Osa Tropical Properties’ Costa Ballena Market Report 2025-2026: Results, Trends, and Outlook

Costa Ballena’s 2025 market was active, but negotiation-driven. Total closed deals increased versus 2024 (184 vs. 171), while total closed volume softened ($93.25M vs. $100.91M). The simplest interpretation is that more transactions occurred, but a larger share of them landed in the mid-market, and buyers were more selective—especially above the $500,000 threshold.

The clearest operational story of 2025 was pricing strategy. Nearly half of 2025 closings (44.6%) involved at least one price reduction, and many of those required multiple adjustments before the property truly matched the buyer pool. Importantly, timing mattered more than the size of the first cut: earlier responsiveness to market feedback correlated with better outcomes.

As we enter 2026, the market is not “weak.” It is maturing. Inventory expansion has shifted behavior from scarcity to selection, which increases negotiation leverage, extends marketing cycles, and makes correct initial positioning and strong presentation more important than ever.

How to interpret the data: market context and methodology

Costa Ballena remains a largely human-reported market rather than a fully automated MLS feed. Sold updates are often received shortly after closing through co-brokerage communications, but reporting cadence varies by season and brokerage. This report should be read as a high-quality snapshot rather than a perfectly centralized feed.

Osa Tropical Properties is becoming more automated each year. In 2026, OTP will roll out a new website and integrated CRM designed to capture more data points, improve communication, and better match buyers with properties—while remaining human-led and relationship-driven.

Regional definitions used throughout
To reflect how the market behaves (not just geography), OTP uses three core zones and, for the first time, an “Other” category so adjacent submarkets do not skew Costa Ballena averages. These zones differ meaningfully in views, utilities, access, and “vibes,” which impacts pricing and marketing.

North: centered around Dominical
Central: centered around Uvita
South: anchored by Ojochal, extending to Palmar
Other: beyond Matapalo (north), Tinamastes (east), and Palmar (south)

2025 closed-sales performance: what happened

Closed sales overview (all regions and property types, 2025)
Total closed deals: 184
Total closed volume: $93,250,253
Average sale value: $506,795

Multi-year context (with 2020 treated as a shock year)
2022 stands out as the peak year by both deal count and dollar volume (213 deals; $129.65M; average $608,692). The best way to read 2023–2025 is normalization rather than collapse, with 2025 rebounding in deal count versus 2024.

Time on market and negotiation conditions: the structural signals
Average days on market (DOM) remained elevated: 2022 (374.5 days), 2023 (284 days), 2024 (365 days), 2025 (343 days). The elevated 2022 average is best understood as an “absorption phase,” where motivated buyers purchased older listings that had already accumulated long DOM. In a hungry market, buyers often accept properties that were previously overlooked—either because they were great deals or because they had a scarce, high-value trait. Post-2022, increasing new inventory and broader choice contributed to longer decision cycles and negotiation, keeping average DOM elevated into 2024–2025.

Average list-to-sold ratios show a clean shift from urgency-driven to negotiation-driven outcomes: 2022 (95.51%), 2023 (93.51%), 2024 (90.50%), 2025 (90.98%). Put simply, by 2025 buyers had regained leverage, and sellers increasingly had to respond to market feedback—especially in a higher-inventory environment.

What OTP agents observed on the ground

2025 was not uniform across Costa Ballena. Some agents experienced strong momentum, others faced extended listing times, and nearly everyone felt the drag of global uncertainty, particularly around the U.S. election cycle. By year’s end, however, a consistent pattern emerged: pricing discipline, turnkey condition, and buyer psychology mattered more than ever.

Pricing reality: the market is unforgiving—but fair
Throughout 2025, agents at Osa Tropical Properties consistently observed that the market recognizes correct pricing immediately. If a property is priced properly, the market knows—and buyers know—those homes sell quickly. The properties that were priced aggressively moved, while listings priced higher than market expectations largely did not. The high-inventory environment compared to market size means that pricing must be strategic rather than aspirational.

Budget concentration: the $500K ceiling defined 2025 liquidity
The majority of our office's buyer activity in 2025 clustered at $500,000 and below. High-net-worth buyers were still present, but fewer in number and more selective. This helps explain why transaction count rose slightly while total volume and average sale value softened.

Chontales: “value per dollar” clarity in a selective market
Chontales stood out because buyers with fixed budgets perceived more house for the money. The takeaway is not that other areas weakened; it is that value clarity matters more when buyers have options. Lower entry prices and strong build quality made Chontales increasingly attractive for buyers willing to trade proximity for space and design.

Vacant land and construction: a tougher sell in 2025
Vacant land underperformed finished homes. Buyers showed less appetite for complexity: build timelines, project management, and cost uncertainty. Several forces converged, including rising construction costs (driven in part by dollar strength), seller resistance to reductions on lots, and buyer fatigue with long timelines. With abundant finished inventory available, land purchases and fixer projects lost urgency.

What actually sold: turnkey, modern, low-maintenance homes
Buyer preferences sharpened dramatically in 2025. Turnkey dominated, newer construction performed best, and buyers showed limited interest in maintenance-heavy or renovation-intensive properties. Ocean views were “nice to have,” but not always required if other value drivers were strong. Strong interior design, efficient layouts, and walkable or central locations mattered. Fixer-uppers struggled, and the appetite for “projects” simply wasn’t there in a market with so much newer inventory (including substantial new-build supply from the past several years).

Multi-unit properties: a clear ceiling on complexity
House + casita combinations remained attractive, but anything beyond that became more difficult to sell. More complex multi-unit properties introduced management burden, operational risk, and additional complications around financing and resale. Buyers favored simplicity and flexibility.

