For Sale

Apartments bought off plan, on delivery or as a resale:

most city flats offered for sale sit at one of those points in a tower’s life. Buying off plan, you sign a promissory purchase agreement with the developer, pay the down payment in instalments while the building goes up, and settle the balance, almost always with a mortgage, when the keys are handed over. A unit just delivered is finished but nobody has lived in it, and is often owned by an investor who bought off plan and wants out. A resale has years of use behind it and a price set by what neighbouring flats have closed at, not by the developer’s list. Off plan you are buying a floor plan and a delivery date; on resale you are buying rooms you can walk through.

Houses in housing developments, lots and commercial premises:

outside the towers, the usual listing is a house in a gated or planned development, from Brisas del Golf and Las Cumbres on the capital’s north side to Penonomé and Chitré in the interior. Every house has two areas, the land and the construction, and plenty of listings quote only the larger. Lots are sold for building, from beach plots around San Carlos and Nueva Gorgona to farmland in Los Santos measured in hectares, while shops, offices and warehouses are bought by businesses that would rather not lease. Not ready to own: the same kinds of property are let under property for rent, and weekend beach flats are often let by the night under short-term and vacation rentals.

The bank appraisal and the price of a house in Brisas del Golf:

a three-bedroom house in one of the developments there asks around $250,000 to $350,000, moving within that band with the lot size, covered parking and how much has been built on. Most buyers pay with a mortgage, and the bank lends against its own appraisal, not against the asking price. When the appraisal comes in below the agreed price, the buyer covers the difference on top of the down payment, which is why a resale priced well above what the street appraises at is hard to close with anyone who is borrowing.

A newly delivered flat or a used house, checked room by room:

on a new flat, the handover is when faults are cheapest to fix. Tap the floor tiles and listen for a hollow sound, open and close every window and check the silicone, run the shower and watch whether the water finds the drain, and flip each breaker to see that the panel is labelled. Have the developer sign a list of every fault before you accept the keys. In a used house, look up as well as down: drywood termites eat from the inside and leave powder and soft spots in roof beams, door frames and built-in wardrobes. Compare the rooms in front of you with the building plans the seller hands over: a back room or closed-in carport missing from them is something the appraiser will ask about too. Ask for the registry documentation showing who owns the property and whether a mortgage is still recorded against it.

Selling your house, or passing on a flat bought off plan:

give the land area and the built area separately, the bedrooms and bathrooms, the parking, and whether the title is in your name and clear or carries a mortgage the sale will pay off. A recent appraisal is worth mentioning, since a financed buyer reads it as a sign the bank’s own appraisal will not fall short of the price. Photograph the roof, the side yard and the street as carefully as the kitchen. For a unit still under construction, check what your promissory agreement says about transferring it before you list, and state how much you have paid in and how much falls due at delivery. Someone driving out from the city to see a house in Penonomé wants to know before setting off whether the title is clean and whether that room at the back is on the plans.