Editing SEARCHING FOR A Home In Panama

The business sector has been quick to take advantage of the demand for property by foreigners who are moving to Panama. Projects to support the influx are mushrooming in the form of high-rise condominiums in the town, spreading across the Pacific coast and appearing on islands, in rural settings and in the mountains.<br /><br />The trend began in Bocas del Toro in the past. Boquete then soared into the limelight with endorsements from U.S. retirement publications and the construction of the Valle Escondido complex.<br /><br />Now the demand is spreading, not only to the areas of the Chiriqui highlands such as for example Volcan and Cerro Punta, but to Panama City and the mountains and beaches to the west of the town from Chorrera to San Carlos.<br /><br />On the following paragraphs, we offer a resumï¿½ of some of the projects under way.<br /><br />El Alcï¿½zar de Coronado<br /><br />Coronado Resort, on the beach 80 km west of Panama City, among the best known, and longest-established developments in Panama, has launched a fresh residential complex, "El Alcï¿½zar", designed for the growing community of foreign retirees and relocating families in Panama. Its most striking feature is really a 21-story con-dominium overlooking Coronado's superb course.<br /><br />El Alcï¿½zar offers 64 four-bedroom residences with ample balconies offering vistas of the Pacific Ocean and the forest-clad hills of the Continental Divide. You will have 24-hour security, a heliport, a modern emergency security alarm, connections for internet and cable television and two central air conditioners.<br /><br />Residents of El Alcï¿½zar will be entitled to free membership at Coronado's golf, beach and equestrian clubs, as well as the resort's Full Wellness Spa (the therapists which are trained in alternative medicine at the prestigious Uplledger Craneal Sacral Institute) along with other facilities. Owners will also have the right to rent their apartments to third parties.<br /><br />Tucan Country Club<br /><br />A haven for golf and nature aficionados, it is possible that golfers and residents will dsicover not merely toucans, but plenty of wildlife, at the Tucan Country Club since this magnificent course and residential development is bounded by virgin rainforest using one side and the Panama Canal on another.<br /><br />The Tucan Country Club and Resort has been developed on the old 180 acre Horoko Golf Club, utilized by the U.S. military during their occupation of the Canal area ( the name Horoko was an adaptation of the names of the forts of Howard, Rodman and Kobbe)<br /><br />The old course, organized in the 1940's, has been redesigned as a superb par 72 championship course and you will be the focus for a thorough development which will incorporate 500 homes, a hotel, clubhouse with indoor and outdoor dining facilities, meeting rooms, ballroom, men's and women's club bars and social areas for events.<br /><br />The complex will include a full-service gym, spa and tennis club and a shopping arcade with services like bank, laundry, pharmacy, beauty salons, auto rental and gourmet mini-super.<br /><br />This will be a gated community for members only. Actually a pre-requisite for purchasers of the villas, townhouses and terrace condos at Tucan Resort will be membership. Prices including lifetime membership range between $198,000 to over $800,000. Non-residents can purchase a lifetime membership for $25,000.<br /><br />Stupendous views of the canal, the canal basin and the city shimmering a mere a quarter-hour away, could be enjoyed from the homes and from many points on the course.<br /><br />Altos del Marï¿½a<br /><br />Probably the most successful and attractive property projects in Panama is Altos del Marï¿½a. Located in the highlands of Sorï¿½, 96 km (60 miles) west of Panama City, Altos del Marï¿½a is really a country-style residential project offering parcels having an altitude range between 550mts (1,800 feet) and 1,100mts (3,600 feet) above sea level. Because of the altitude, the area enjoys year-round spring-like weather, with temperatures ranging between 20 and 16 degrees Celsius (61-68 F).<br /><br />Well endowed with manicured forests, waterfalls, picnic areas and parks, Altos del Maria is fantastic for retirees or families choosing seclusion but with easy access to the conveniences of modern life. The town of La Chorrera, the fastest growing settlement of the spot, is 45 minutes away, offering modern supermarkets, restaurants, cinemas and shopping centers.