NEIGHBORHOOD INTELLIGENCE · COSTA DEL ESTE · 2026
Costa del Este,
decoded.
The Costa del Este you see in listings is not the Costa del Este that actually sells.
495 apartments changed hands here in 2025 — 263 between everyday owners, 232 developers selling off new stock. Look only at the resale market — where one family buys from another — and the typical seller asked $500,000. The typical buyer paid $385,000.
On paper that's a 30% gap. But those aren't the same apartment — the units being listed run larger than the ones that trade. Compare like with like, per square meter, and sellers ask about 15% above what buyers pay: $2,376/m² against $2,064/m². Signal 1 maps where that gap is real and where it's just a bigger unit, building by building.
Which buildings hold their asking price? Which stretch it? Which barely move at all, because the families inside them aren't leaving?
If you're thinking about CdE — your first apartment or your third — start here before anywhere else.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Who actually lives here.
Costa del Este is Panama City's master-planned district — a reclaimed-land grid of wide boulevards, parks, and a four-kilometer waterfront, laid out in the 1990s east of the old city over a capped former landfill. The people who live here skew affluent, international, and family-first: multinational executives and professionals, a large North American and European expat community, and Panamanian families drawn by the schools and the space. Unlike the oceanfront trophy towers to the west, this is a neighborhood people settle into, not just invest in.
By day it's a corporate hub — Copa Airlines' headquarters and a cluster of multinational offices anchor the Business Park — and by night it resolves back into one of the city's safest, most orderly residential areas. It's engineered rather than organic: daily life runs between gated towers, the Town Center mall, the schools, and the boardwalk, with the Corredor Sur at the edge for everything else. Newer and lower-slung than vertical Punta Pacífica, it trades trophy-tower prestige for planned, livable space.
- Hospital
- Pacífica Salud – Hospital Costa del Este — a full hospital with 24/7 emergency care — opened inside the Town Center complex in 2022, run by the same Johns Hopkins-affiliated network as Hospital Punta Pacífica. The most complex surgery still routes to the flagship in Punta Pacífica, a short drive west.
- Schools
- Real schools sit inside the district — Boston School International (IB, bilingual) and Academia Interamericana (pre-K through 12) on the core grid, The Casco School's primary campus in Green Bay, and early-years schools like Bamboo Kids Academy and El Jardín de la Cuadra on Avenida La Rotonda. Two names often tagged "Costa del Este" — King's College and the Metropolitan School — actually sit in Clayton and Panamá Norte, a drive away.
- Shopping & daily life
- Town Center Costa del Este — the district's mall, right inside the grid — is its everyday shopping and social hub.
- Getting around
- Car-first and planned for it: a grid of wide streets with the Corredor Sur tollway at the edge — roughly 15 minutes to the banking district and 20–25 to Tocumen airport. No metro station, and peak-hour traffic on the corridor is the trade-off.
The 60-second read
Three signals, one line each. Tap to jump to the full read.
Costa del Este, at a glance
Composition, scale, pipeline.
Before the three signals, the lay of the land — who built CdE, what's selling, and what's still to come.
Composition
Completed residential buildings, by class
Heavy in luxury and upper-mid; thin at the ultra-luxury end. The mix reflects a neighborhood designed for high-income residence, not for trophy speculation.
Tallest towers
Top 5 by floor count, completed
| # | Building | Developer | Floors | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vitri | F&F Properties | 74 | 2012 |
| 2 | P.H. Ocean Two | F&F Properties | 73 | 2010 |
| 3 | P.H. Pearl at the Sea | Habitats Realty | 70 | 2012 |
| 4 | Paramount | Urban Development Group | 62 | 2012 |
| 5 | P.H. Ten Tower | Urban Development Group | 54 | 2011 |
Four of the five rise above 60 floors, and the two tallest are both F&F Properties. The skyline that defines CdE went up in a tight window — 2010 to 2012.
Quarterly transactions, 2024 Q1 → 2026 Q1
Two kinds of sale, stacked: resales between owners + developers selling brand-new units
Total volume climbed through 2024–25 — but the developer share climbed with it. By our classification, more than half of 25Q4 sales were developers moving new units (25Q3 ran about even) — though one large project can swing a quarter. The resale line — owners selling to owners — held steady in the 50s–70s every quarter. That's the market that matters most to a buyer, and it barely wavered.
