The portrait of the housing divide: while luxury towers redefine the skyline in certain areas, nearly 660,000 homes are protected by walls that are not made of concrete, in a country located in the path of hurricanes and storms
SANTO DOMINGO– Cranes and verticality have redefined the horizon in a few points of the national geography, redrawing the silhouette of certain sectors, as is the case with the residential towers in Piantini, Paraíso, mixed use complexes in Naco, luxury projects in La Altagracia, Puerto Plata or El Seibo.
The Dominican construction sector started 2026 with renewed strength: in January it registered a year-on-year expansion of 7.6%, leading the growth of the entire economy, and in March that rate rose to 8.0%, driven by greater private investment in residential, commercial and tourism projects, according to the Monthly Indicator of Economic Activity (IMAE) of the Central Bank.
On the financial side, the mortgage portfolio of the banking system closed 2025 at RD$443,170 million, an annual growth of 13.2%, the highest among all types of credit, according to the Superintendency of Banks.
And loans from multiple banks for the acquisition and construction of homes tripled between 2017 and October 2025, going from RD$114,869 million to RD$289,648 million in financing for home acquisition alone, according to the Association of Multiple Banks (ABA).
Revealing statistics
The real estate market is celebrating. But there's another country behind that landscape, one that the renderings never show, and this contrast is documented in "Booklet I: Structural Characteristics of Housing in the Dominican Republic," published by the National Statistics Office (ONE) as part of the reports of the X National Population and Housing Census 2022.
The data on the structural characteristics of housing describe, with the clinical objectivity of statistics, a nation divided in two.
Or rather, divided into many, because the distance between Higüey and El Seibo is not only geographical: it is barely one hundred kilometers of road, although the figures of both provinces speak of housing realities that could belong to different countries.
Houses without concrete walls
The starting point is this: 82.2% of the 3,694,060 privately owned homes in the country have walls made of cinder block or concrete. Subtracting this, the result is that more than 650,000 homes, households, and families have walls made of wood, zinc, palm planks, palm fronds, cardboard, plywood, or scrap materials.
Wood is the second most common material, present in 13.1% of the country's homes. Zinc is used in 2.8%, and palm boards in 1.6%.
And although the percentages seem small on a national scale, behind each tenth there are tens of thousands of houses that the ONE classifies in the "low quality" category, associated with less structural resistance to climatic phenomena.
The difference between urban and rural areas is significant. In cities, 88.5% of homes have cinder block or concrete walls, while in rural areas, that percentage drops to 65.4%. There, one in four houses has wooden walls, and zinc and palm-thatched roofing make up another 8.5% combined.
Meanwhile, according to the Building Supply Registry (ROE 2025-2) of the ONE itself, there are 6,981 active works in the metropolitan region, and Santo Domingo East continues to concentrate the largest amount, with 34.1% of the total, with Los Frailes being the neighborhood that leads in number of active works.
The market is growing upwards and outwards, but not inwards.
Almost half the country has zinc roofing
If walls tell one story, roofs tell another. Nationally, zinc covers 47.5% of Dominican homes. That's almost one out of every two houses, and in rural areas, the proportion rises to 72.1%, compared to just 26.2% with concrete roofs.
The census is clear about what this implies: the roofing material directly determines the protection a house offers against heavy rain, strong winds, and high temperatures. Zinc absorbs and radiates heat, provides no insulation, and in hurricanes, can become a projectile.
Construction led economic growth in January 2026 with 7.6% year-on-year and in March with 8.0%, according to the Central Bank's Monthly Index of Economic Activity (IMAE). And the financial system's mortgage portfolio, which stood at RD$443.17 billion at the end of 2025 according to the Superintendency of Banks, grew at a rate of 13.2%, the highest of all credit segments.
But credit, like the crane, has geographical objectives that the zinc in the field is unaware of.
One hundred kilometers, two countries
National statistics average realities that have nothing in common. The comparison between Higüey and El Seibo illustrates this.
Higüey, the capital of La Altagracia province, is currently one of the municipalities with the highest levels of real estate and tourism activity in the country. According to the Global Property Guide report updated in April 2026, the Punta Cana-Bávaro area is home to one of the two major centers of real estate appreciation in the country, with an average price of US$286,000 for a two-bedroom apartment.
The Census recorded 158,512 occupied private dwellings in the municipality of Higüey. El Seibo, the capital of the province of the same name and located just over 100 kilometers away, recorded 25,387.