<br /><br />Altos del Maria is also not far from the most popular stretch of Pacific-coast beaches in Panama - an area featuring numerous recreational and sports facilities. Included in this is Coronado Hotel &amp; Resort, which boasts among the best golf courses in Latin America, and the Royal Decameron Costa Blanca Hotel, the country's most successful beach development. Altos del Marï¿½a is connected to the capital by means of a modern, four-lane highway.<br /><br />San Marino Ocean Front<br /><br />With either two oceans, lots of people will prefer the Caribbean for its pure water and minimal tides.<br /><br />If you fill into this category, it will be worth looking into San Marino Ocean Front, a development near Colon, 65 miles or 90 minutes from Panama City. It really is on the stunning coastline referred to as Costa Arriba not far from the ruins of the famous old Spanish fortified city of Portobelo.<br /><br />The development includes 108 lots facing the blue Caribbean and backed by green rainforest slopes.<br /><br />San Marino Ocean Front includes a Club House overlooking the ocean with pool, gazebos, barbecue, bar area for any resident or private meeting. Another benefit is the marina with break water for safe using the boat ramp which enhances the entire development.<br /><br />Brisas de Los Lagos<br /><br />Twenty five years ago, Ricardo Velasquez, a respected eye surgeon in Panama City, bought a cattle farm near Chorrera, between Panama City and the Pacific beaches. He named it Brisas de los Lagos (Breezy Lakes) and begun to plant trees--teak, mahogany and pine. He set out to create, not just a re-forestation project but an ecological park.<br /><br />Now, 57 well-chosen lots on the list of lakes and streams have already been segregated from the wooded acres and are being offered on the market to form an exclusive residential enclave, in the united kingdom but within 40 minutes' drive from Panama City.<br /><br />Hacienda Las Nubes<br /><br />Probably the most intriguing projects is Hacienda Las Nubes (Ranch in the Clouds) above Cerro Punta in the Chiriqui highlands which is the best residential project in the country and the closet to nature, located in the cloud forest on the borders of the Baru and Amistad National Parks.<br /><br />It is the brainchild of author, photographer and film-maker Ricardo de la Espriella. He has sub-divided a tract of his land on the slopes of the Talamanca mountain range, overlooking the town and fertile valley of Cerro Punta and with a magnificent and almost eye-level view of the peak of the extinct volcano Baru.<br /><br />Lots of generous proportions (eg.half acre $50,000) are on special offer because the project gets under way. A hotel with bars, restaurants and meeting rooms will add country club style to the project.<br /><br />Valle Escondido<br /><br />Valle Escondido translates as Hidden Valley, and its own name is appropriate, since the magnificent valley of about 150 acres, although just a ten-minute walk from the town center of Boquete, is very hidden and isolated.<br /><br />A U.S. citizen, Mr. Sam Taliaferro, discovered the valley while out riding horseback. Although not a developer (his career up to the revelation of Valle Escondido had been in computer equipment) he envisioned a community in this idyllic place, and set out to buy the valley and build.<br /><br />Built in Spanish colonial style, the complex is self-sufficient. It incorporates its own "town center" with shops, an amphitheatre for music and cultural events, alternative health center and even a school. An extremely special feature is really a multi denominational chapel with a magnificent ceiling and murals of allegorical paintings by Roger Valdez depicting the initial ferocity of the Baru Volcano and the fertility, which followed its eruption.<br /><br />Valle Escondido has its water supply from a pure spring, which gushes from the mountainside. A river runs right through the house, creating scenic hazards on the 9-hole course. Coffee, the initial resource of the valley has been left largely intact and the working plantation's profits are shared among home-owners.<br /><br />Hacienda Los Molinos<br /><br />Boquete is also the website of another residential development, Hacienda Los Molinos, offering probably the most exquisite scenery to be found on the mountain slopes. Lots are scattered around a 360-foot-deep canyon -- a beautiful gorge with the Rï¿½o Cochea running through it. Something of lakes also beautifies the region.<br /><br />The project, designed by the Dutch architect and landscape specialist, Angrid Titanos, offers views of the peak of Baru and the Pacific Ocean. Residents get access to trails through natural forests and past rivers and waterfalls.