Investing your money and time in Panama's Casco Antiguo, also known as Casco Viejo, can be very rewarding. We assist individuals and developers to understand this part of the city, ihow to deal with local authorities and to locate a property that suits your development criteria.  Drawing upon our experience restoring our own properties and advising local developers and government agencies, our people on the ground can provide investors with the information they need to confidentially acquire, develop and market historic properties.

Buying a restored apartment or house in Panama’s Casco Viejo is as easy as buying a home anywhere else in Panama City. A good first place to start is a reputable realtor - you will find some links if you visit our Panama Offshore World index page. As for size, restored properties range from studio apartments to entire mansions, with prices varying depending on location, views, parking and amenities. Once you get serious, visiting with an attorney is essential for a more in depth look at the factors that affect price and the process of buying.

Historic development properties represent a challenge.  While a love for Casco Viejo is the most important requirement, a little building or development experience would certainly come in handy!

If you are ready to start investigating a development project in Panama City’s old quarter, a good place to start is a trip to the area accompanied by a reliable local guide.  He or she can give you detailed information regarding the state of the market, development costs and specific local regulatory issues.

It is important to understand that when you buy an unrestored property in Casco Antiguo, you are buying a piece of Panama’s cultural heritage. With that comes a certain responsibility.  Briefly, here are the rules:

 

1. Follow the design rules.  Execute your project within the design guidelines established by the Office of Historical Patrimony (Patrimonio Historico).  These rules are strictly (and we believe, fairly) enforced by Patrimonio Historico, so you there isn’t much choice in the matter. Nonetheless, the process is much easier if you take time to understand the guidelines in advance so that your expectations are reasonable from the start.
2. Begin your project on time. Understand that you have a moral, and in most cases a legal, obligation to begin restoration promptly following your purchase. The revitalization of the Casco is a joint effort between the government, private enterprise and individual members of the community.  In the past, speculators have seen Casco Antiguo’s potential and bought ruins with the idea of selling them later at a profit when everything else was developed.  Taken to its logical extreme, this kind of speculation would obviously bring the revitalization of the Casco to a screeching halt.  Just a few courageous developers did the work and took the risk
3. Look for ways to contribute beyond the four walls of your project. Restoring a property is one of those wonderful win-win situations where you can simultaneously create value for yourself and for your country and community.  It is worth keeping in mind that the value that inures to you depends not just on the quality of your project, but also on the health of the community around it.