El Coco

About El Coco:

El Coco takes in the southern part of the district of Penonomé. Its northern edge meets the Interamericana a few kilometres southeast of Penonomé’s centre, at Llano Marín, Chorrerita and Monte Lirio, and from there it runs south toward the Pacific, with Antón to the east and the corregimiento of Coclé to the west. The village of El Coco itself is about 13 km from Penonomé. Everyone else lives in hamlets such as Aguas Blancas, Aguas Frías, El Rosario, Río Hondo, Santa Cruz, Las Lajas, Marcaja, La Dorada and Barriada Cuarto Centenario. Buses leave Penonomé for most of them, and a separate Universidad–Penonomé route serves the campuses, so for shopping, banks and the hospital people simply go into town.

Two economies sit side by side. On the highway at Llano Marín, the Centro Regional Universitario de Coclé of the Universidad de Panamá, and the Coclé campus of the Universidad Tecnológica bring in students, lecturers and staff every weekday, and INADEH runs a training centre in the corregimiento as well. Inland the work is older: rice on irrigated fields fed by a lake that draws on the Zaratí, cattle for beef and milk, and shrimp farms toward the coast. Small industry follows the farms, with block factories, rice drying and milling, and makers of manjar and other dairy products. In the village of El Coco the year’s big religious date is the feast of the Santa Cruz.

Most of El Coco is low, flat ground barely 25 metres above the sea, broken by modest hills such as Cerro Santa Cruz and Cerro Anto. The San José, Chorrera, Sucre and Hondo rivers cross it on their way to the coast, where more than 500 hectares of mangrove close off the south of the corregimiento. This is dry tropical forest country, and the dry season lasts four to five months, from January into May. That is the climate fact that matters for a buyer: pasture browns, dirt roads turn to dust, and a lot without a reliable well or water connection is hard to live on in March and April. The soils are acidic clay-loam that respond well to fertiliser, and tradition keeps most of them under rice and pasture rather than vegetables.

The population doubled in thirteen years, and the new estates explain it. Paseo del Río, Jardines de San José, Quintas del Encanto and the streets around the universities filled the land between the highway and the hills, giving families who work in Penonomé a house with a yard a few minutes from town. Most buyers are Panamanian households paying with a bank mortgage, which is why modest financed homes sell alongside larger houses with pools. Investors watch the highway frontage at Llano Marín, where big tracts are offered for a shopping plaza, industry or a housing scheme. Further inland the buyers are farmers adding land and families after a country house within reach of Penonomé.

Houses in El Coco:

Most houses for sale stand in estates near the Interamericana. Jardines de San José has three-bedroom homes of around 70 m² on 200 m² lots, the kind of house a family buys with a bank loan. In Paseo del Río, at Llano Marín, three-bedroom houses with a covered garage sit on lots of around 400 m²; some are corner plots, some have a pool, and a few owners have joined two lots into one property. Quintas del Encanto and other streets near the highway add bigger homes, some with five bedrooms or 450 m² of land. A starter house in Jardines de San José costs well under half of what the larger Llano Marín houses ask. If you look at Paseo del Río, drive in on a weekday morning: trucks bound for a quarry at Chorrerita use the same street and bridge that link the estate to the Interamericana.

Homes for Rent in El Coco:

Rentals cluster at Llano Marín and the estates beside it. Furnished four-bedroom family houses with air conditioning and a maid’s room come up here, as do plain three-bedroom homes in Quintas del Encanto and Paseo del Río. With two university campuses on the same stretch of road and a training centre nearby, rooms let to students during the semester are part of the local market too. Out toward Aguas Blancas, owners sometimes offer a country house for rent or for sale, whichever comes first. Leases are long-term; nobody comes to El Coco for a holiday let.

Land and Lots in El Coco:

Three kinds of land come up. At Llano Marín, residential lots start at around 500 m², close to schools, shops and transport, while large tracts with Interamericana frontage are pitched for commercial, industrial or housing use. At Chorrerita and Monte Lirio, parcels of several thousand square metres lie a short walk from the highway, some titled and already fitted with a well and power. On the Aguas Blancas road the land turns rural: flat 5,000 m² parcels on a dirt road 15 minutes from Penonomé, or a fenced tract of five hectares 4.5 km in from the Interamericana, suited to cattle, crops or a social-housing scheme. A square metre out there costs about a tenth of a house lot at Llano Marín. Ask whether water and power actually reach the boundary, because on some rural parcels they stop several kilometres short.

FAQ:

• The address says “El Coco”: is the property really in this corregimiento?

  Not always. The road toward El Coco starts inside Penonomé town, and some estates carry the name without being in the corregimiento: Residencial El Coco, for one, is registered in the corregimiento of Penonomé. Go by the corregimiento written on the survey plan and in the Registro Público entry, not by the name of the road or the estate.

• Are farms in El Coco titled?

  Fewer than half are. Of some 600 farms in the corregimiento, around 290 had a registered title; most of the rest were occupied without one, and a few were rented or held under mixed arrangements. A possession right can change hands, but it is not a title and a bank will not lend against it. Ask for the finca number, look it up at the property registry, and walk the boundaries with the survey plan in hand.

• How far is El Coco from Penonomé and the universities?

  Llano Marín, where the Universidad de Panamá and UTP campuses stand, is on the Interamericana a few minutes from Penonomé’s centre. The village of El Coco is about 13 km from town, and Aguas Blancas parcels are around 15 minutes out, partly on unpaved road. Buses run from Penonomé to El Coco, Aguas Blancas, Aguas Frías, El Rosario, Chorrerita and Cuarto Centenario.

• What happens to water in the dry season?

  From January into May there is little rain, and rural lots feel it first. Find out whether the property has a well, how it held up last April, and whether a water connection runs past the gate. When an advert says water and power are “a few kilometres away”, the cost of bringing them in is yours.

• Can I rent a house near the universities?

  Yes. Llano Marín, Paseo del Río and Quintas del Encanto have three- and four-bedroom houses for rent, some furnished, within easy reach of the campuses and the highway. Rooms for students are let in the same area during the semester.