Cap Cana Real Estate: The Address Is the Easy Part

A search for Cap Cana real estate returns an address, and the address is the part that is already decided. Everyone who buys inside this gated, planned community on the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic shares the same perimeter, the same internal roads and the same run to the airport. What is still open is the form of the home, the floor area the price is quoted on, and what the building costs to run each year. This page works through those three, using Andara, on the Las Iguanas golf course in Cap Cana, as the worked example.

What the address settles, and what it leaves open

Cap Cana is a private, planned community rather than a town: one continuous property with controlled entry, its own internal road network, its own golf, its own marina and the beach at Juanillo. Separate developments are built inside it, which is why buying in Cap Cana is never quite a finished sentence. It names the setting, not the home.

What the address does settle is real and worth stating plainly. It settles the perimeter and who looks after the ground between buildings. It settles the character of the roads you drive every day. And it settles the journey times that quietly decide how often a second home actually gets used. From Andara, the Las Iguanas Golf Course is on site, Juanillo Beach is about 10 minutes away, Punta Cana International Airport about 15, and Punta Cana Village about 20.

Everything else stays open, and it is decided a level down. Two buyers can sign for a residence at the same address on the same morning and take home two entirely different things: a different floor area measured on a different basis, a different amount of private outdoor space, and a different annual bill. The rest of this page is about that level.

Three kinds of home behind one gate

Andara is planned as 175 residences, and they are not variations on a single apartment. The catalogue falls into three building families, and each one produces a different daily life, a different size band and a different reason to buy.

Residence blocks are the mid-rise buildings arranged around the pool courtyard: one-, two- and three-bedroom homes, a terrace on every plan, and a private pool on a few of them. Duplex penthouses sit on top of those blocks, on two levels, each with a private pool and a rooftop terrace. Golf-front townhomes are separate two-storey houses along the fairway, raised over their own carport, with a private garden and pool at ground level and the course directly in front.

The table sets them side by side. The sizes are as Andara publishes them — total constructed area, which is what the next section is about.

Which floor area is the price quoted on?

This is the question that makes two Cap Cana quotes comparable, and it is asked far less often than it should be. A residence can be measured interior-only, or as total constructed area — the interior plus the terrace and the built envelope around it. The same home produces two different numbers depending on which is used, so a price per square foot worked out on one basis and set against a figure worked out on the other is not a comparison at all.

Andara states its basis outright: the published range of 926 to 2,912 sq ft is total constructed area. That is why the one-bedroom plans read at roughly 930 sq ft rather than something smaller, and why the townhomes and penthouses read so much larger — they are two-level homes with terraces, and all of it sits inside the figure.

So the useful question to put to any Cap Cana residence, this one included, is not how many square feet but square feet of what. Ask for the basis in writing, ask whether the terrace is inside it or outside it, and only then divide by the price. Where a development will not say, the number it is quoting cannot be checked against anything.

The amenity list is also an annual budget

Amenities are the most visible thing in any Cap Cana listing and the least often costed. Every item on the list is also a line in the building's running costs: it has to be cleaned, staffed, insured, lit and repaired, every year, whether or not you used it that month.

Andara's list is substantial by design — seven pools, including an adults-only rooftop infinity pool, plus a fitness centre and yoga lounge, coworking space, a golf simulator, pickleball courts, a children's play area and event room, and a grand lobby run as a five-star reception. Reading that list as a budget rather than as a brochure is the more useful exercise.

The site publishes its own figure. Annual operating fees — maintenance, insurance and utilities — run at roughly $9,200 for a one-bedroom residence, rising to about $18,600 for the largest three-bedroom penthouse. Note what that range is indexed to: it scales with the size of the home, not with how much of the amenity list any one owner uses, so the smallest residence carries the same facilities at the bottom of the band. For any development, ask for the schedule of exactly what the charge covers before setting one figure against another.

Match the form to the way the home will actually be used

Once the three forms are in view, the choice stops being about Cap Cana and starts being about you. A residence block is the lock-and-leave option: the smallest footprint, the simplest to close up for three months, and the quickest to make ready for a guest. A golf-front townhome is a house — a garden, a carport, two floors and a front door of its own — which suits a family planning long stretches here. A duplex penthouse keeps a private pool and an outdoor room at the top of the building, and it is the largest thing the development builds.

Two further things belong in the same decision. Prices at Andara start from $280,600, and the site publishes a projected net return of 11-15%. Read that as the developer's projection, which is what it is, and rebuild it with your own nightly rate, occupancy and running costs before it moves you. Delivery is Q4 2028, which means what you are choosing today is a specification rather than a building you can walk through — so the specification is the whole of what you have, and it repays reading closely.

The legal layer sits above all of it and is common to the community. Andara is approved under the Dominican tourism-investment law, whose exemptions are written for first buyers from the developer rather than for someone who buys the same home later on. How that applies to a particular unit and a particular owner is a question for the Dominican attorney handling your file, and it is worth confirming in writing rather than assuming from a brochure.

Common questions

Is Cap Cana a town, or a single development?

Neither, exactly. It is a large private planned community with controlled entry and its own internal roads, golf and marina, and separate developments are built inside it. So a Cap Cana address tells you about the setting and the journey times — from Andara, about 15 minutes to Punta Cana International Airport — while the development you choose inside it tells you about the home itself.

How big are the residences at Andara, and how is that measured?

From 926 to 2,912 sq ft, and the basis is stated rather than left to inference: total constructed area, which takes in the terrace and the built envelope rather than interior space alone. That matters when comparing quotes, because the same home measured interior-only reads smaller. Ask any development which basis it is using before you work out a price per square foot.

Do all Cap Cana homes come with the same kind of outdoor space?

No, and at Andara it is the clearest single difference between the three forms. A residence block has a terrace, and a few plans add a private pool. A duplex penthouse has a private pool and a rooftop terrace. A golf-front townhome has its own garden and pool at ground level with the fairway in front. Work out which of those you would actually use before comparing floor areas.

Does buying in Cap Cana mean buying beachfront?

Not usually. Andara is golf-front rather than beachfront: the Las Iguanas course is on site and Juanillo Beach is about 10 minutes away. It is also worth knowing that the Dominican shoreline itself is public property under the beach law of 1968 — roughly the first 200 feet inland from the high-tide line — so no owner or operator holds the sand itself. What differs between addresses is the access, the parking and the services behind that strip.