What is this land worth? How our price range works
For any parcel we give you a price range and a box to compare the seller's asking price. It is our suggestion, built from public data, to help you negotiate and to spot an asking price that is out of line. It is not an appraisal.
1. We start from the government's own number
Hacienda's land-valuation office (ONT) publishes a reference value for every zone in the country: per square metre for small urban lots, per hectare for rural land. We read the zone your parcel sits in. A parcel of 0.25 ha or less in an urban zone is priced per square metre; anything bigger per hectare.
2. We widen it, because market prices run higher
These are tax reference values, and real asking prices are usually above them. So the low end is the official value and the high end is 3 times it for rural land (2 times for small lots). The range is deliberately wide and labelled low confidence. We are tuning these multipliers with real asking prices as we collect them.
3. We adjust for what we measured on your land
Power at the boundary, road frontage, water, steep slope and forest cover move the range up or down by small, capped steps. Anything we could not measure is listed as not checked instead of being guessed.
4. We compare with what sellers ask
Type the asking price and we show where it falls in the range and how many times the official value it is. Once at least 10 real asking prices have been recorded in the same official zone, we show how they compare with the official value there. Asking prices are what sellers want, not what land sells for.
5. We convert at the real exchange rate
Official values are in colones. We convert at the Central Bank's published rate, refreshed through the day, and say which rate and date were used.
What the range is not
- • It is not an appraisal or a valuation, and it does not replace a licensed appraiser (perito valuador).
- • It does not know about title, liens, boundaries that do not match the ground, buildings, or access rights.
- • There is no public database of sale prices in Costa Rica, and transfer values recorded at the registry are often lower than what was paid, so we do not pretend to give comparable sales.
Indicative range only. Not an appraisal and not a valuation. Costa Rica has no MLS and registry transfer values are often under-declared.