What will your dollar buy?

$500,000
Half a million snags you a simple but comfortable butter-yellow condo in Eleuthera's Pineapple Fields development. A secluded beach is a few steps away (242-332-2221).

$1 million
Harbour Island's legendary Pink Sands has 13 estates with private beach access; lots start at $700,000 (888-475-7263). Overlooking Great Exuma's Emerald Bay, Grand Isle has Mediterranean-style villas, an infinity pool, and a fleet of golf carts. A furnished one-bedroom with a tricked-out kitchen goes for just under $1 million (242-358-5000).

$2 million
The pastel villas of Great Exuma's February Point are hidden in tropical landscaping that opens onto a protected cove. Houses come ready-to-occupy or DIY; lots begin at $750,000 and jump to $2 million. Fractionals cost, of course, a fraction (242-327-1567).

$3 million
Great Abaco's 534-acre Abaco Club on Winding Bay, by Ritz-Carlton, has a golf course, a spa, a pristine beach, and two- to four-bedroom cottages with sleek furnishings and outdoor hot tubs. High rollers shell out $2.4 million for the simplest (242-367-0077).

$10 million
The younger, hipper neighbor to New Providence's Lyford Cay, Old Fort Bay has elegant homes and an eighteenth-century fort turned club. Beachfront lots start at $7.85 million (242-362-5046).

$16 million
This much dough had better buy you something spectacular—and it does. New Providence's 1,000-acre Lyford Cay compound, a blue-blood favorite since the 1950s, is the Bahamas' most glam commu­nity, with a golf course and a private school. Prices hit the high eight figures—one seven-bedroom estate recently listed for $16 million (242-362-4211).

AND WATCH THE HORIZON FOR...
Cat Island's PGA Village, which will have a casino and a Rees Jones course; construction has just begun. Schooner Bay, on Abaco, broke ground this year; plans call for the 220-acre property to be LEED certified and to include a working garden (schoonerbaybahamas.com). On New Providence, the Albany, a partnership between Ernie Els and Tiger Woods, is set to open in 2010 with a marina and a golf course (albanybahamas.com).