<br /><br />The developers of Los Molinos also plan a clubhouse, restaurant, piano bar, library, pool, tennis courts along with other facilities.<br /><br />Montaï¿½as de Caldera<br /><br />This private residential community is aptly named because of its magnificent 360 degree view of pure mountain scenery like the continental divide and the mountains of El Peï¿½on. The district of Caldera lies about two thirds of just how up the slope leading from Chiriqui's capital city David up to Boquete just under the peak of Volcan Baru.<br /><br />Montaï¿½as de Caldera is the vision of John Richardson, a well-known property developer originally from the uk, who latterly lived in the Cayman Islands until he visited Panama in 2001 and discovered the mild climate and green beauty of Caldera. Associated companies of his family have been established since 1895.<br /><br />The community is being developed on 460 acres -- a lot of room for nature trails (and the 954 species of birds, which also call it home) around the residential areas, which are increasingly being divided into 350 lots of between 1,500 m2 and 5,800 m2. The city will have its own plentiful supply of clear water from springs on the property, which borders the area's principal river, Rio Caldera.<br /><br />Amenities planned for the community add a country club and restaurant, restaurant, bar, driving range, tennis courts, fitness center, equestrian center, doctor's office, a store and also a church.<br /><br />Brisas de Amador<br /><br />The Amador Causeway, which joins three islands alongside the entrance to the Canal, is on the path to realizing its tourism potential.<br /><br />On the island of Perico an ambitious project called Brisas de Amador is underway.<br /><br />The first phase, Causeway Boulevard, a restaurant and shopping complex is already complete with a number of first class restaurants and bars building up their trade.<br /><br />The promotors are actually moving on to the provision of tourist accommodation... a marina, hotel and a cruise port, which will take four years and $50 million.<br /><br />Next to Causeway Boulevard will be an apartment hotel with 180 rooms in ten separate buildings. The target market will undoubtedly be executives and professionals who have to stay in Panama for some time and who are looking for a place more "intimate and personal" when compared to a hotel and also more economical. Another type of guest will be passengers and crew of visiting yachts.<br /><br />There should be plenty of business in this category because the planned marina could have 400 berths for luxury yachts, sailboats and other craft.<br /><br />The cruise liner pier will have duty free shops and a cultural center featuring the seven ethnic Indian tribes on the isthmus. A five-star hotel and casino next to the cruise pier will complete this tourist-oriented complex and really put the Amador Causeway on the map.<br /><br />Punta Barco Village<br /><br />For those seeking real estate on the beach, Punta Barco Village offers an attractive opportunity. The project is situated at Punta Barco on a small bay with a private beach. The offering is varied; the choice is between 1000 m2 lots, "garden apartments" and condos.<br /><br />Prices of a lot with house start at $190,000. Three 3-story buildings round a pool contain the garden apartments which are from $235,000. The condos, each with 212 m2 in two 9-story buildings, start at $230,000.<br /><br />Punta Barco, a gated community incorporating a driving range and tennis courts, is 48 miles to the west of Panama City and then door to the leisure community of Coronado using its supermarkets and restaurants. There are three golf courses inside a 20-minute drive. Another charac-teristic of Punta Barco is the exclusive homes that the area is renowned and the ranches of breeders of Peruvian paso horses who use the equestrian center at Coronado.<br /><br />Costa Blanca Golf y Villas<br /><br />The enormously successful Decameron resort at Farallon on the Pacific Coast west of Panama City has been quietly promoting an adjoining residential development called Costa Blanca Golf and Villas for the past three years and it is now a well-established community with 35 per cent Panamanians and 65 per cent foreigners of several nationalities... from Canada, U.S., Italy, France, Spain, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Japan and other countries. Sales of villas and townhouse are ongoing.