.
Foreign buyers, including former Hong Kong-based western expatriates, tend to buy beach-front homes in areas with low levels of development.
To cash in on this trend, international branded resort operators are unveiling beach-side developments offering on-site leisure facilities such as spas and championship golf courses.
Ms Richards was confident about long term prospects for the Caribbean second-homes market because favourable tax regimes on many islands and plenty of sunshine on all of them would ensure it remained popular with overseas buyers.
Growing numbers of Caribbean nations, heavily dependent on tourism, were opening their doors to overseas holiday homebuyers because construction of resort communities was a valuable source of new income for them, she said.
Even Cuba is allowing private developers to build residential communities for wealthy overseas buyers. The first of these will probably be the Carbonera Club where British-based Esencia Hotels and Resorts plans to build 720 villas and apartments, spa, hotel and golf course. The developer is offering homes to non-Cubans in pre-launch sales. Prices for villas start at US$1.3 million. New projects are appearing in established Caribbean second home markets too.
Developer Cinnamon 88 is building 35 villas and a Four Seasons Hotel at its 13-hectare Clearwater Bay project in Barbados. Ten villas remain unsold at prices starting from US$11.5 million. Music impresarios Lord Lloyd-Webber, Simon Cowell  and Formula One team owner Eddie Jordan were early buyers.
However, Lord Lloyd-Webber and other would-be residents were reported to be impatient about the slow pace of construction. The developer said building work would be delayed by a year following the Barbados government's decision to ban 1,000 Chinese labourers from working on the project as part of its 'no foreign labour' policy aimed at protecting local jobs. The developer insisted it would keep to its scheduled 2011 completion date despite the hold-up.
Assuming all goes to plan, the estate's villas will be constructed in the same fashion as Alang Alang, the Balinese-influenced Barbados home of Cinnamon 88 partner Mike Pemberton.  Homes at the developer's Grenada scheme, the Mount Hartman Estate, will be built in the same style, also with aged teak doors from Indonesia, Brazilian wood floors and French chandeliers. Residents will have access to the Four Seasons Hotel facilities at the Grenada and Barbados developments.
On the former British colony of St Lucia, Lord Glenconner,  the developer who helped transform Mustique into a hideaway for the world's glitterati, is building seven multimillionaire homes on the island's southwest coast. The developer said the Glenconner Beach villas were the only homes in St Lucia with direct access to the beach. Prices start at US$7 million for a 1,239 square metre property. Construction is scheduled to start  this month.
There are also cheaper properties for sale. The Turks and Caicos Islands are rated by Conde Nast as the best Caribbean holiday destination. At the Royal Reef Resort, on the archipelago's North Caicos Island, prices start from US$300,000 for a studio apartment and US$77,500 for a hotel suite. Facilities include four swimming pools, three restaurants, two tennis courts, shops and a spa.
Coming down
Price to which Colina del Mar, a beachfront villa in Barbados, has been reduced from US$3.5 million: US$3m



Opportunities in the sunny Caribbean