Most active by listings
Top 6 by for-sale listings (posted in the last 45 days)
| Building | Listings | Med ask | $/m² |
|---|---|---|---|
| Country Club 200 / The Regent | 70 | $440K | $2,861 |
| PH Bali — Costa del Mar | 41 | $398K | $2,338 |
| P.H Lumiere | 38 | $439K | $2,047 |
| Titanium Tower | 33 | $555K | $2,372 |
| Top Towers A | 31 | $305K | $2,162 |
| Parkside | 29 | $395K | $3,333 |
Six buildings carry roughly a third of CdE's active listing inventory. The Regent alone holds 70 listings — more than any other building in the barrio.
Pipeline
Top 6 forthcoming towers, by floor count
| Building | Developer | Floors | Units |
|---|---|---|---|
| Le Marque | Empresas Bern | 60 | 144 |
| Skyline Tower | — | 58 | 105 |
| Bioma | The Velopers | 58 | — |
| Tagua | Grupo Valor | 51 | 90 |
| P.H. Dieci by Pininfarina | UDG / Marjalizo | 47 | — |
| PH MADERO | Grupo Valor | 47 | 141 |
Six towers under construction or in pre-sale — the new supply heading to market over the next few years. Almost all of it is priced and positioned at the luxury end.
SIGNAL 1 · PRICE DISCIPLINE
What they ask, what they pay
The spread, building by building
Per square meter, sellers ask about 15% over what actually closes — but the real gap runs from −26% to +47% building by building. Negotiate against each building's recent closings, not the headline ask.
- Lumiere-26%
- The Regent-15%
- Bali - Costa del Mar-5%
- Costa del Este Pijao-2%
- ASIA - Costa del Mar+3%
- Vitri+4%
- Sevilla Towers+7%
- Castellammare+8%
- Brisa Marina+10%
- Parque del Mar 1+11%
- Parkside+12%
- Country Club Torre 100+12%
- Titanium Tower+12%
- Ocean Two+12%
- Top Towers - Torre A+14%
- Regalia+15%
- Elevation+17%
- Riverside+17%
- Matisse+18%
- Sol del Este+19%
- Mirador Costa del Este+20%
- Costa View+23%
- Pearl at the Sea+24%
- Ten Tower+33%
- Paramount+37%
- Lacosta Tower+47%
See the full breakdown
Every apartment in Costa del Este has two prices. The one the seller asks — listed on the portals, pitched by the agents. And the one the buyer actually pays — registered quietly in the public registry, weeks or months later.
Most of the time, those two numbers sit close. When they don't, the gap tells you something: whether a building is priced against what comparable apartments recently sold for, or against a hopeful story. Whether the next buyer walks in from strength or from weakness.
We looked at every CdE building with data on both sides in 2025 — at least four apartments listed, and at least three resales closed (owner-to-owner; developer sell-offs set aside). Twenty-six buildings cleared that bar. We priced each side per square meter, so a building full of larger units doesn't masquerade as an expensive one. Read that way, the split is sharper — and different — than the raw prices suggest.
Where asks stretch above closings, per m²
| Bucket | Gap (per m²) | # | Buildings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stretched | Ask ≥20% above close | 6 | Mirador, Costa View, Pearl at the Sea, Ten Tower, Paramount, Lacosta |
| Middle | Ask 10–20% above close | 12 | Brisa Marina, Parque del Mar 1, Parkside, Country Club 100, Titanium, Ocean Two, Top Towers A, Regalia, Elevation, Riverside, Matisse, Sol del Este |
Where asks match or trail closings, per m²
| Bucket | Gap (per m²) | # | Buildings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disciplined | Ask within 10% of close | 4 | PH Asia, Vitri, Sevilla, Castellammare |
| Ask ≤ close | Ask at or below close | 4 | Lumiere, Country Club 200 (The Regent), Bali, Pijao |
The pattern matters for two reasons — and the first is a warning about the number you'll see everywhere else.
