“The Zone” is made up of a stretch of coastline starting from Hatillo in the north, and stretching south to Palmar Sur. Included in that zone are the following towns, noted from north to south:
- Hatillo
- Dominical
- Uvita
- Ojochal
- Palmar Sur
The inland portion of The Zone is a leg that runs from Dominical to San Isidro de el General, also known as Perez Zeledon. In between Dominical and San Isidro is the town of Platanillo.
A word about pricing:
When dealing with ocean view properties in Costa Rica’s southern zone, the usual criteria of looking for a “per square meter” pricing fails us. This becomes evident quickly as one familiarizes themselves with the market place.
Evaluating an ocean view property in this area is a combination of attributes, or virtues that come together to give the property its value. Based on observing land buyers over the years, I rank these virtues in roughly the following order:
- view
- access
- size
- infrastructure
- amount of usable land
- proximity to the beach or a river
- privacy
- air motion
As an example of this, I once had a 10 acre property that had a window view of the ocean. Of the 10 acres, perhaps 1 ½ were usable, the rest falling away in jungle covered hillsides. Price: $115,000
Across the way from this property, perhaps within 500 meters, I had another property of 2 acres with a sweeping ocean view,