Is the property market in Tulum still growing?

Why have Tulum home sales halved since 2023?

Because buyers stopped showing up at the pace developers built for. Tulum's annual residential sales fell from 3,487 homes in 2023 to 1,711 in 2025, a 51% drop in two years, according to the InfoHabitat analysis of Softec data published by El Economista in July 2026.

Projects are also selling more slowly. Average monthly absorption per development fell from 1.4 homes in 2022 to 0.9 in 2025.

Now compare that with what was built. Homes under construction jumped from 1,466 in 2017 to 13,266 in 2023, while homes available for sale went from 3,243 units in 2019 to 6,340 in 2023.

At the 2025 sales pace, those 6,340 homes alone would take about 3.7 years to sell. The 13,266 under construction in 2023 would be almost eight years of sales, although projects reach the market at different times. These are 2023 stock figures divided by 2025 sales, not a live count of today's unsold homes, but the direction is clear.

Supply grew much faster than the number of buyers willing to absorb it. That is the whole story of Tulum right now.

Tulum residential market	Earlier level	Later level	Change	What it means
Homes under construction	1,466 in 2017	13,266 in 2023	+805%	Building exploded
Homes available for sale	3,243 in 2019	6,340 in 2023	+96%	Buyers got far more choice
Annual residential sales	3,487 in 2023	1,711 in 2025	-51%	Demand dropped sharply
Monthly sales per development	1.4 in 2022	0.9 in 2025	-36%	Each project sells more slowly

Did Tulum simply build too many condos?

Yes. Tulum built far more investor-style housing than buyers and renters can absorb at today's demand.

Units under construction rose more than eightfold between 2017 and 2023, while annual sales eventually went the other way.

Most of that new stock was also very specific: furnished studios, one-bedroom apartments, lock-off units and amenity-heavy buildings sold on the promise of vacation-rental income and appreciation.

That model works while new investors keep arriving and tourism grows fast enough to fill the extra units. In Tulum, both assumptions broke at the same time.

The same InfoHabitat analysis puts occupied housing at only around 21% of Tulum's housing stock, compared with roughly 82% in Playa del Carmen and 89% in Cancún. Vacation homes make that comparison imperfect, but they also explain the gap.

In practice, Tulum has two housing markets: one for people who live there, and a much bigger-than-normal one built for tourists and investors. Local population growth can support the first. It cannot clear thousands of investor condos.

Are Tulum property prices going down?

Slightly overall, and a lot in some areas. Propiedades.com's October 2026 data show average apartment prices across Tulum down about 3.6% since April 2025, while the gap between neighborhoods has become very wide.

Villas Tulum is up 8.6% over that period and La Veleta about 2.6%, with a typical apartment there around MXN 3.36 million (about USD 181,000). Aldea Zama is flat at -0.6%.

Other areas have gone the other way. Tulum Centro is down 9.9%, Lúum Zama 16.5% and Ya Ax Tulum 28.3%, although Ya Ax only has 18 apartments listed, so one or two listings can swing the number.

These are averages of advertised prices, and they move when the mix of homes for sale changes, so do not read every percentage point as real appreciation. The pattern is still hard to dismiss: buyers are no longer bidding up Tulum as one market.

Tulum apartments (Propiedades.com)	Price change	Period	Average asking price	Median price/m²	Listings
Villas Tulum	+8.6%	Apr 2025 to Oct 2026	MXN 3.93M	MXN 38,900	84
La Veleta	+2.6%	Apr 2025 to Oct 2026	MXN 3.36M	MXN 44,700	977
Aldea Zama	-0.6%	Apr 2025 to Oct 2026	MXN 5.16M	MXN 47,300	1,549
Tulum Centro	-9.9%	Apr 2025 to Oct 2026	MXN 3.89M	MXN 43,100	1,182
Lúum Zama	-16.5%	Apr 2025 to Oct 2026	MXN 5.09M	MXN 50,800	42
Ya Ax Tulum	-28.3%	Apr 2025 to Oct 2026	MXN 4.54M	MXN 51,000	18
Tulum overall	-3.6%	Apr 2025 to Oct 2026	-	-	-

Why can Quintana Roo property prices rise while Tulum slows down?

Because the statewide index measures a different market. Tulum depends far more on cash buyers, foreign investors and tourist condos than Quintana Roo as a whole.