The raw-dollar gap and the per-meter gap disagree, and that's the point. On listed prices, Country Club 200 (The Regent) and Lumiere look like the widest spreads in CdE — asks 36–40% above recent closings. Per square meter they ask below what's closed: their listings are simply larger units. Top Towers A and Elevation tell the same story — 40%+ on dollars, mid-teens per meter. Anchor to the dollar gap and you negotiate against a number that isn't there.
The genuine stretch hides where the dollar figure looked tame. Lacosta Tower reads a calm +13% on price but +47% per meter; Paramount and Ten Tower sit near +35% per meter. These are the buildings asking the most above what's recently closed — though each rests on just three 2025 closings, so treat the spread as a flag to dig, not a verdict.
And four buildings ask at or below recent closings per meter — Lumiere, the Regent, Bali, Pijao. That's usually a mix signal, not a discount: the units on the market are larger, and larger units carry a lower price per meter. Read the floor area before you assume you've found a bargain.
A CdE building with a 20%+ per-meter spread isn't a bad building. It's one where your offer starts at the recent comp for that size, not at the headline ask. Same apartment. Different opening move.
SIGNAL 2 · NEIGHBORHOOD ANATOMY
Which buildings move, which don't
The iceberg under the listings
Most CdE buildings barely trade — and that's usually stability, not a broken market. Where a building sits in these four quadrants tells you how many options you'll have getting in… and getting out.
See the full breakdown
Costa del Este has 69 residential buildings — 53 completed, 16 more rising. In any given year, most barely appear on any listing portal. That isn't dysfunction. Often it's the address working exactly as intended.
Pull back from the 2025 headline — 495 trades, 263 secondary — and a different pattern shows up: some buildings transact constantly, some barely at all, and the averages hide both.
We cross-referenced three years of secondary sales with current active listings, building by building. Every CdE building sorts into one of four quadrants — and each signals a very different investment reality.
The four quadrants
| Quadrant | 3-yr secondary | Active listings | # | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flowing | High | High | 22 | Two-sided market. Buyers and sellers negotiating in volume. |
| Steady | Low | Low | 24 | Families staying. One of Panama's best residential addresses — low turnover is the point, not the problem. |
| Lagging | Low | High | 12 | Listings the market won't pay. Asks above clearing. |
| Tight | High | Low | 11 | Churn without oversupply. When units list, they move — but nothing lingers. |
The Steady quadrant is the largest — 24 buildings, more than a third of CdE. The lowest-turnover, lowest-listing buildings in the neighborhood: Murano, Villas CdE, Soho Tower, Imperial. You won't find a flip opportunity here. What you'll find is a building where the families who moved in aren't planning to leave — neighbors you'll see for years. Low turnover in one of Panama's most desirable residential areas usually signals stability, not a broken market — though the same quiet that keeps neighbors in place can mean your own exit takes time too.
The Lagging quadrant is the opposite story. Twelve buildings where listings pile up and sales don't follow. Buyers price these against what's actually closing — per square meter, the test from Signal 1; sellers ask what they thought they were buying. Until one side moves, nothing clears.
Flowing and Tight are both healthy, in different ways. A Flowing building gives you choice — several units to compare and real negotiation data. A Tight building rarely has much listed, but what does sells fast. Both are viable ways in; the difference is just how many options you want on the table while you decide.
A building that trades often isn't worse than one that doesn't. High turnover in CdE often signals people circulating around great infrastructure. Low turnover often signals families who've quietly made home. Same neighborhood. Different communities inside.
SIGNAL 3 · YIELD
What CdE actually earns
The yield math, building by building
Long-term rentals yield 5.8% to 9.5% gross (median 7.0%) — a point or two above the rest of the city, and that's before costs. Where you land sets how much operating work you take on.
- Top Towers A · 20179.5%
- PH Elevation · 20169.3%
- Paramount · 20129%
- Lumiere · 20188.8%
- Pearl at the Sea · 20128.3%
- Parkside · 20187.2%
- PH Regalia · 20196.9%
- The Regent · 20176.9%
- Pijao · 20196.9%
- Brisa Marina · 20156.6%
- Ocean Two · 20106.5%
- Castellammare · 20065.8%
See the full breakdown
The word "yield" gets thrown around casually in Panama real estate. The math behind it rarely gets shown. So here it is. Gross yield is one number: a full year of rent divided by what you paid for the apartment, as a percentage. Earn $24,000 a year on a $300,000 apartment and that's an 8% gross yield.
