The Island Brokers Are Overwhelmed

"This has been the busiest two months I've had in 22 years of selling islands," Chris Krolow, the chief executive of Private Islands Inc., said in July. The pace has not slowed since then, he said. The only time he has ever had anywhere near this quantity of inquiries was shortly after the disastrous Fyre Festival in 2017. Mr. Krolow said he was swamped, for some reason, with questions from "kids hoping to start their own country." [...]

But this new wave of island buyers is less driven by ego than a desire to escape the virus, and brokers, like their clients, are newer to pondering survival. So even after a few harried months, brokers are struggling to meet their clients' new requests, like having agriculture to go with the helicopter landing pad. [...]

Dylan Eckardt, an agent for Nest Seekers International, says he gets a lot of calls in the vein of, "Money is no object, put me wherever my family can't get sick." He recently tried to deliver on this for one family by renting them a private island in Maine for $250,000 a week. [...]

Several buyers declined, through their brokers, to be interviewed about their experiences shopping for islands.

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