Bored of life in the city? Looking to live by the sea?

Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, is swapping its sugar fields for luxury property and for the first time the market is open to foreigners.

Rich foreigners, that is.

"The average price for the L'Adamante residences that we sold last year was $850,000," said Nicolas Vaudin, general manager of Ciel Properties, owned by Ciel Investment and Deep River Beau Champ.

"That excludes the government registration duty of $70,000 and any furniture," he told Reuters.

Anahita -- a $460 million development on Mauritius' eastern coast - is set to include six km (4 miles) of waterfront, a 72-par championship golf course, Four Seasons hotel, and 325 luxury properties.

For now, it is a building site on an old sugar estate with mud, machinery, and hundreds of swarming workers.

The buyers are not discouraged.

At an invitation-only event last year, the first 70 residences were snapped up within six hours.

No superstars have yet bought at Anahita, project officials say, but Mauritius has 11 similar schemes.

Once a sleepy corner of the Indian Ocean with its pristine beaches and ubiquitous fields of sugar, the descendants of Asian, African, and European immigrants are adapting to free trade and the global property market.

Going against the instincts of many Mauritians, a 2004 law allowed foreigners to buy freehold with the aim of attracting foreign cash.

Indeed, developments like Anahita explain the nearly five-fold increase in tourism's foreign direct investment to 2.6 billion Mauritius rupees ($85 million) in 2005/06, say analysts at the Mauritius Commercial Bank.

The locals seem happy too.

"More jobs," explained Collet Babet, a social worker in the nearby town of Beau Champ. "Two thousand people are working there right now, so there's less unemployment," she said.

Press handouts say the project will also take care of the environment, developing just eight percent of the 213-hectare site and protecting the 13 rare species of tree.

In the late 17th century, Dutch settlers lasted just 20 years before the disease became too much for them, but property developers say that's ancient history.

"Mauritius is not just about beautiful beaches," Vaudin said.

Ed Harris ,  Reuters

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