In Costa del Este, 558 apartments are listed right now for long-term rent. Half ask less than $2,100 a month; half ask more. The middle works out to roughly $15 per square meter, per month.
Two honest adjustments first. Those are asking rents — what landlords want. Signed leases usually land lower once a tenant negotiates, and we don't have a private database of signed rents the way the public registry hands us closed sale prices. So we trim asking rents by 10% to get closer to what's really paid, then divide that trimmed rent by each building's 2025 typical resale price (developer sell-offs excluded). That gives us gross yield.
Twelve CdE buildings have at least three apartments listed for rent and at least three resales closed — enough on both sides to trust the result. Those twelve are below. Buildings with thinner data aren't shown: a single odd unit can throw a one-building yield way off, and we'd rather publish fewer we stand behind than pad the list with ones we can't.
Gross yield, building by building
| Building | Year | Rent (ask) | Rent (effective, −10%) | Close | Gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top Towers A | 2017 | $1,900 | $1,710 | $215,000 | 9.5% |
| PH Elevation | 2016 | $2,350 | $2,115 | $272,500 | 9.3% |
| Paramount | 2012 | $5,000 | $4,500 | $600,000 | 9.0% |
| Lumiere | 2018 | $2,500 | $2,250 | $307,500 | 8.8% |
| Pearl at the Sea | 2012 | $4,500 | $4,050 | $585,000 | 8.3% |
| Parkside | 2018 | $2,200 | $1,980 | $328,700 | 7.2% |
| PH Regalia | 2019 | $4,500 | $4,050 | $707,000 | 6.9% |
| The Regent | 2017 | $2,350 | $2,115 | $370,000 | 6.9% |
| Pijao | 2019 | $1,300 | $1,170 | $204,000 | 6.9% |
| Brisa Marina | 2015 | $2,300 | $2,070 | $376,500 | 6.6% |
| Ocean Two | 2010 | $4,000 | $3,600 | $660,000 | 6.5% |
| Castellammare | 2006 | $1,800 | $1,620 | $337,500 | 5.8% |
The baseline is 5.8–9.5% gross across twelve buildings. Median: 7.0%. That's before vacancy, management, property tax, and the monthly maintenance fee (cuota) — which in CdE's amenity-heavy towers is a real drag, so net yield lands meaningfully below. For comparison: Panama City's equivalent long-term rental baseline runs 5–6% gross. CdE's 1–2 point premium reflects both rental demand in the area and the fact that many CdE buyers aren't chasing yield — they're buying family residences, which suppresses aggressive rent-seeking pricing.
The range matters as much as the median. Top Towers A at 9.5% is the aggressive end — the higher you sit on this table, the more you're underwriting rental execution (finding tenants, managing well, keeping occupancy high). Ocean Two at 6.5% and Castellammare at 5.8% sit at the conservative end — larger units, slower turnover, fewer operating surprises. Where you land should match how much operational work you want to take on.
A note on medians. Throughout this section we report medians — the middle value, where half of units fall above and half below. We prefer median to average because a single $10,000 penthouse ask or a single $6M closing can pull an average badly in small datasets. At Castellammare, the median rent is $1,800 but a handful of oversized units pull the average well above that — the median is what a typical apartment actually rents for.
These yields are long-term rentals only. Short-term rental income in Panama depends on the building's reglamento and on current regulation — two moving pieces this report doesn't simplify. If STR income is part of your thesis, verify with counsel before you buy.
Treat 5.8–9.5% as an indicative gross range — a defensible opening, not a net return. Whether a specific building earns it depends on the unit, the floor, the finish, the maintenance fee, and who manages it. That's the next layer down. This report is the layer above.
Beyond the headline
Four supporting reads — financing, holding periods, ownership shape, and seasonality.
