El Mastate

About El Mastate:

El Mastate is the second of Orotina’s five districts, and its centre is only a few minutes’ drive from the canton seat, at an average height of 197 metres. Ruta 757, the road that links Orotina with Coyolar, doubles as its main street. Along one short stretch of it stand Escuela Ramona Sosa, the CEN-CINAI childcare centre and the Súper Mainor, with the Catholic church close by. Ruta 27, the toll highway between San José and Puerto Caldera, also crosses the district, and the Coyolar interchange puts you on it within minutes. Banks, clinics and the bigger shops are in Orotina town, so most errands still mean a short drive in.

When Mastate first appears in the records it belonged to the canton of San Mateo; Orotina only became a canton of its own in 1908. The name comes from the mastate, a tree whose bark was beaten into cloth and used in crafts. The Pacific railway once stopped here, and an old windmill still stands near the former Mastate station. The school dates from 1926. In 1883 the district had 414 inhabitants, and by the 2011 census there were 1,821.

Beyond the main road the district breaks up into sectors that people use as addresses: Piedra Azul, Guayabal along the street of the same name, Cuatro Esquinas Este, Barrio Las Cabras and the area around the Ermita de Mastate. The Guayabal and Santo Domingo streams cross the farmland, and the farm of the Colegio Técnico Profesional Ricardo Castro Beer, the canton’s agricultural high school, lies inside the district. Cerro Chompipe, at close to 600 metres the highest point in the canton, also belongs to Mastate, and its slopes form a protection zone. The Municipalidad de Orotina leads group hikes from Parque José Martí to the summit, and the Seventh-day Adventist church keeps its Orotina campground here.

Most buyers want to live close to Orotina without living in the middle of it: local families moving up to a bigger lot, retirees after a single-storey house with fruit trees, and Central Valley households looking for a weekend quinta within reach of Ruta 27 and the Central Pacific beaches. One more factor weighs on every purchase. In 2017 Executive Decree 40431-MOPT declared 370 properties belonging to 442 owners in Mastate, La Ceiba and Coyolar to be of public interest for a new international airport, and the owners of those parcels have spent years unable to sell or mortgage them normally. In May 2026 the minister of public works and transport said Costa Rica does not need a new passenger terminal in the short term, while showing interest in a cargo airport in Orotina. Nothing has been built.

Houses in El Mastate:

The usual house here is single-storey, built in block or concrete, on a village lot. At the modest end you find a three-bedroom house of 80 square metres on a 565-square-metre lot, remodelled in 2021, with a water tank and fruit trees in the yard. A step up is a 106-square-metre concrete house on a public street five minutes from the Coyolar access to Ruta 27, sold together with the lot next door. On the main road there are also larger family homes, such as a 400-square-metre single-storey house behind an electric gate, with an en-suite for each bedroom and more than 1,500 square metres of garden under fruit trees. If you are comparing houses for sale in El Mastate, ask how each one gets its water and how much storage it has, since several carry their own tank.

Land and Lots in El Mastate:

Land is what Mastate sells most. Village lots of 400 to 700 square metres come up near the school, the church and the supermarket, and in the rural stretch of Calle Guayabal. Quintas of around 4,000 square metres often arrive already planted, with natural terraces and avocado, orange, mango and soursop trees in production. Above those sit flat parcels of a hectare or more with road frontage, water and power, and development tracts of around six hectares. Some are reached by gravel streets. The official land-value map puts the village centre at several times the per-metre value of the rural zones, and the slopes of Cerro Chompipe fall in a protection zone, so check which zone a parcel is in before you weigh lots for sale in Mastate de Orotina by price per metre.

Rentals in El Mastate:

Renting here is small-scale and local. Two-bedroom houses with one bathroom and a single parking space come up on Calle Guayabal near the sports ground, and small units near the church are let with water, cable and internet included. They suit people who work in Orotina and want to live five minutes from the centre.

FAQ:

• How can I tell whether a property in Mastate is on the airport list?

  Ask the seller for the finca number and look it up in the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario). The expropriation law requires a public-interest declaration to be noted against the property, so a parcel covered by Decree 40431-MOPT should show it. The list of parcels came from the Consejo Técnico de Aviación Civil, which you can also ask directly. Owners of listed land have not been able to mortgage it, so get this answer before you hand over any deposit or sign an option to buy.

• How far is Mastate from Orotina and from Ruta 27?

  Very close. Central Mastate is five minutes by car from downtown Orotina on Ruta 757, and the same road carries on to Coyolar, where you join Ruta 27 toward San José or Caldera. The Orotina–Cascajal–Ceiba–Kilómetro 81 bus passes the Adventist campground. Ruta 27 charges tolls and clogs at rush hour toward the Central Valley, so drive the commute at that time before you commit.

• What should I check before buying a quinta on Calle Guayabal or near Cerro Chompipe?

  Start with the limits the land sets. The Forest Law bars building on the strip beside the Guayabal and Santo Domingo streams, 15 metres on each bank on flat rural land and 50 metres where the ground is steep, and the slopes of Cerro Chompipe are a protection zone. Then look at the road: some lots are reached by gravel, so drive in after a heavy rain. Finally, ask the Municipalidad de Orotina for a land-use certificate, compare the plano catastrado with the fences, and confirm the owner and any liens in the Registro Nacional.

• Where do children go to school in Mastate?

  Escuela Ramona Sosa, the primary school in the centre of the district, dates from 1926 and stands on the main road, with the CEN-CINAI for younger children a few metres away. For secondary school families look to Orotina, including the Colegio Técnico Profesional Ricardo Castro Beer, which began as the canton’s agricultural institute and still farms land in Mastate.