Los Cabos Market Report
Palmilla's Two Markets: Oceanside vs Inland
Palmilla looks like one address, but the sales data says there is a defined line. Oceanside has carried a premium every year since 2023, closing at more than double the price per square foot of inland properties, and that gap holds whether it is a condo or a home. Let's take a look at Palmilla sales data over the last three years.
Palmilla, looking north toward San José del Cabo.
The short answer. Over the last three years, oceanside Palmilla closed at a median $1,500 per air-conditioned square foot for homes and $1,320 for condominiums. Inland, the same two categories closed at $691 and $600. That is a premium of 117% on houses and 120% on condominiums — almost the same number, on two products that have nothing else in common. You are not paying for the building. You are paying for which side of the Transpeninsular Highway it sits on.
103Closed sales, last three years
$570MTotal closed volume
~117–120%Oceanside premium — houses and condos alike
36Listings available today
The divide
It is the land, not the building
Palmilla reads as a single address. The sales say otherwise. Split the community into its oceanside and inland halves — the designations the MLS itself uses — and the same gap appears twice, once in houses and once in condominiums, at almost exactly the same size.
Oceanside homes closed at a median $1,500 per air-conditioned square foot against $691 inland, a 117% premium. Oceanside condominiums closed at $1,320 against $600, a 120% premium. Two completely different products, two completely different buyers, and a gap that lands within three points of itself. Treat that precision loosely: both of the thinner halves rest on 8 sales each — 8 oceanside condominiums and 8 inland homes — so the two premiums landing this close together is partly luck. The direction and the rough size are not in doubt; the third decimal place is.
The line is a literal one. Mexico Federal Highway 1 — the Transpeninsular — runs straight through Palmilla, and the community's two halves sit either side of it. Villas del Mar, Espiritu del Mar, La Caleta and Caleta Loma are on the sea side; Palmilla Estates, Oasis Palmilla and Villas de Oro are on the golf and mountain side.
That is what makes it a land story rather than a product story. A condominium on the ocean side of Palmilla costs more per foot than a detached house on the inland side — $1,320 against $691. The address is doing the work.
OceansideInland
Homes: 65 oceanside, 8 inland. Condominiums: 8 oceanside, 22 inland. Air-conditioned area only, excluding terraces.
The mix
Two sides, two kinds of property
The premium is almost the same on both sides of the ledger, but what actually trades is not. Oceanside Palmilla is 89% houses. Inland Palmilla is 73% condominiums. In three years there were 8 inland home sales and 8 oceanside condominium sales — both thin enough that a buyer set on either should expect to wait.
For most buyers that turns an abstract question about location into a concrete one about budget, and the boundaries are sharper than the brochures suggest. Nothing oceanside has closed below $1,375,000 in three years. At the other end, no inland sale has exceeded $4,000,000. Between those two numbers is the only band where the choice genuinely exists — and it is narrower than most buyers expect when they start.
Oceanside
$1,500
median per AC sq ft, homes
Median home sale$6,100,000
Median condo sale (8 sales)$3,050,000
Sales, three years73
Share that are houses89%
Median days on market213
Inland
$691
median per AC sq ft, homes
Median home sale (8 sales)$3,168,500
Median condo sale$1,077,000
Sales, three years30
Share that are condos73%
Median days on market169
Enclave by enclave
Where the money actually goes
Palmilla is not one neighbourhood but more than a dozen gated enclaves, and the spread between them is wider than the oceanside-inland gap alone would suggest. Of the enclaves with at least three sales, Espiritu del Mar and Villas del Mar sit at the top at roughly $1,526 per air-conditioned square foot, and between them account for 56 of the 103 sales in this study.
The exception worth noting is Oceano Alta. It sits on the ocean side of the highway, but at $733 per foot it has traded closer to the inland enclaves than to its oceanside neighbours. In fact it has traded below inland Palmilla Estates. That is three sales, so treat it as a flag rather than a finding — but it is a useful warning that the oceanside label alone guarantees nothing about price per foot.
