The only rental-yield figure this site publishes is 5 to 9 percent, and it is gross. Gross means the rent before a manager, before the association, before income tax and VAT, before maintenance, and before the booking platform. It is not the wire that lands in a foreign account in March. If a spreadsheet shows a higher yield, it is using a different definition, and it does not belong next to this number. See Investment guide.
Chris uses 5 to 9 percent gross as the planning band for Guanacaste vacation rentals he discusses with buyers. It is his published range. It is not a promise that the house you toured on Tuesday will land in the middle of it. Occupancy, rate, and how often the house is actually available are doing the work.
One snapshot, one town, one provider
Market dashboards disagree with each other, sometimes wildly, so this page quotes one provider and dates it. On October 13, 2026, AirDNA’s Tamarindo overview, covering the trailing twelve months through September 2026, showed 1,669 active listings, a drop of 54.6 percent from the year before. Average revenue per listing was about $49,600, up 47.8 percent. Occupancy was 51 percent. The average daily rate was $336. Revenue per available room was $173.
Read the combination, not the cheerful half. Fewer listings and higher revenue per listing can both be true after a shakeout. Tamarindo is not Reserva Conchal and it is not Las Catalinas. No equally verified public set was found for those communities, so none is invented here. Do not paste the Tamarindo ADR onto a Conchal villa and call it research.
What the gross yield still has to pay
Management in the premium Guanacaste markets is typically 15 to 25 percent of gross revenue, with 20 to 25 percent the range most often described for full service. Ask whether that percentage is on gross bookings, on net bookings, or on what the platform actually pays out. Platform fees are often a few percent more; one operator’s guide puts them around 3 to 5 percent of revenue. Contractor markups and a maintenance reserve for a luxury house are further questions for the contract, not footnotes.
A broker’s budgeting note suggests setting aside on the order of 1 to 2 percent of the home’s value each year for maintenance. That is a planning habit, not a bill. HOA is a bill. In Reserva Conchal the examples Chris uses are about $300 to $1,500 a month, confirmed house by house. The Beach Club, at $4,000 for 2026, is another bill if you join it. Property tax is 0.25 percent of the municipal registered value. Income tax and, for short stays, 13 percent VAT come off as well. Utilities are real and are not estimated on this page, because the provider and the tariff depend on the address.
Stack those only after you have the house. A gross yield of 5 to 9 percent can still be a sound reason to own a place you also use, once the net is honest. It is a poor reason to skip the condo’s rental clause. If the bylaws forbid short stays, the yield is zero no matter what Tamarindo’s dashboard says.