<br /><br />This exclusive beach project is surrounded by way of a beautiful professional Golf Course "Mantaraya".<br /><br />An 80-minute drive from Panama City, this residential resort has everything you could want, not only for living also for investment.<br /><br />The project itself has two types of houses: Townhouses: A comfortable two-story house with a backyard, terrace, barbecue and decorative pergolas. You will find a spectacular view to the "Mantaraya Golf Course" which purchasers will automatically be members. The minimum size of the land is from approximately 726sq feet to 4,900 sq feet, with a construction area from 610sq feet. The ground floor includes a spacious living/dining room, kitchen, laundry room, guest bathroom. The first floor includes two comfortable bedrooms, each using its private bathroom, balcony, terrace and independent entrances.<br /><br />Villas: There are three models of three, four and five bedrooms, each using its private bathroom, sufficient reason for a construction area from 802.59 sq feet. These excellent villas offer the alternative of choosing independent lands from 2,475sq. feet to 4,950 sq feet, each with a view to the course. On the main floor there exists a powder room, ample living and dining area, domed ceilings and maid's bedroom and bathroom that some owners use being an office or storage room. The laundry and kitchen can be on the primary floor.<br /><br />Owners of Costa Blanca Golf &amp; Villas, and their families, will become members of the exclusive Mantaraya Golf and Beach Club supplying a professional 18-hole course that surrounds the complete Costa Blanca development. The spectacular Beach Club is designed for the owners and their guests with a restaurant, swimming pool and what they claim is the foremost Pacific beach in Panama. There are nature trails, convention center, casino, spa, tennis court, water sports.<br /><br />Nï¿½are Boquete<br /><br />The developers of Nuare in Boquete have reached back to the culture of the indigenous folks of the mountains for inspiration in the planning and construction of a fresh residential project. As their brochure points out, the Gnobe Indians of Chiriqui regarded Boquete as a particular place -- a location of enchantment and magnetism. They have a word to describe it, "Nuare", which means something agreeable and enchanting.<br /><br />The luxurious houses on offer are a far cry from the thatched hut, but the guiding principles are sound. The resulting concept is even better. The first phase includes 35 lots along two streams and on the edge of a canyon by which flows the Caldera River.<br /><br />The project, located on a superb site at Alto Boquete will add a 24 hour security gate, spectacular club house, pool, spa gym, tennis courts, piano bar, reading room, billiards room, a shopping center and medical facility with ambulance. Nature trails are provided, throughout the property.<br /><br />The Azuero Peninsula<br /><br />One such emerging destination may be the tip of Panama's Azuero Peninsula.<br /><br />Favorable articles in many publications as distinct as The New York Times and The Robb Report suggest this previously unheralded Pacific peninsula is approximately to join what THE DAYS and many more are calling "Panama's land rush."<br /><br />The Azuero Peninsula is normally described in the guidebooks accurately enough, as being "off the beaten track". A charter flight from the skyscrapers of Panama City to the Azuero peninsula takes 40 minutes. By car, you travel, some 250 kilometers west on the Panamerican Highway before turning south for another hour. You pass through country sprinkled with roadside homes and Spanish-style towns to take brief respite in quaint central squares amidst friendly Panamanians and their folkloric festivals.<br /><br />At the tip of the attractive peninsula are tan-sand beaches with surf, hills, and dales for campers, excellent fishing just off-shore. And everywhere, it appears, cowboys, horses and cattle share the street with modern automobiles.<br /><br />The visionaries who have first seen the potential of the area are more worried about restoring its ecology than maximizing human habitation. And for good reason: The wealthy or the well-known who've bought land here (the Robb Report lists such recognizable names as Mick Jagger, Bruce Willis and Tommy Lee Jones) tend to value both ecology and privacy.<br /><br />Among advocates of responsible development, two of the very most influential are Edwina von Gal, a fresh York landscape designer, and Gilles Saint-Gilles, an internationally known French designer of mansions for princes along with other wealthy Europeans.