Costa Del Este
Costa del Este is unlike anything else in Panama City…
It’s a 740-acre master-planned suburb that stands out for being the city’s best planned community. In contrast to San Francisco, everything in Costa del Este is new and shiny.
It’s a neighborhood within the corregimiento of Juan Díaz, and it’s found just off the main highway that takes you into Panama City from the international airport.
It’s among Panama City’s most sought-after business and residential addresses, and it offers strong investment potential. A number of national and international companies are based here, which has attracted expats from all over the world—especially those with families.
Spacious, walkable, clean, safe, and turn-key, Costa del Este is both a classic suburb and a truly cosmopolitan neighborhood. It’s also home to Panama City’s newest John Hopkins-affiliated hospital, as well as being just minutes away from a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course.
Prices in Costa del Este are some of the highest in the city, but demand remains strong.
What’s the best play here? Targeting the executives and employees of multinational corporations, again with medium- to long-term rentals. Buying pre-construction either to sell or to rent at completion can also be an effective and profitable strategy.
Bella Vista
Bella Vista is a corregimiento made up of some of Panama City’s most important neighborhoods, including Obarrio, Marbella, El Cangrejo, Avenida Balboa, El Carmen, and La Cresta.
It’s been undergoing a major overhaul that involves widening sidewalks, putting power and communication cables underground, improving parks, and more, all designed to craft a young, metropolitan lifestyle.
Living here puts you in the heart of the city, with easy access to everything. Calle 50, a major Panama City thoroughfare, runs through it. Also close is Calle Uruguay and its vast selection of bars, restaurants, and clubs.
One of the city’s most popular expat neighborhoods, El Cangrejo, is here. It’s close to public transportation, schools, universities, clinics, pharmacies, grocery stores, restaurants and bars, and plenty of green areas.
It’s central, so you can easily reach other areas of the city, and best of all, it’s walkable—one of the few neighborhoods in Panama City that qualifies as such.
The best play in Bella Vista is as a medium- or long-term rental apartment in El Cangrejo that targets young professionals, millennials, and digital nomads who are attracted by its fun and funky atmosphere.
Panama remains one of the best places in the world to live or retire overseas. And, it’s also one of the world’s safest investment havens.
This despite the fact that a downturn in Panama’s property markets has been predicted for years.
Starting in 2003 and continuing through 2008, this country enjoyed a mega construction boom. Then came the crash of real estate markets around the globe.
Panama City, for example, like any city of a million-and-a-half people, is many different markets, some offering more potential and upside than others.
In 1998 and through 2008, you could have bought almost anything in Panama and felt confident that you’d make money. That’s no longer the case. Today you need to target your investment search.
Where, specifically, should you be shopping?
Top Panama Market #1: Avenida Balboa
Avenida Balboa continues to offer opportunity. This frontline strip along the Bay of Panama has always been and will always be one of the city’s best addresses.
Pricing continues up even as new buildings and more inventory continue to appear along this oceanside boulevard. An apartment on Avenida Balboa will always find a buyer or a renter, as the case may be.
Top Panama Market #2: Costa Del Este
The other area in the city offering strong investment potential is Costa del Este. This master-planned suburb is the focus of many top Panama developers who are hard at work building both houses and apartment towers, as well as commercial space.
In addition, this is also the area where many (most) of the many thousands of expat workers moving to Panama City for jobs with the dozens of international companies that have set up and continue to be set up in and around Panama’s capital are looking to live… especially if they are coming with families.
Prices in Costa del Este are among the highest in the city, but demand remains strong. Buying pre-construction either to sell or to rent at completion can be an effective and profitable strategy.
Top Panama Market #3: Veracruz
Outside the city, other dynamics are playing out and creating opportunity.
Thanks to the anticipated new (fourth) bridge over the Panama Canal, the Veracruz neighborhood, which sits on the coast behind Panama Pacifico, is smack-dab in the path of progress. It’s an up-and-coming zone for a rental investment. It’s the nearest beach area to the city but has traditionally been overlooked by both tourists and investors.
Top Panama Market #4: Puerto Armuelles
Puerto Armuelles found its place on the map in 1927 when Chiquita Banana came calling. The company built the town as it exists today, complete with housing for workers, roads, sewers, and a railroad.
Puerto’s infrastructure is head and shoulders what you typically expect from a small Central American town. Chiquita is no longer headquartered here, but its legacy carries on.
When Chiquita pulled out of this coastal region in 2003, the local economy collapsed and the population decamped.
Most importantly, this is a depressed market that is attracting the eye of forward-looking developers who recognize potential when they see it.
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