Introducing a smarter search for real estate developments in Central America. We’ve added some extra options to the commonly used price range and location searches:

• map based search (still rare for property in Central America)
• driving time from closest international airport
• paved/unpaved roads from international airport
• public evidence of social and environmental activity (we plan to dig deeper in 2009)
• driving time from closest town with amenities (defined as hotel >10 rooms and a good sized grocery store)
• lifestyle choices from golf to surfing to diving - for example whether you can walk to a surf break, find one within a 1 hour drive, have access to a golf course or be close to a dive spot. Joel Burslem of FOREM, a leading blog on technology and real estate describes lifestyle search as the new black.
• amenities offered - and whether planned or completed

And once you can get there, you can compare median prices with the country as a whole as well as the revealrealestate average.

Many find international real estate murky and lacking in transparency. Unlike more mature property markets such as in Canada, the US or the UK, investors can’t readily draw on data served up by national institutes, registries or central bank databases. And without reliable comps it can be hard for an investor to make an investment decision with confidence.

So we took the task in-house. Over the past 12 months we’ve built a directory of real estate developments operating in Panama, Costa Rica, Belize and Nicaragua - with standardized price comparisons. Practically all the projects in our database target the international buyer seeking a second home investment or lifestyle buy.

We’d love your feedback. What search options should we add?