San Mateo

About San Mateo:

San Mateo is the first district of the canton and its seat, 47 kilometres west of the city of Alajuela. At 64.89 square kilometres it is also the largest of the four districts, taking in the town and the communities of Agua Agria, Calera, Cenízaro, Centeno, Desamparados, Dulce Nombre, Higuito, Izarco, Maderal, Ramadas and San Juan de Dios. Ruta 3, the old national road down from Atenas, runs straight through town and carries on to Ruta 27 near Orotina, while Ruta 131 heads west to Jesús María and Esparza. Orotina, where most people bank and do the big shop, is five to ten minutes away, and buses for Orotina and San José leave from the park. By car the airport at Alajuela is about an hour off and downtown San José a little more.

The town has had its boom and its long quiet. The cart road was made a national road in 1843, troops under Juan Rafael Mora spent a night here in 1856 on their way to fight the filibusters in Nicaragua, and San Mateo became a canton on 7 August 1868. When the railway came, the traffic fell away, and the old Hotel Arce ended up as the municipal office until the present Palacio Municipal went up under the Ulate government. Around 2,700 people live in the district today. Life in the centre moves between the Parroquia San Mateo Apóstol, the park beside it and the football field with its playground and skate park. Secondary pupils go to the public Liceo San Mateo or the private Liceo Cristiano Reverendo Juan Bueno, and in Higuito the Escuela Ramadas, open since 1932, faces the Catholic church. Farming is still the main living, with cattle gaining ground.

The canton is flat in the middle and breaks into steep ground toward the Montes del Aguacate, and this district lies on the lower, hotter side. The dry season lasts six months and is harsher here than in most of Costa Rica, with March the worst of it. So almost every yard in town has fruit trees, mango, avocado, cashew, mamón and caimito among them, many bearing right through the dry months, and a well-planned house has deep eaves, shade and air moving through it rather than a wall of glass facing the afternoon sun. The Río Machuca spreads into wide gravel beaches where people swim when it is hot, and the Poza Blanca Lodge sits on its bank. Up north, Maderal and Dulce Nombre watch the sun set over the sea, and in San Juan de Dios an abandoned church is what remains of the village that once stood there.

Three groups buy here. Local families want a house in town or a lot near relatives in Higuito or Ramadas. Costa Ricans from the Central Valley look for a quinta with fruit trees an hour from the airport and not much more than half an hour from the coast. And since La Ecovilla opened in 2012, families from more than forty countries have settled in the communities around town, many with school-age children and some working remotely. Village houses and farmland still change hands mostly in colones; view homes in the hills and lots inside the communities are priced in dollars.

Houses in San Mateo:

In and around town the stock is single-storey family houses, some on very small plots: a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Higuito can stand on just 126 square metres of land. Out along the back roads the plots grow, and country houses of 335 to 430 square metres with four to six bedrooms sit on generous grounds. Maderal has view homes with a pool, such as a 188-square-metre house on 2,300 square metres looking toward the Pacific, and at the top of the range there are estates of several hectares with three homes and a river running through. When you compare houses for sale in San Mateo de Alajuela, try to stand in the main rooms at three in the afternoon in March. The heat will tell you more than the finishes.

Land and Lots in San Mateo:

Land makes up the larger part of the market. Lots of a couple of thousand square metres come up in Higuito and on the roads out of town, Maderal has sea-view lots of around 1,150 square metres, and there are parcels of close to a hectare planted with fruit trees and facing the valley. Inside the eco-communities, lots run from about 700 to 1,100 square metres and come with use of shared forest, trails and common buildings. If you are weighing lots for sale in San Mateo, walk the boundary with the plano catastrado in hand, check how steep the building spot really is, and find out whether a creek crosses the parcel, because that changes where a house can go.

Eco-Communities in San Mateo:

Outside Costa Rica, San Mateo is best known for its intentional communities. La Ecovilla was founded in 2012 on cleared land that its residents turned into food forest and shared spaces. Its sister project, Ecovilla San Mateo, runs along the Río Machuca and is planned for some 300 families in six neighbourhoods; the first residents moved in during 2025. Alegría Village, started in 2018 in the hills above town, is organised around a permaculture farm and a food forest. Buying in one of them means signing up to a set of rules as well as a piece of land, so read the bylaws, the design guidelines and the fee schedule before you reserve.

Rentals in San Mateo:

Long-term rentals are scarce and mostly in town, where two-bedroom apartments near the centre are let by the month. Around Maderal, houses with a private pool and a view are rented by the night, and Alegría Village keeps a few casitas for people who want to try community life before they commit. If you plan to buy in the hills, a month’s rental through the dry season is the cheapest test you can run.

FAQ:

• Can I build next to the Río Machuca?

  Not on the bank itself. The Forestry Law protects a strip along every river, up to 50 metres on each side in rural areas, so a parcel with river frontage may have less buildable ground than its size suggests. Pull the record from the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario), compare the plano catastrado with the fences, and ask the Municipalidad de San Mateo for a certificado de uso de suelo before you pay for the view of the water. Place names like Maderal are also used by more than one project, so confirm that the plan puts the land in the district the advert claims.

• What exactly do I own if I buy inside an ecovillage?

  That depends on the project. Ask whether your lot is a separate registered property or a unit within a condominium, what the rules say about building, renting out and reselling, and what the monthly contribution pays for. Have a Costa Rican lawyer read those documents before any deposit changes hands.

• How far is San Mateo from Orotina, the airport and the beach?

  Orotina is five to ten minutes by car and Caldera about half an hour. The Juan Santamaría airport is roughly an hour away and downtown San José under an hour and a half. The beaches around Jacó take 45 minutes to an hour.

• Where do children go to school?

  In town there is the public Liceo San Mateo and the private Liceo Cristiano Reverendo Juan Bueno, and Higuito has the Escuela Ramadas for primary pupils. There is also the Real World School, a private, project-based school for ages 3 to 18, and Ecovilla San Mateo runs its own alternative school for resident families.

• How hot does it get, and what does that mean for a house?

  Days are warm to hot all year and nights cool off, but the six-month dry season is long and March is fierce. Look for shade trees, wide overhangs and good cross-ventilation, and budget for watering a garden from December to April.