Over the last decade tourism in Panama has increased significantly and high-rise condominium construction along the Balboa Avenue waterfront of Panama City and namely the exclusive area of Punta Paitilla is on the unprecedented increase. More residential towers are mushrooming in the San Francisco district of Panama’s capital as well. Some of the buildings being built, and especially proposed to be built, will be among the world’s tallest residential structures. All the real estate magazines available in Panama are full of high-rise condo towers, their pages teeming with architectural renderings of these structures and the impact on the senses is overwhelming. In all over the past 20 years more than hundred 15-floors and higher structures have been built in Panama City, about 75 structures of the kind are under construction, and some one hundred more high-rise buildings, many over 50-floors, are proposed, of which many have been already approved for construction and are already enjoying pre-construction sales.
Real estate developers and real estate agents are luring foreigners into Panama to buy condominiums. With the canal expansion the demand for rental apartments is expected to skyrocket hence to buy a condo for investment purposes is sold as a viable idea, not just to those that eye Panama for retirement. While San Francisco high-rise residential tower developers seem to target Panamanians as well, more of their marketing is focusing on the incoming foreigners, above all the baby-boomers generation.