Who's financing CdE
- Banco General31%
- Other28.1%
- Scotiabank12%
- Global Bank7.9%
- Banesco6.9%
- Mercantil6%
- Caja de Ahorros4.1%
- BAC3.9%
See the full breakdown
Costa del Este has 844 registered mortgages since 2023. Banco General holds 31% of them — nearly one in every three CdE buyers who financed went to the same bank. Add Scotiabank (12%) and Global Bank (8%), and the top three banks account for just over half the neighborhood's financing.
| Bank | Share |
|---|---|
| Banco General | 31.0% |
| Scotiabank | 12.0% |
| Global Bank | 7.9% |
| Banesco | 6.9% |
| Mercantil | 6.0% |
| Caja de Ahorros | 4.1% |
| BAC International | 3.9% |
For a buyer, that concentration cuts two useful ways. The banks that write the most CdE mortgages have seen the most CdE deals — they already know which buildings hold their value, which can smooth your approval. And if you're getting pre-qualified, you'll be knocking on the same doors that financed your neighbors.
How long CdE owners hold
- Under 3 years32.2%
- 4–7 years43.8%
- 8+ years24%
See the full breakdown
Of the roughly 3,400 Costa del Este apartments bought new since 2013, only about 1 in 6 has come back to market — and since newer buyers haven't had as long to sell, that share will keep rising. When owners do resell, the typical gap is 4–5 years — and only a third sell within three years. This is life-cycle turnover (kids grown, job change, upgrade), not speculation.
| Years to resale | Share of resales |
|---|---|
| Within 3 years | 32% |
| 4–7 years | 44% |
| 8+ years | 24% |
For an owner, that's a stability signal. Turnover is low, and when units change hands, they're not being flipped — they're life-cycle moves. The real risk in CdE isn't that you can't exit; it's that you'll likely want to stay longer than you planned.
Who owns CdE
- Park Lane CdE82.3%
- Matisse80%
- Park View Residences76.3%
- Acqua I75.9%
- Panama Bay Tower73%
See the full breakdown
In Panama, apartments are often held through a company — an S.A., an inversiones corporation, a fundación — instead of in a person's own name. It's a routine ownership and estate-planning move here, not a red flag. In Costa del Este, the pattern clusters in specific buildings.
| Building | Corporate-wrapper share |
|---|---|
| PH Park Lane CdE | 82.3% |
| PH Matisse | 80.0% |
| Park View Residences | 76.3% |
| Acqua I | 75.9% |
| Panama Bay Tower | 73.0% |
Why it matters: in buildings with high corporate-wrapper concentration, your comparable owners are holding entities — often long-term, professionally managed, priced to institutional yield targets. The negotiation ecosystem inside differs from the family-owned buildings. Same neighborhood, different ownership dynamics.
When CdE actually closes
See the full breakdown
Across four years of closings (2022–2025), Costa del Este doesn't close evenly: volume climbs through the year and December is by far the busiest month — more than double January, the slowest — with a bump in September. That's closing pace, not pricing: more deals don't mean better prices.
| Month | Closings |
|---|---|
| January | 92 |
| February | 129 |
| March | 135 |
| April | 140 |
| May | 153 |
| June | 146 |
| July | 145 |
| August | 139 |
| September | 175 |
| October | 155 |
| November | 157 |
| December | 206 |
For a buyer, this matters less as a bargain calendar and more as an antidote to "act now" pressure. December closes more deals, but not at better prices; there's no clear season where sellers dump or where asks inflate. Patience isn't penalized.
Further reading
The buying-process guide and two deep-dive essays on the data behind this report.
The anatomy of a deal: from promesa to keys.
Every stage of buying in Panama City — the real 90-120 day timeline, the 3.5-4.5% closing costs, the three paz y salvos, and the red flags that should make you walk. Verified June 2026.
Read →What Costa del Este asks, and what it closes.
Twenty-six Costa del Este buildings clearing both ≥4 active listings and ≥3 owner-to-owner closings in 2025, with negotiation posture per building — priced per square meter.
Read →Costa del Este's quiet half.
Why most CdE buildings barely show up on listing portals, and what the split between busy and quiet buildings signals about who lives where.
Read →See every building in Costa del Este.
This report covers 53. Create a free account to browse them all — prices, sales history, and live listings, mapped.
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