Homes for Sale in Akumal

Akumal homes are large, finished and mostly on or near the water, and that sentence describes the whole book. We list nine houses in Akumal today and every one of them is built. Asking prices run from $320,000 USD for a four bedroom jungle house on a 5,000 m² lot to $2,700,000 USD for oceanfront estates on the bay, with a median of $1,399,000 USD. Sizes run from 2,153 sq ft to 19,000 sq ft and the median is 6,614 sq ft (615 m²), the largest of any area we cover. Four, six and seven bedroom houses are the norm here; there is nothing smaller than four.

Three kinds of Akumal house

On the water. Villa AK is a six bedroom estate directly on Akumal Bay at $2,700,000 USD, the same price as a seven bedroom oceanfront villa with private beach access. Villa La Belle Vie is a four bedroom oceanfront home on Half Moon Bay, the quieter northern bay, at $1,175,000 USD, and Casa Zama is a six bedroom beachfront villa in North Akumal at $1,399,000 USD. These are the houses people picture when they say Akumal: a lawn to the sand, the reef a swim away, turtles in the seagrass below.

In Bahía Príncipe. The gated resort community south of the village holds three of the nine: Villa Eva, six bedrooms at $699,000 USD, Casa Zapote, four bedrooms at $805,000 USD, and Villa de Golf, six bedrooms on the golf course at $1,500,000 USD. Inside the gate you get security, the golf club, the beach club and the resort's services, and you pay for them in community fees.

In the jungle. Rancho San Martin is a four bedroom house on a 5,000 m² lot at $320,000 USD, the cheapest house in the book by a distance and a different proposition: land, privacy, and a drive to the water. Villa Grieta, a four bedroom estate with its own cenote at $2,100,000 USD, is the same idea at the other end of the ladder.

Why the houses are this big

Because the market is whole house rentals for groups and families who want room, not lock and leave condos. Akumal has been a village since the 1950s, the building heights are low, nothing is under construction on the scale you see further south, and the houses were built by people who meant to fill them. Four to nine bedrooms is normal. A buyer who wants a two bedroom house should look at the Akumal condos instead.

Who buys an Akumal house

Families and long stay owners who want beachfront on this coast without Tulum's prices or Tulum's construction noise. Group rental operators, for whom a six bedroom on the bay with a pool is the product the market asks for. And buyers who want the sea in front of them and a settled place behind them rather than an emerging one. Tulum is about 25 minutes south, Playa del Carmen about 20 minutes north, the airport about an hour.

What to check

The turtles are protected and access to parts of the bay is regulated, with guides required in some areas and seasonal restrictions, which is good for the place and worth understanding before you buy expecting unrestricted use of the water in front of your house. Beachfront ownership means the federal maritime zone at the shoreline and, for a foreign buyer, the fideicomiso. Inside Bahía Príncipe, ask for the current community fee and what it covers. And Akumal is a village: the restaurants and shops are limited, and you will drive to Playa or Tulum for anything substantial.

The figures on this page are asking prices from our own current listings. They are not closed transactions and they are not comparables. The village, its two bays and the rest of what we sell there are on our Akumal page.