I am getting sieged by the question, ‘what is happening to land prices in Dominical?’ Ok, well here goes my attempt to update the answer to this question.
I am currently involved in a deal for a front ridge piece of property that is 2,000 sq. meters (1/2 acre) for $450,000 (no, I didn’t mis-place the comma). Being as this price is totally outside of anything I had previously experienced, and I felt that the seller had lost his marbles, I held my nose as I quoted the price to the prospective buyer. It turns out that it is exactly what he wants and well… ‘if that’s what it takes to buy it… OK’.
This has skewed my concept of land values here. Now, all of a sudden, Canto Del Mar, and any the other front ridge stuff coming down the pike looks like great deals and promising investments.
‘Front Ridge’ refers to the ridge of mountain that runs parallel to the ocean just inland from the beach around Dominical. It is this ridge that gives Domincal its huge appeal from a real estate prospector’s point of view. The mountains come right down to the sea. Go to the north, and this ridge moves back away from the ocean, likewise with the south. So, right here on this front ridge you can look right down on the beach, listen to the waves, walk to the beach, and have a 24/7 breeze to make living quite comfy. So, any properties in this ‘blue chip’ zone are slated for big things in what appears to be the very near future.
So, I guess the answer to the question is, ‘they are going up rapidly’. I know that this is going to get a rash of complaints about unruly business developers and realtors ruining the area with these high prices. But the market here is very much ‘free’ and it is simply riding the ebbs and flows of supply and demand. There is no way that I can see to artificially inflate the pricing in this real estate market, at least to any appreciable degree. The demand is high for these properties, and yes, there are those who, in recent memory, saw these properties for a whole lot less. Such is biz. Imagine what will happen when the road gets paved down from Quepos, and the international airport comes in down in Palmar… and then there’s that “Third Thing”