The difference is not just one of size. In the municipality of Higüey there are 56,468 apartments, reflecting the tourist and residential dynamism of the east, while in El Seibo there are barely 1,004.
In terms of roofs, 3,869 homes in the municipality of El Seibo have zinc as the predominant material, more than 15% of all its homes.
But there are also 991 barracks there, the most precarious housing type in the census, associated with bateyes and extreme poverty, in a municipality that has six times fewer total homes than Higüey.
The ONE warns in the document that knowing the distribution of materials allows for "detecting potential risks from natural phenomena and possible territorial gaps associated with access to materials of an adequate quality level." The ONE points out that these gaps require attention in terms of territorial planning and housing policy.
Nearly 70,000 dirt floors
In the Dominican Republic, 69,620 homes have dirt floors. Not cement, not ceramic: dirt. 4.4% of rural homes have this type of flooring, compared to 0.9% in urban areas.
These are homes where every rain turns the ground into mud and where the constant humidity is a vector of disease risk.
This data comes from the same country where the price per square meter exceeds US$2,200 in certain sectors, according to the Dominican Republic Real Estate Market Observatory (OMIRD), cited by El Inmobiliario.
14% with patio stove
The Census also asked whether the dwelling had a kitchen or cooking space. 5.5% of the national total, some 204,443 homes, have none. In rural areas, the percentage rises to 7.8%, and another 14% have the kitchen outside the dwelling, known as a patio stove, a shared space, an emergency solution that became permanent.
In the language of international organizations, having a kitchen is an indicator of minimum habitability. Its absence in one out of every twelve rural homes describes a housing deficit that operates on a different scale and geographically than the residential projects that concentrate private investment in the metropolitan region.
The geography of vulnerability
The ONE document is a technical instrument that breaks down the data by region, province, municipality and area of residence.
The El Valle region, which includes provinces such as San Juan and Elías Piña, has 175,575 homes, with zinc as the dominant roofing material and a proportion of homes with low-quality materials higher than the national average.
The regional GDP estimates report published by the Ministry of Finance in December 2025 shows that between 2015 and 2024, Enriquillo and El Valle are the two regions with the lowest per capita production in the country, with RD$330,245 and RD$333,688 respectively, compared to RD$541,702 for Cibao Sur or RD$506,509 for Ozama.
Pedernales, the southernmost province, registered 10,298 homes in the Census, of which 1,648 have zinc roofing as the predominant material. The province is among the territories prioritized in the government's tourism development plans.
What the data suggests
The ONE report shows that the expansion of the construction sector has a defined territorial distribution. 18.4% of the country's housing stock consists of apartments, and 620,852 of the 681,247 apartments counted are located in urban areas. In rural areas, the figure drops to 5.9%.
The regions with the lowest GDP per capita, Enriquillo and El Valle, are also those that concentrate the highest proportion of homes with low structural quality materials.
According to the 2025-2 Building Supply Registry (ROE), 34.1% of the 6,981 active construction projects in the metropolitan region are concentrated in Santo Domingo East. In areas where these projects are not implemented, zinc remains the predominant roofing material, palm planks the most common wall material, and dirt floors are a reality in 69,620 homes, according to the 2022 Census, which is not a public policy document.
It is a measurement tool whose figures on construction materials, floor typology and kitchen availability together form a housing risk map that the ONE itself describes as an input for "territorial planning, the formulation of public policies and decision-making in housing development."
The map reveals a dual speed: while the construction sector grows at 8.0% year-on-year in March 2026 and the mortgage portfolio registers its greatest expansion in all credit segments, this dynamism is concentrated in the metropolitan region and tourist centers.
The National Statistics Office (ONE), the Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bank produce the data that allows for tracing the correlation. The National Development Strategy and the National Housing Plan for Happy Families are the two current planning instruments that the government itself has identified as frameworks for addressing the housing deficit.
The 2022 Census provides them with the most accurate picture available of the problem.
Sources: Fascicle I. Structural characteristics of housing in the Dominican Republic. X National Population and Housing Census 2022. National Statistics Office (ONE) · Building Supply Registry ROE 2025-2, ONE · Monthly Indicator of Economic Activity (IMAE), January and March 2026, Central Bank of the Dominican Republic · Credit Report in the Financial System 2025, Superintendency of Banks · Association of Multiple Banks of the Dominican Republic (ABA), November 2025 · Regional GDP Estimates Report 2015-2024, Ministry of Finance · Global Property Guide, April 2026 · Observatory of the Real Estate Market of the Dominican Republic (OMIRD), cited by El Inmobiliario.
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