<br /><br />According to a two-page color spread in THE DAYS, Ms. von Gal and her associates "are pooling their funds to get up old cattle ranches before developers choose the land for high-rise resorts, casinos and golf courses. They're reforesting eroded lands and planning to build with local wood and local labor."<br /><br />Saint-Gilles, who on 1,000 acres is accomplishing a lot of what Ms. Von Gal and others laudably hope to, coalesces his passion for Old World craftsmanship, exquisite design and environmental stewardship in "Azueros", a sustainable luxury community just outside of Pedasi. Enamored with the area's Tuscany-like hills and cerulean ocean waters, Saint-Gilles opt for secluded stretch of the Pacific because the location for Azueros and contains now commenced his ambitious vision-- a balance of luxurious living and ecological restoration.<br /><br />Azueros' work force happens to be building masterfully crafted homes created by Saint-Gilles on beachfront and ocean-view lots of up to 20 acres, a few of which are surrounded by their own private nature reserve. Four years into the project, Villa Camilla accommodates prospective buyers seeking privacy and such recreations as fishing and horse riding, but who want telephone and Access to the internet as well.<br /><br />Ocean Park Tower<br /><br />Ocean Park is a private and secure luxury residential complex located in Punta Pacifica, one of the desirable neighborhoods in Panama City. Its towers offer panoramic views of Panama City and the Bay of Panama.<br /><br />The Ocean Park lifestyle offers the advantage of living in the heart of the town within walking distance of shopping, hospitals, and entertain-ment, in a modern, luxury complex.<br /><br />Ocean Park consists of two towers 42 stories high within 55,000 sq feet of land in Punta Pacifica, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Tower 1 is all sold, and Tower 2 has few units left.<br /><br />Ocean Park Tower 2 has more than 6,000 square meters (64,583 square feet) of recreation and social areas, including two parks for children, controlled security access, and high-end luxury finishing.<br /><br />Amenities include 24/7 security gate, large indoor pool and visitor parking.<br /><br />Each building has two pools, fully equipped gym with sauna, basketball court, lounge, spectacular lobby, three high speed elevators, 24/7 concierge; full reserve power-plant, internet-ready and security surveillance system.<br /><br />Isla Viveros<br /><br />The wave of real-estate developments targeted at foreign expats and second-home buyers has reached the beautiful islands of Las Perlas archipelago, more specifically to Isla Viveros -a little-known, but well-endowed tropical island approximately eight miles south of Contadora.<br /><br />Grupo Viveros happens to be marketing an ambitious residential project on the island. With mansions facing the crystal-clear waters of the Gulf of Panama, and a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.<br /><br />Isla Viveros will be transformed into a secluded community of 550 residences built on 600 hectares (300 on the seafront and 250, facing the course.) The project also calls for two marinas with capacity for one hundred, 150-feet yachts, shopping centers, an air strip, medical facilities and three five-star hotels, featuring between 100-300 bedrooms. Lots, range between $300,000 and $500,000.<br /><br />Clients will have the opportunity to choose from various house models, even though company may also build mansions for probably the most demanding tastes. The full total price of the average property, land included, is approximately US$750,000.00.<br /><br />A small canal separates Isla Viveros from Isla del Rey, the biggest &amp; most populated of the Pearl Islands -an archipelago that gets its name from the abundance of pearls found there through the colonial period. The complete region is a paradise for anglers, divers and water-sport enthusiasts. The waters of the Pacific, are filled up with Blue and Black Marlin, Wahoo, Sailfish, Red Snapper and many other species. The project is a couple of minutes from the popular resorts of Contadora Island and not very far from Piï¿½as Bay, one of many world's top sports fishing venues.<br /><br />Something of regular, scheduled flights, that will soon include Isla Viveros, has an quick access to and from Panama City (15-20 minutes).<br /><br />Author:<br /><br />Kenneth J. Jones<br /><br />- General Manager -<br /><br />Focus Publications (Int.), S.A.<br /><br />Panama, R.P.