Commercial: selective bright spots where condition and adaptability won
Even in a cautious environment, well-maintained, adaptable commercial assets drew strong interest. A notable example shared by the team was a hotel listing in Dominical that attracted an offer and continued interest because it was extremely well-maintained with “solid bones.” The buyer appeal was not strictly immediate ROI; it was the ability to evolve the asset—retreat center, boutique hotel, higher-end concept—without structural risk. In other words, condition and adaptability outperformed “yield-only” framing for certain commercial buyers.

Price reductions in 2025: how price discovery actually happened

How common were price reductions?
Within the 2025 dataset, 433 listings had price reductions, and reduction timing could be parsed for 417 of them (96.3% coverage). Among 2025 closings (184 sold listings), 82 sold listings (44.6%) had at least one reduction. Of those sold-with-reduction listings, 37 (45%) required multiple reductions.

Reduction size: sold vs. unsold nuance
Average total reductions were similar for sold versus unsold listings (sold roughly 10.1% vs. unsold roughly 11.1%). This is an important reality check: “cutting deeper” alone does not guarantee a sale. Fundamentals (location, access, design, usability) and presentation still matter, and so does timing.

Timing: earlier first reductions correlated with better outcomes
For listings with reductions and a parsed first reduction date, conversion rates declined as the first reduction was delayed: conversion was higher when the first reduction happened within roughly the first 90 days, and meaningfully lower when the first reduction was delayed beyond a year. Sold listings reduced earlier (median 61 days) than unsold listings (median 128 days). Successful sellers also tended to move faster between adjustments, while unsuccessful listings often waited longer and lost momentum.

Practical implication for sellers: if market feedback is consistently weak by roughly the 60–90 day mark, a strategic adjustment tends to preserve credibility and momentum more effectively than waiting.

What reductions actually did in practice
A reduction did not usually create an immediate sale. More often, it restored viability, reopened buyer interest, and allowed negotiation to form over time—especially if the first reduction happened late. The overarching pattern is that timing outweighed magnitude: earlier alignment mattered more than a larger first cut.

Price increases: rare and situational
Price increases were exceptional behavior. In the data, 20 listings increased price, and 5 of those sold in 2025 (25% conversion). When increases “worked,” they tended to be modest. Larger increases correlated with non-conversion and were more likely to occur later in the listing lifecycle. While reasons for increases were inconsistently recorded, the pattern supports a practical conclusion: increases are most viable when tied to real value creation or clear repositioning, not optimism.

Inventory expansion: the structural reason the market “felt” different

Inventory expansion explains much of the behavioral shift. In January 2022, OTP carried 276 active listings. The current inventory snapshot is 907 listings for sale (389 vacant land, 445 residential, 73 commercial). This near-quadruple increase aligns with what agents experienced day-to-day: more choice, longer decision cycles, more negotiation, and price adjustments becoming a normal part of reaching market-clearing.

The election effect, currency dynamics, and global pressure: why hesitation lingered
Agents felt 2025 did not fully “settle” the way some election-year markets do. Uncertainty lingered longer: buyers delayed decisions, sellers hesitated to adjust, and confidence stayed fragile. By late 2025, however, agents began noticing movement again as people regained clarity and started acting. This sentiment was not limited to the U.S.; it showed up among Canadian and European buyers as well.

Currency and global conditions contributed to an uneven playing field. The U.S. dollar remained strong relative to the Costa Rican colón and the Canadian dollar, which created consistent exchange disadvantages for Canadians. At the same time, several global destinations often considered alternatives were increasingly viewed as politically or socially unstable, reinforcing Costa Rica’s perceived safety, stability, and livability.

Buyer psychology: from “someday” to “now”
One of the most influential trends agents observed was emotional rather than purely financial. Buyers increasingly spoke about wanting an exit option, creating a foothold outside their home country, and securing a place they could retreat to—now, not later. Many are not planning to live in Costa Rica full-time yet; they value flexibility, access, and community, and they find comfort in knowing the option exists. Costa Rica’s social fabric also stood out for many: a sense that life is not as defined by political division, and that everyday interactions feel more human.

2026 outlook: what is likely to matter most

What 2025 rewarded, and what that implies for 2026
The 2025 environment rewarded three things consistently: realistic initial positioning, responsiveness to feedback, and strong property fundamentals paired with strong presentation. Conversely, the market penalized staleness (waiting too long to adjust), unjustified price increases, and the assumption that the market would “catch up” without evidence.

Why 2026 “feels different,” operationally
Agents across OTP agree that momentum is building. The shift is not speculative; it is experiential: more inquiries turning into action, more decisiveness, and more urgency tied to lifestyle preservation. The market may not be “exploding,” but more people appear ready to protect their peace and act with intention.

A practical stance for buyers and sellers in 2026
For buyers: today’s inventory depth creates negotiating power and genuine choice. The strongest opportunities typically appear where pricing is already aligned—or where sellers are prepared to align quickly once feedback is clear. Buyers can be selective without being passive, and can negotiate from a position of options.

For sellers: success is increasingly engineered, not hoped for. Winning listings will be the ones that combine accurate positioning, strong presentation, and early strategic adjustments when market feedback is consistent. In this market phase, the goal is to avoid becoming “stale” and to stay credible in the eyes of buyers who are comparing many alternatives.

Closing perspective
Costa Ballena’s 2025 market reflects a normalized, negotiation-driven environment after an extraordinary post-pandemic peak period. Deal flow remained healthy, but the path to a sale increasingly ran through correct pricing and timely responsiveness, supported by property fundamentals and thoughtful presentation. Heading into 2026, the region continues to differentiate itself on stability, livability, and the kind of “human” quality of life many buyers are seeking. The buyers are still here; the market has simply become more discerning—and that is what a maturing market looks like.