Enclaves with at least three closed sales in the period. A further 9 sales occurred in smaller enclaves. Blue is oceanside, gold is inland.
| Enclave | Side | Type | Sales | Price range | Per AC sq ft | Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Espiritu del Mar | Oceanside | Condo / House | 17 | $3,850,000 – $16,250,000 | $1,526 | 378 |
| Villas del Mar | Oceanside | Condo / House | 39 | $1,750,000 – $25,900,000 | $1,525 | 194 |
| Palmilla Cove | Oceanside | House | 5 | $4,000,000 – $13,500,000 | $1,297 | 262 |
| Villas de Montana | Oceanside | Condo | 3 | $1,375,000 – $2,250,000 | $1,009 | 249 |
| Palmilla Dunes | Inland | Condo | 10 | $850,000 – $1,895,000 | $852 | 156 |
| Palmilla Estates | Inland | House | 4 | $1,300,000 – $3,395,000 | $745 | 155 |
| Oceano Alta | Oceanside | House | 3 | $2,200,000 – $3,300,000 | $733 | 170 |
| Villas de Oro | Inland | Condo / House | 13 | $675,000 – $1,320,000 | $474 | 252 |
Neighbouring Querencia is a separate community in the MLS and is not included in any figure on this page, though the two are often confused.
Over time
What has moved since 2023
The oceanside figure has risen in every year of the study, from $1,339 to $1,558 per air-conditioned square foot. That is the one clean trend in the data.
The inland figure has not trended so much as bounced — $540 in 2023, $740 in 2024, $567 in 2025, $661 in 2026 — because it rests on just 30 sales spread across four calendar periods, against 73 oceanside. The premium between the two therefore swings widely, from 90% to 163%, and no single period sits near the 117–120% headline figure. That is exactly why the premium quoted at the top of this page pools all three years rather than relying on any one of them.
2023 covers September to December; 2026 covers January to September. Sales per year: 2023 — 5 oceanside, 7 inland, 2024 — 19 oceanside, 10 inland, 2025 — 31 oceanside, 6 inland, 2026 — 18 oceanside, 7 inland.
Thinking about a specific enclave? The numbers above describe the market. What they cannot tell you is which of the 36 properties currently listed is priced correctly for its position, its condition and its rental potential. That is the conversation worth having. Talk to Darren O'Connor about Palmilla.
Available now
What is for sale in Palmilla today
At the time of writing there were 36 properties listed across Palmilla — 26 houses and 10 condominiums, 21 oceanside and 15 inland, with asking prices from $965,000 to $24,950,000. The live listings below are current.
Set against the pace of closings, that is about 10 months of oceanside supply and 18 months inland. Neither side is short of inventory, and inland in particular is a buyer's negotiation.
Inventory counts from MLS BCS, September 30, 2026. Live listings below update automatically. Laidback Legacy's own Palmilla listing is La Caleta Lot 81, an oceanside homesite.
Palmilla homes for sale
Palmilla condominiums for sale
Pace
How long a Palmilla sale takes
The median oceanside sale took 213 days; inland, 169 days. Those are medians, so half of everything took longer. The longest of these closed sales took 1,066 days to trade, and one property currently listed has been on the market for 1,487 days.
For sellers that is the number to plan around. It also argues for pricing against your enclave's own recent closings rather than against whatever is listed nearby today. Those two reference points sit further apart than most sellers expect: several Palmilla enclaves currently carry asking prices well above anything they have ever closed.
If you are buying
- Decide which side of the highway first. It sets the price per foot far more than the finish level does.
- Inland at 18 months of supply is the stronger negotiation of the two.
- Check air-conditioned area against total area on every listing. Across the 42 sales measured for this report, terraces were a median 32% of the total — so the two measures give very different prices per foot.
- Oceanside condominiums are rare. 8 traded in three years, so patience or flexibility is required.
If you are selling
- Price to your enclave's recent closings, not to the optimists currently listed.