Mexico's Sociedad Hipotecaria Federal (SHF) reported roughly 14% housing-price growth in Quintana Roo in 2025, and its index for the second quarter of 2026 still put the state at 11.5%, second-highest in the country against a national average of 7.9%.

That looks impossible next to Tulum's falling sales and lower apartment prices. It is not: the SHF index follows homes bought with a mortgage. Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Chetumal have deep markets of Mexican families buying with credit.

Tulum's boom ran on presales, cash, foreign buyers and investment condos, which a mortgage-based index barely sees. So a headline saying "Quintana Roo prices rose 11.5%" tells you almost nothing about a one-bedroom condo in Aldea Zama. The Tulum-specific data are much weaker.

Is Tulum tourism down in 2026?

Yes, and Tulum is doing worse than the rest of the state. Official Quintana Roo data show about 1.68 million visitors in 2025, down 5.3% from roughly 1.77 million in 2024.

Hotel supply kept growing anyway. Tulum reached 239 hotels and 11,993 rooms by the end of 2025, around 5% more rooms than a year earlier, and occupancy averaged 69.1% in 2025 after 73.8% in 2024.

2026 is weaker again. SITUR figures put Tulum hotel occupancy at 66.18% in the first half of 2026, against 74.32% a year earlier, an 8.13-point drop. The January to July figure is 63.69%, against 72.67% in 2025, so July did not reverse the trend.

Over the first half, Quintana Roo as a whole lost only 2.95 points, Playa del Carmen 4.47 and Cancún 2.02. Tulum still gets a lot of visitors; the problem is the direction, with fewer tourists and more rooms, hotel and private, competing for them.

Hotel occupancy	H1 2025	H1 2026	Change
Tulum	74.32%	66.18%	-8.13 pp
Playa del Carmen	77.05%	72.58%	-4.47 pp
Riviera Maya	76.63%	72.77%	-3.87 pp
Cancún	77.10%	75.08%	-2.02 pp
Quintana Roo overall	75.82%	72.87%	-2.95 pp

Has Tulum Airport actually boosted the property market?

Not yet. The airport made Tulum easier to reach, but its traffic is falling too fast to support the idea that it restarted the real estate boom.

Felipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport opened at the end of 2023 and quickly became a favorite argument in property brochures. It handled about 1.23 million passengers in 2024 and 1.245 million in 2025, essentially flat, for a terminal designed for around 5.5 million.

Then traffic dropped. Federal aviation statistics (AFAC) show 471,500 passengers in the first half of 2026, down 33.2% from 705,400 a year earlier. International traffic fell 40.8%, from 417,600 to 247,100, and domestic traffic 22%. June alone was down 44.8%.

A young airport swings with airline schedules, so six months do not tell you where traffic will be in five years. They do tell you the airport is not delivering the surge that many sales pitches assumed, and home sales halved even after it opened. If a seller prices a condo on "airport upside", treat that as unproven.

Tulum Airport	H1 2025	H1 2026	Change
Total passengers	705,400	471,500	-33.2%
International passengers	417,600	247,100	-40.8%
Domestic passengers	287,800	224,400	-22.0%
June passengers	86,200	47,600	-44.8%

Why have three-quarters of Tulum's Airbnbs disappeared?

Mostly because weaker listings stopped making money and dropped out. AirDNA counted about 3,608 active short-term rentals in Tulum in September 2026, 73.1% fewer than a year earlier.

The ones left are doing better per unit. Occupancy is up 17% to 46%, and average annual revenue per active listing is up 60.5% to about $17,400 (MXN 324,000).

But guests pay much less per night. The average daily rate is down 23.6% to about $125, and RevPAR, the revenue per available night, is still 10.7% lower than a year ago at $58. Fewer competitors share the bookings, and they fill nights by cutting prices.

The rules are also tightening. Quintana Roo now requires state and municipal licences plus registration in the RETUR-Q tourism register, and wants platforms to show only registered listings. Hosts also pay a 6% state lodging tax collected through the platforms. Part of the drop in listings may come from owners who did not want to comply, or from changes in how AirDNA counts active listings, so do not read the 73% as pure market failure.

