Costa Rica real estate market — prices, rental yield and trend
- Average price: $2,939 / m²
- Gross rental yield: 7.63%
- 12-month price change (USD): 17.9%
- Transaction cost: 7.5%
- Price basis: capital average
Costa Rica is one of the faster-moving markets Glopra tracks: the average residential square metre now costs $2,939, +17.9% in dollar terms over the last twelve months. That makes it the 38th most expensive of the 70 markets in the set.
What a buyer pays in Costa Rica
The $2,939 figure is an average for the capital: it describes the capital's market, not the country as a whole — most of the country trades well below it. Buying costs — transfer tax or stamp duty, notary, registration and agency — come to about 7.5% of the price here. On a 100 m² apartment at the average price that is roughly $22,043 on top of the $293,900 purchase price. That is below the 9.5% median across the set, which shortens the time it takes for a purchase to break even.
What it earns
Long-term letting returns about 7.6% gross on the purchase price, 8th of 69 markets by gross yield. Measured against local earnings, the price-to-income ratio is 10.1 — that is how many years of an average local income one average home costs, and it says more about who can buy here than any price figure does.
How this figure is built
The price figure for Costa Rica comes from the source we judge most reliable for this market. It was last refreshed on 2026-07-23. We rate our confidence in this market’s data medium: the series is usable, but thinner or less current than our best-covered markets. We recompute every market the same way; a figure that fails our checks is suppressed, not guessed.
Sources: GPG yields · globalpropertyguide.com · numbeo.com. Snapshot: 2026-07-23.