- Plan for 213-plus days on the ocean side. Half of all sales took longer than that.
- Oceanside pricing has risen in every period covered here, so an older purchase is likely worth revisiting — against your own enclave's closings, not a Palmilla-wide figure.
- Get a position-specific valuation rather than applying a Palmilla-wide average to your unit.
Next questions
What buyers ask after the price
Price per foot settles where to look. The questions that follow are almost always about how a purchase in Mexico actually works — and they have specific, knowable answers:
Cost and process
- Are closing costs higher in Mexico? What you actually pay on top of the purchase price.
- Property taxes in Los Cabos — lower than most US buyers assume.
- Why Cabo is a cash market, and how that changes negotiation.
- How ownership works for foreign buyers, including the fideicomiso.
The wider corridor
- Palmilla — the community, its amenities and current listings.
- Gated communities in Los Cabos and how they compare.
- Private golf communities, including Palmilla's own course.
- The Cabo Corridor — Palmilla's neighbours, from Cabo Real to Chileno Bay.
Frequently asked
Is oceanside Palmilla worth roughly double the price of inland Palmilla?
On a price-per-square-foot basis that is what the market has paid. Over the last three years oceanside homes closed at a median $1,500 per air-conditioned square foot against $691 inland, and oceanside condominiums at $1,320 against $600. Oceanside has carried a large premium in every period of the data, but its size swings a great deal — from 90% to 163% year by year — because inland Palmilla trades so thinly. The headline figure pools three years for exactly that reason, and no single year sits near it.
What is the cheapest way into Palmilla?
An inland condominium. Those closed at a median $1,077,000 over the last three years, and the least expensive closing in the whole dataset was $675,000. Current asking prices for inland condominiums start around $965,000.
How long does it take to sell in Palmilla?
The median oceanside sale took 213 days and the median inland sale 169 days. Against the current pace of sales, oceanside inventory represents about 10 months of supply and inland about 18 months. This is not a market where things move in a weekend.
Is Querencia part of Palmilla?
No. Querencia is a separate community in the MLS with its own oceanside and inland designations, and none of the sales on this page come from it. The two are adjacent and frequently confused, which is worth knowing before comparing prices between them.
Why does this page use air-conditioned square footage?
Because terraces are a large and inconsistently recorded share of Palmilla floor area. In a 47-sale sample, the 42 sales that recorded a terraced area showed terraces at a median 32% of the total; in the other five the total was either left at zero or entered identical to the air-conditioned figure. Air-conditioned area is the more consistently reported of the two, so every figure on this page uses it. A price per square foot quoted against total area will look roughly a third lower for the same property.
Thinking about Palmilla?
Laidback Legacy works this stretch of the corridor every week and reads the data behind it rather than the marketing. Whether you are weighing oceanside against inland, or deciding what your own Palmilla property is worth today, we will tell you what the closings actually support.
Method. 103 closed sales in Palmilla between September 2023 and September 2026, drawn from MLS BCS (Flexmls) on September 30, 2026: 73 houses and 30 condominiums. Oceanside and inland follow the MLS community designations for Palmilla. Prices per square foot use air-conditioned area only. This was measured on a 47-sale sample — all 22 inland condominium sales plus the 25 most recent oceanside home sales. In the 42 of those where a terrace area was actually recorded, terraces were a median 32% of total area and total area was a median 1.48 times the air-conditioned area. Of the remaining five records, four carried no total at all and one repeated the air-conditioned figure. Air-conditioned area is the more consistently reported of the two measures, which is why it is used here; note that it also produces a higher price per square foot than a total-area basis would, so figures quoted elsewhere against total area will look roughly a third lower.
Medians are used throughout rather than averages, because a handful of very large sales would otherwise distort every figure. Active inventory is as of September 30, 2026 and changes constantly. Neighbouring Querencia is a separate MLS community and is excluded throughout. Listings referenced are offered by their respective brokerages of record. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed; this is a market summary, not an appraisal. Source: MLS BCS.
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