Will Mitchell has spent nearly 15 years in Belize watching good holidays turn into serious property questions. He also knows why some should remain holidays.
Belize has a habit of turning a very good holiday into a rather expensive question. A traveller books a week on Ambergris Caye, spends an afternoon on the reef and then, usually around the time the return flight begins to feel unreasonable, asks what it would cost to stay.
Will Mitchell knows how this happens because it happened to him. Canadian-born, he has been visiting Belize for two decades and living there for nearly 15 years. He kept returning until Belize became home. Today he is the Regional Owner of RE/MAX Belize, overseeing 13 offices and more than 100 agents. That history matters. He remembers what drew him to the country, along with the things he had to learn after he arrived.
Belize now attracts a level of luxury development that would have sounded improbable when Mitchell first settled there. Alaia brought an international hotel brand to Ambergris Caye. Caye Chapel is being remade around a Four Seasons resort and residences. Private-island projects are no longer an eccentric footnote to the market. The country is becoming more polished, although it remains small enough that a handsome rendering should never be mistaken for a finished road.
This is where Mitchell becomes more useful than the usual destination enthusiast. He does not need to persuade anyone that Belize is beautiful; the reef is perfectly capable of doing that. His job is to keep a week’s pleasure from doing all the thinking for the next 15 years. Will Mitchell, Regional Owner of RE/MAX Belize. Courtesy of Will Mitchell / RE/MAX Belize.
Consider a private island. Water around a house provides extraordinary privacy, but it also turns every arrival, repair and grocery run into a small piece of logistics. The right owner considers that part of the pleasure. The wrong one spends a great deal of money discovering that he likes private islands best when they belong to hotels.
One of the most important ownership questions is also the least romantic: what happens when the owner is not there? Belizean weather does not suspend itself between visits, and a home beside salt water remains a home beside salt water while its owner is in Toronto. Management is not an amenity to add after the purchase. For many foreign owners, it is what makes the purchase workable in the first place.
Mitchell takes the same practical view of location. A client who wants to walk to restaurants should not be talked into a remote waterfront property simply because the sunset looked impressive. Someone who loves the privacy of a secluded caye may accept the extra work quite happily. The important part is making that decision deliberately, before the photographs begin making it on the buyer’s behalf.
The market itself asks more of a buyer than many expect. Belize has no standardized national MLS. Listings can be inconsistent, information may be incomplete and an announced development can remain announced for a heroic length of time. Mitchell’s national RE/MAX network gives him a broad view in a market where firsthand knowledge remains unusually important. He can compare what is being promised with what has actually been built.
His work now includes beachfront homes, private islands and high-end developments across Belize. In 2026, RE/MAX named him its No. 1 Global Luxury Individual. It is an impressive credential, although the more relevant fact is that he has seen enough expensive property to remain unimpressed by polish alone. Marble is easy to admire. It is less helpful when the property is wrong for the person buying it.
Mitchell wrote The Investors Guide to Belize Real Estate in 2018, before the present run of branded luxury projects. The larger names have changed what Belize can offer at the top end. They have not changed his basic advice: understand the country before becoming attached to a particular property. He still walks properties himself and invests in the same market he discusses with clients, which keeps the advice attached to real consequences.
Belize’s appeal is partly that luxury does not require complete separation from ordinary life. On Ambergris Caye, an owner can leave a well-run waterfront home, take a golf cart to dinner and be back under the stars without the evening becoming an exercise in logistics. That combination of comfort and informality is difficult to manufacture. Belize is gaining more serious hotels and residences; it would be a shame if it became just another place where luxury means being sealed away from the country one came to see.
Mitchell does not pretend that everyone who enjoys Belize should own there. Some travellers want the predictable infrastructure and frictionless service of a mature resort market. Belize can deliver that experience in particular places, but not everywhere and not all the time. For those travellers, another excellent week at a resort may be wiser than a deed. That is perfectly respectable advice, even if it is unlikely to excite the sales department.
For the right person, however, the appeal survives ordinary life. The reef does not become less remarkable on a weekday, and the prospect of returning to Belize in February remains persuasive. Ownership can turn a destination into a genuine second base, provided the choice was made for the life around the property rather than the view from its terrace.
A very good week can justify another booking. Ownership requires a more difficult answer. Mitchell’s job is to help people reach it before the view makes the decision for them.
Article by Thomas Bell
Lead photo credit: Ambergris Caye and the Belize Barrier Reef. Courtesy of Will Mitchell / RE/MAX Belize
