Condos for Sale in Playa del Carmen

Playa del Carmen condos are the widest choice of apartments on this coast, and the one place where the phrase means something different depending on which end of town you look at. We list 46 condos in Playa today: 9 finished and 37 pre-construction. Asking prices run from $145,000 USD for a one bedroom to $2,494,000 USD for a three bedroom with a terrace larger than most houses, with a median of $468,000 USD. Sizes run from a 31 m² loft to 6,727 sq ft, and the median is 1,265 sq ft (118 m²). Two and three bedrooms make up more than three quarters of the book.

Where the condos are

Playa is a city, and its condo market follows the city's shape. The cheapest apartments are in the centre and the streets behind it: Acacia's one and two bedrooms from $145,000 USD, Distrito Playa's lofts two blocks from the beach from $165,000 USD, Naomi Selva's junior and deluxe units. These are small, well built and priced for a first purchase or a rental unit rather than a home to grow into.

Playacar, the original gated development south of the ferry pier, holds The Leaf: studios from $241,000 USD, one and two bedrooms from $352,000 USD and three bedroom lock offs at $542,000 USD, all finished and all inside the gate with its golf course and beach.

Corasol, north of town beside the golf course, is where the larger and newer stock sits: Punta Laguna and The Village two and three bedrooms from $408,000 USD to $654,000 USD, the finished ones with golf views and big terraces, and Costa Residences at the top of the ladder, three bedroom beachfront apartments from $2,153,000 USD.

Between those poles are Oceanna Residences, Viceroy Residences and Marila, from $440,000 USD to $1,562,000 USD, the middle of the market and mostly pre-construction.

Finished versus off plan

The honest number is that only nine of the 46 are finished today. The Leaf's studios and apartments at Playacar, four apartments at The Village in Corasol and a three bedroom in Awa are the ones you can walk through, buy and use this season. Everything else is a developer's price list with a delivery date, and it is priced accordingly: pre-construction condos here are usually 10 to 20 percent under what a finished equivalent asks, in exchange for waiting and for taking the developer's risk. Confirm the delivery date in writing and ask what is built on the site today before you value an off plan unit.

Who buys a condo in Playa

Rental owners first, because Playa fills from Cancún airport year round rather than for a season, and a two bedroom near Quinta Avenida or inside Playacar lets in a way most of the Tulum book cannot match in the low months. Full time residents second: Playa has hospitals, international schools, banks and full size supermarkets, and a condo here is a home in a functioning city, not a retreat. And buyers who started in Tulum and were put off by unpaved streets. Playa solved that fifteen years ago.

What to check

Noise. The southern end of Quinta Avenida is loud until late and buildings within a block or two of it carry that into the evening. Walk the street at ten at night before you offer on anything downtown. Community fees: the gated developments in Playacar and Corasol charge for the gate, the golf and the grounds, and the figure is worth asking for early. And the fideicomiso: within fifty kilometres of the coast a foreign buyer holds through a bank trust, which is routine here and takes 60 to 90 days to close.

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