Locally owned · Tamarindo, Guanacaste

Costa Rica, handed to you by the people who live it.

38 homes across Guanacaste, Arenal, Monteverde and Manuel Antonio — every one of them managed by our own team on the ground, not a call center in another country.

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Homes under our direct management
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Regions across three countries
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Average guest rating
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Typical WhatsApp response time
Our story

We don't list houses. We hand you the keys to a country we happen to live in.

Esencia started with one house in Tamarindo and a simple frustration: guests were paying platform prices for absentee service. So we built the opposite. Every home is inspected in person, every guest gets a WhatsApp thread with someone who lives here, and every owner gets a manager who drives past the property, not one who logs into a dashboard from Miami.

Fourteen years later that's still the whole business. We just have forty-two more houses.

Esencia Costa Rica
Tamarindo, Guanacaste · Est. 2012
Book direct

The difference is who picks up the phone.

A global platform gets you a listing and a support ticket. Booking with Esencia gets you a company headquartered ten minutes from most of these front doors.

No platform service fee

Book direct and the 12–16% guest service fee disappears. On a week in Tamarindo that's several hundred dollars back in your pocket — for the identical house, the same beds, the same view.

A person, not a chatbot

A/C out at 9pm, a lost rental car key, a restaurant that needs a local name to find you a table on a Saturday — one WhatsApp thread, answered by someone who lives here and can be at the door in twenty minutes.

We turn down more than we take

Every property is walked in person before it goes live and re-checked between every stay. If it isn't a house we'd put our own family in for a week, it doesn't make the collection.

Property owners

Your house should be earning while you're away.

Most owners we meet are already renting — badly. Dead green-season calendars, rates set once in 2023 and never touched, a cleaner who replies when it suits her. We take the whole thing off your desk and run it like revenue, because that's what it is.

  • 18%Flat management commission. No setup fee, no onboarding fee, and zero markup on maintenance invoices — you see the exact receipt we see.
  • +34%Average revenue lift in the first twelve months across homes we've taken over from another manager.
  • MonthlyOwner statement with occupancy, ADR, RevPAR and every expense line — plus payout by wire or SINPE Móvil.
Real estate

Buy the place you keep coming back to.

We manage these markets every single day, so we know which streets rent, which ones flood in October, and what a property actually nets after HOA, taxes and management. Come look with someone who has skin in the game.

Guest reviews

What guests say once they're home.

The house is incredible, exactly as it looks in the photos. Communication with the managers was constant, and we were close to several beaches, supermarkets and restaurants. We're definitely going back.
Priscilla Soto López
Villa Sasantura · Playa Grande
★★★★★
You can see Arenal Volcano right from the bedroom. Waking up to birds and that view was magical. They answered a last-minute booking request immediately. Ten out of ten, we'd come back tomorrow.
Anna Maty
Volcano & Lake View Oasis · Arenal
★★★★★
Perfect location, close to several of the best beaches in Guanacaste. Extremely quiet, spotless, fully equipped, very comfortable rooms. Spectacular for family and friends. Highly recommended.
Lorenzo Perez
Guanacaste · translated from Spanish
★★★★★
Ready when you are

Tell us when you're coming.

Send us your dates and we'll come back with the two or three homes that actually fit — not a search results page.