Beachfront Property for Sale in Playa del Carmen

Beachfront in Playa del Carmen means a building whose ground floor opens onto the sand, and there is very little of it left to build. We list 24 beachfront residences in Playa today, in two projects: ZONNA, pre-construction, and Naomi Beach, finished. Asking prices run from $595,000 USD for a one bedroom loft to $2,740,000 USD for a three bedroom ground floor residence that walks straight onto the beach, with a median of $1,380,500 USD. Sizes run from 883 sq ft to 3,735 sq ft and the median is 2,082 sq ft (193 m²). Three bedrooms is the most common layout, eleven of the 24.

The two buildings

Naomi Beach is the finished one. Six residences: a two bedroom ocean view villa at $1,358,000 USD, a two bedroom penthouse at $1,476,000 USD, three bedroom beachfront residences from $1,715,000 USD, a three bedroom penthouse with ocean views at $1,962,000 USD and the ground floor three bedroom at $2,740,000 USD. These are built, photographed and can be walked through, which on a beachfront purchase matters more than anywhere else, because the one thing a render cannot tell you is what the beach in front of it is actually like at the hour you will use it.

ZONNA is the pre-construction project, eighteen residences from one bedroom lofts at $595,000 USD through two bedrooms from $950,000 USD to three bedrooms from $1,183,000 USD and a four bedroom penthouse at $1,880,000 USD. The pricing is under Naomi Beach for the same bedroom count, which is the usual off plan discount for waiting and for taking the developer's delivery risk.

Why beachfront in Playa rather than Tulum

Because it exists here as apartments. Tulum's beach is the hotel zone, where residential beachfront is a handful of houses and the odd boutique project, priced for the scarcity. Playa's beachfront runs the length of a city and has been built on for decades, so a beachfront apartment with a lift, a pool deck and a management office is a normal product rather than a trophy. The trade is that it is a city beach: Mamitas and Kool at the centre are the club end with music and day beds, Punta Esmeralda to the north is the family end where a freshwater cenote surfaces into the sea, and where your building sits along that line decides what kind of beach you own a piece of.

Who buys here

Owners who want the beach as a daily fact rather than a drive, and rental owners at the top of the Playa market, where a beachfront three bedroom commands a rate a golf view apartment cannot. It suits buyers who have looked at Tulum's beach road and decided they would rather have paved access, a hospital ten minutes away and a building with a concierge.

What to check

The federal maritime zone. The first twenty metres of beach above the high tide line are federal land, held under a concession rather than owned, and every beachfront building on this coast sits behind that line. Ask to see the concession and what it permits. Sargassum: the season runs roughly April to September and some stretches of Playa's beach collect more than others; ask the building how it handles it. Community fees, which on a beachfront building include the sea side maintenance that inland buildings never pay for. And, for ZONNA, the delivery date in writing and a look at the site as it stands.

The figures on this page are asking prices from our own current listings. They are not closed transactions and they are not comparables. For the city itself, its neighbourhoods and everything else we sell there, see our Playa del Carmen page.