El Palmar

About El Palmar:

El Palmar begins just north of downtown Puerto Armuelles and covers about 98 square kilometres of coast, flat land and hill country in the far south-west of Chiriquí. The four-lane highway from Paso Canoas, where it leaves the Interamericana, runs through the town on its way into Puerto Armuelles, and that is where the supermarkets, hardware stores, fondas and corner shops are. Locals split the place into three: El Palmar Norte, on the north side of the highway, with the barrios of Cuatro Calles and La Cuchilla; El Palmar Centro; and El Palmar Sur, where Corazón de Jesús, Coronado and El Cucuy face the sea. Inland, rural roads lead to Sangrillo, La Choroca, Los Planes, Río Chiquito, Pez de Oro and the three San Bartolos, Línea, Límite and Arriba. The hospital, the banks and the bigger stores are in Puerto Armuelles, and David is about an hour and a half away by car.

Until 2018 all of this sat inside the Puerto Armuelles corregimiento, and Law 46 of that year gave El Palmar a corregimiento of its own, with the town as its seat. Work comes from several places at once. Some people commute to shops in Puerto Armuelles or at the border, some work on the palm plantations and at the oil mills nearby, and many make a living from home: a fonda, a barber’s chair, a pickup selling fish and fruit door to door. The Centro Regional Universitario de Barú, the district campus of the Universidad Autónoma de Chiriquí, is in El Palmar, along with the Instituto de Puerto Armuelles secondary school and the local primary schools, and a good share of their staff commute in from elsewhere in Barú.

The shore is a run of grey-sand beach facing the bay. At weekends and through the dry season people come to swim, bodyboard and surf at Corazón de Jesús and El Cucuy, or to fish from the sand; on weekdays the beach is often close to empty. Behind the town there is oil palm, and further inland the ground rises into hills, with smaller settlements and rural roads you should drive in the wet season before you buy. The San Bartolo river runs through the corregimiento and feeds the treatment plant that supplies both El Palmar and Puerto Armuelles. Its rainy-season floods have more than once torn out the intake and left thousands of people without water, and IDAAN, the national water utility, is now building a new permanent intake.

The 2023 census counted 6,147 residents. Most are Panamanian families from the area, and along the beach there is also a community of retired foreigners, some full-time and some for part of the year, from the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany. Buyers include Puerto Armuelles families who want their own house close to work and the sea, retirees looking for a lot or a house by the beach, and investors weighing the large beachfront tracts and the lots on the main road near the university. What draws all of them is the same trade: the beach a few minutes away, and a town with full services right next door.

Houses in El Palmar:

Houses for sale are mostly single-storey homes in the barriadas along the highway and on the streets that run down toward the coast. In Barriada El Palmar, for example, three-bedroom, one-bathroom houses come up with parking and a fenced terrace, a short walk from the supermarkets. Older houses sit on wider plots, sometimes a double lot, with fruit trees in the yard. Because of the San Bartolo outages, ask whether the house has a reserve tank and a pump, and how long it held out the last time the supply was cut. Then confirm in the property registry that the house is registered to the person selling it.

Land and Lots in El Palmar:

House lots of roughly 1,100 to 1,300 square metres come up on established residential streets a few minutes from the beach, with homes already built on either side. On the main road near the university campus, lots with water, power, phone and internet already connected are offered as sites for small apartment buildings; before you pay for that idea, ask the municipality what use and height the lot actually allows. For buyers who want land near the beach in Barú with room to spread out, larger fincas also come up a short way back from the sea, some of more than ten hectares with crops and services in place. Wherever the lot is, check that the road in is public and that the plan in the registry matches the fences.

Beachfront Land in El Palmar:

Flat tracts with frontage on the sand come up now and then in El Palmar Sur, some close to ten hectares, with big shade trees and access both by road and by a right of way. These are parcels for a project, not for a single house. If one of the access routes depends on a right of way, make sure it is registered rather than agreed on a handshake. The beach itself is public, so what you are buying is the land behind it; have the boundary measured from the high-tide line. Power and water described as nearby are not the same as connections on site, so get a price for bringing them in.

FAQ:

• Can a foreigner buy property in El Palmar?

  Yes, but it depends on where. Foreigners in Panama can own property on the same terms as citizens, except within ten kilometres of a land border, where Article 291 of the Constitution bars foreign individuals, and companies with foreign capital, from acquiring land. Downtown Puerto Armuelles is only about eight kilometres from Costa Rica as the crow flies, and El Palmar begins just to its north, so the line runs close. Have a surveyor measure the distance from the exact parcel to the border before you sign. Renting is not affected.

• Why do the papers for a lot in El Palmar say Puerto Armuelles?

  Because El Palmar was split off from Puerto Armuelles in 2018, and plenty of deeds, plans and sale notices still place this land in the old corregimiento. That alone is not a problem. What matters is that the finca number in the property registry, the cadastral plan and the fences on the ground all describe the same piece of land. If the seller holds possession rights rather than title, price in the time and cost of titling before you make an offer.

• Does the water really get cut off?

  It can, in the rainy season. When the San Bartolo floods or runs very muddy, the treatment plant serving El Palmar and Puerto Armuelles has had to stop, and floods have damaged its intake more than once. A new permanent intake is under construction, but until it is working a reserve tank is worth having. Ask the seller how the house coped during the last outage.

• How far are the beach, the town and David?

  From the highway, Corazón de Jesús and El Cucuy are a few minutes’ drive, and so is downtown Puerto Armuelles with its hospital, banks and supermarkets. Heading north, the four-lane road runs to Paso Canoas and the Interamericana, and David is about an hour and a half away. Inland communities such as Los Planes and San Bartolo Arriba sit further off the highway, so drive the road in the rainy season before you buy there.