Methodology

Start with the limitation, because it shapes everything else. Panama has no public record of what properties actually sold for. Nobody publishing Panamanian price data has sold prices, including us.

So every figure we publish is an asking price. That is a statement about what sellers hope for, not about what buyers paid, and the gap between the two is real.

How the area figures are built

• We take the asking price of every publicly listed property we carry in an area.
• We report the median rather than the average, because one penthouse drags an average and does not move a median.
• Areas with fewer than five listings are excluded. Below that a median is an anecdote.
• Every chart carries the month it was calculated, because these move.

What this cannot tell you

It cannot tell you what a comparable property sold for, what you should offer, or whether an area is over-priced. It tells you what sellers in that area are asking, which is a useful starting point and not a valuation.

For a specific property the closest available substitute is an independent appraisal, which is why we treat it as a line item in the purchase rather than an optional extra.