Tulum short-term rentals (AirDNA)	Latest level	Change in 12 months	What it suggests
Active listings	3,608	-73.1%	Supply is being cleared fast
Occupancy	46%	+17.0%	Remaining units fill more nights
Average daily rate	$125	-23.6%	Guests have strong price leverage
RevPAR	$58	-10.7%	Revenue per available night is still weaker
Annual revenue per active listing	$17,400	+60.5%	Survivors benefit from less competition

Can Tulum rental yields still justify today's property prices?

Only if you buy cheap. At today's rents, many investor condos are priced too high to pay off.

AirDNA's average active listing makes about $17,400 a year in gross revenue. On a $150,000 condo that is 11.6% gross; at $200,000 it drops to 8.7%; at $300,000 it is only 5.8%. All of that is before management, cleaning, condo fees, electricity, internet, upkeep, furniture, insurance, taxes and the weeks you use it yourself.

And the average flatters the typical owner. Airbtics, which tracks listings differently, puts the median Tulum vacation rental at about MXN 231,000 a year (USD 12,400), down 10.8% over three years. Half of listings earn less than that.

Long-term rents are soft too. Propiedades.com shows apartment rents across Tulum down 5.6% since April 2025. La Veleta averages about MXN 16,700 a month (down 5.7%), Aldea Zama about MXN 23,600 and Region 15 Kukulcán about MXN 18,600.

La Veleta shows the squeeze best: asking prices up about 3%, rents down about 6%. When prices go up and rents go down, the yield shrinks. Run your numbers on the median, not the best listing the agent shows you.

Is Tulum a buyer's market right now, and how hard can you negotiate?

Yes, buyers have the upper hand in 2026. With about 3.7 years of 2023 inventory at the 2025 sales pace and projects selling under one unit a month, most sellers need you more than you need them.

For reference, TuLugar's October 2026 listing data put Tulum's median asking price at about $158,000 (MXN 2.94 million) for a one-bedroom condo, $267,000 (MXN 4.97 million) for a two-bedroom and around $2,750 per m² for condos overall. These are asking prices, not what units sell for, and nobody publishes reliable data on the gap between the two in Tulum.

Price cuts are visible in listings. In October 2026, one agency was advertising a 153 m² two-bedroom in Aldea Zama at $175,000 (MXN 3.26 million) after a reduction, below the citywide median for a two-bedroom.

What to do: compare the price per m² with the area median in the table above (from about MXN 38,900 in Villas Tulum to 51,000 in Ya Ax) and walk away from anything well above it; prefer finished buildings with a few years of real rental history over presales; ask how many units are still unsold in the project; and use the seller's carrying costs (HOA fees of about MXN 4,500 to 12,000 a month in beach-zone condos, plus taxes and upkeep) as an argument for a lower price.

Which Tulum developments have authorities flagged in 2026?

Several, and the list keeps growing. Quintana Roo's urban development agency, SEDETUS, closed 18 developments in Tulum in the six months to February 2026 for lacking permits, many of them on jungle plots or ejido land sold off-plan.

Statewide, SEDETUS says it has detected and, where needed, closed irregular developments across the state, with 123 on its list in August 2026, and Tulum leads it. In July 2026 it named Aurea and Mayab Tulum; in August, together with the municipality, it warned the public not to buy into Ocean Tulum in La Veleta, where some buyers say units sold since 2022 were never delivered. In early October 2026 it flagged two more, Yaax Taanil Kaah and Zonot Kaahah, for lacking urban permits.

A flagged project can leave you with a unit you cannot deed, rent legally or resell. President Sheinbaum herself said some plots in the state had been sold "six or eight times".

Before you pay anything, especially on a presale: ask for the construction licence, the land-use certificate (uso de suelo), the state urban congruence certificate (constancia de congruencia urbanística) and the registered condominium regime, then confirm them with the municipality or by emailing SEDETUS at atencion@sedetus.gob.mx. Avoid ejido land unless it has been fully converted to private title, have your own notary check the title, and never wire money to a developer without an escrow or a trust in place.

Doesn't Tulum's fast population growth keep the property market growing?

No. Tulum's population is growing fast, but locals cannot absorb the type and price of housing built during the boom.

INEGI counted 46,721 residents in Tulum municipality in the 2020 census, 65.3% more than in 2010. Few places in Mexico grew that quickly, and that creates real demand for homes, schools and services.

The problem is what was built. A local family looking for a home and an overseas investor buying a furnished one-bedroom with a rooftop pool are in completely different markets, with different budgets, financing and reasons to buy.

