Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The Rocha coastline is magical
Dear Reader,
I wrote last time about the real estate boom currently underway in Uruguay, and how it had impacted the country’s most popular seaside resort, Punta del Este. Today, we turn to the beach towns east of Punta, in a province called Rocha.
These small towns aren’t fancy or pretentious. Long a favorite with surfers and those who appreciated the area’s intrinsic beauty, Rocha had stayed under the radar of property buyers and developers.
But Uruguay’s real estate boom is moving east from Punta, along the coast towards Brazil--and these little beach towns are in the development path.
Already in Rocha, there’s one high-end development by a big Argentine developer. During my stay in Uruguay, I read of another planned one, by the founder of clothing chains Mango and Etiqueta Negra.
Right now, Rocha’s coastal towns don’t come with the sprinkling of glamour, in-season celebrities, or luxury amenities of Punta del Este. The most-developed town, La Paloma, has banks, a post office, a hardware store, a couple of small supermarkets, and a nice selection of restaurants and cafes. The main attraction is a lighthouse built in 1874. A giant whale skeleton in the center of town marks the site of a small museum.
My personal favorite, La Pedrera, only offers a handful of restaurants and cafes, and two boutique hotels. Outside of summer season, it pretty much closes down.
But it’s the natural amenities on offer that outshine everything else. From the low cliffs in La Pedrera, the sun lights up a gorgeous curved bay, wrapped around a dazzling carpet of white sand. The breeze brings the fragrance of the ocean, mingled with wild flowers. The shimmering blue sea rolls whitecaps onto the beach, and waves spray skywards where they meet rocky outcrops. The town straggles away from the beach, mostly single family homes… in a variety of sizes and build styles, from thatched-roof cozy cottage to uber-modern glass and concrete. It’s magical here, despite (or perhaps because of) the lack of amenities. You’ll find it hard to pull yourself away...
Local broker contacts confirmed that Uruguayans prefer to buy in La Paloma. They appreciate having the banks, supermarkets, taxi kiosk, and post offices on their doorstep. Argentines and Europeans, on the other hand, prefer La Pedrera’s unspoiled atmosphere, and its seclusion.
You can own a coastal property in Rocha for a fraction of the cost in Punta del Este. And your budget can stretch to a home closer to the beach and ocean...
I saw a three-bed, two-bath house on the beach (and I mean right on the sand) in La Paloma for $200,000. The 120 square meter (1291 square-foot) house could use some minor remodeling, but it comes furnished. The yard’s a decent size…and you have the whole beach just beyond your front door.
Just outside La Paloma, a 500 square meter (5380 square feet) lot two blocks back from the beach costs $40,000. This is in a fraccionamiento, a lot development, with restrictions on the size and height of homes, but not on design or style. Plus, you don’t have private gated entrances, or communal areas, keeping monthly fees to a minimum.
A chacra(country estate) property in a new development between La Paloma and la Pedrera costs $15 a meter, with a minimum lot size of 5000 square meters. That’s a very reasonable $75,000 for 1.25 acres, in this resort area. Some lots in this development had an ocean view.
In the next five to ten years, I expect this section of coast will change significantly. The pace of development is gathering speed. This is good news for property investors. I just hope that Rocha’s little beach towns preserve their quaint charm…and don’t get swallowed up in the process.
If you’d like to know more about these or other properties in Rocha, contact Alberto Prandi here. Alberto is a local real estate broker we work with. His family has run a real estate business in Punta for 26 years, before opening another office in La Paloma, giving him a real insight into the property market (and, just for the record, he too rates Rocha as the next hot spot). You can contact Alberto here.
Margaret Summerfield
You might also be interested in:
Beautiful Beaches, a Property Boom, and the Soya Dollar
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