The Puerto Vallarta/Riviera Nayarit region experienced one of its best quarters between April and July of this year, perhaps its best ever. The number of sales reported to the MLS services in the second quarter increased by 50% over the first quarter and already, after just six months, have reached 75% of what were the total number of sales in 2020 and 65% of what was sold in 2019. It gets even better when comparing sales volume at $270 million in the first six months of this year, compared to $336 million for all of 2020. In other words, sales volume so far this year already equals over 80% of total sales volume for all of last year. Vallarta is on track to have one of its best years ever.
Last year saw the market take quite a hit in the second quarter because of Covid, as did nearly all real estate markets. But the market made up for it with its better quarter ever in the second quarter this year.
And where are these sales mostly taking place?
In 2019, 23% of all sales took place on the south side of downtown Vallarta, primarily involving the sales of new condominiums built behind the beach in the downtown core. Next was the Hotel Zone with a 21% market share. In 2020 the south side increased its market share to 27%, followed by Nuevo Vallarta/Flamingos with 17%.
In the first half of this year, the south side again led with 18% market share, but tied with the South Shore of the bay in the first quarter, (which encompasses everything south of the downtown south side, primarily areas such as Amapas, Conchas Chinas, Garza Blanca and Sierra del Mar), while in the second quarter Nuevo Vallarta came in second with 12% of market share. Interestingly, the area around Pitillal, including Versalles and Fluvial, also had a strong market share with close to 12%. Versalles has a number of new lower-end priced projects on the market and Fluvial has been selling quite a few residential lots lately. The average sales price here is half what it is in most other popular regions such as in the downtown area, the Hotel Zone, and Marina Vallarta.
The average sales price (for both homes and condos) was $336,000 in 2020 whereas it was $376,000 so far this year - an 11% increase over last year.