That is how Tulum can have strong population growth and still be oversupplied, with only about 21% of its housing occupied as a main home. Population growth is one of Tulum's best long-term strengths. It says very little about whether today's investor condos are priced right.

Which parts of Tulum are still going up?

A few, and the market now rewards good locations much more selectively than during the boom.

Villas Tulum (+8.6%) and La Veleta (+2.6%) are the clearest examples, while Tulum overall is down about 3.6%. La Veleta matters more because it has nearly 1,000 apartments listed, so its number is harder to move.

Next door, things look different: Aldea Zama is flat, Tulum Centro is down 9.9% and Lúum Zama 16.5%. Neighborhoods a few minutes apart now move in opposite directions.

So "are Tulum prices rising?" has become too broad a question. What matters is whether it is an apartment or a house, finished or presale, the exact street, paved access, reliable water and power, build quality and how many near-identical units compete in the same project. Tulum still has properties that can gain value. The easy citywide bet is gone.

Has Tulum hit bottom yet?

Probably not, although some signs of a bottom are starting to show.

The good news: short-term rental supply has shrunk by about three-quarters in AirDNA's data, the surviving rentals earn more per year, and a few areas like Villas Tulum and La Veleta are still rising. Weaker developers and copy-paste projects are under heavy pressure, and that kind of shakeout is how markets get healthier.

The bad news is on the demand side. Sales fell to 1,711 in 2025 and projects sold only 0.9 units a month. Hotel occupancy dropped to 63.69% from January to July 2026, airport traffic fell by a third in the first half, and RevPAR is still 10.7% below last year.

These numbers do not need to turn positive all at once. But we would want to see sales and absorption clearly improve before calling the bottom. For now, it looks like a correction still in progress, not a new boom.

What would prove that Tulum's property market is growing again?

Buyers absorbing existing stock faster, and tourism revenue improving without relying on price cuts or competitors disappearing.

Sales come first. They do not have to get back to the 3,487 units of 2023, but the fall to 1,711 needs to reverse clearly. Absorption above one sale per project per month would show developers clearing stock.

Tourism needs to stop sliding, with hotel occupancy back above last year's levels. For Airbnb, rising occupancy only counts if the nightly rate and RevPAR stop falling too. Airport traffic growing again would be another sign.

Finally, price gains need to spread beyond one or two neighborhoods. Villas Tulum or La Veleta can rise while the rest stays soft; a real new cycle lifts sales and prices across most established areas.

What to watch	Latest figure	What would change our view
Residential sales	1,711 in 2025	Clear, lasting growth year on year
Project absorption	0.9 sales per month	Above 1 and still rising
Tulum apartment prices	About -3.6% overall	Gains across most major areas
Hotel occupancy	63.69% (Jan to Jul 2026)	Lasting recovery year on year
Airbnb occupancy	46%, improving	Growth with stable prices
Airbnb nightly rate	$125, down 23.6%	Stable or rising
Airbnb RevPAR	$58, down 10.7%	Lasting growth
Airport passengers	Down 33.2% in H1 2026	Back to steady growth

So, is the Tulum market still growing?

No. Tulum's property market is shrinking in sales and still working through the oversupply from its boom, even if a few neighborhoods are rising and the town itself keeps developing.

The clearest evidence is buying activity: 3,487 sales in 2023, 1,711 in 2025, and less than one sale per project per month, after a construction wave that pushed homes under construction above 13,000.

Prices add nuance without changing that answer: down about 3.6% overall, up in Villas Tulum and La Veleta, sharply down in Tulum Centro, Lúum Zama and Ya Ax. Tourism makes the growth case harder, with hotel occupancy down about nine points and airport traffic down a third.

Short-term rentals show the first real rebalancing: far fewer active listings and more revenue per survivor, but nightly rates down 23.6%, so owners still compete mainly on price.

That creates opportunities for patient buyers. A finished property in a proven area, bought well below an unrealistic asking price, from a developer with clean permits, looks much better today than the same unit did in the frenzy. The mistake is assuming any condo will rise just because it is in Tulum.

Tulum can grow strongly again: its population is expanding, infrastructure is improving and it is much easier to reach than a few years ago. The next cycle, if it comes, will have to be earned by real demand, not another wave of construction.