What Does a Rental Property in Cabarete or Sosua Actually Make You?

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Who Is Tracy and Why Should You Listen to Her?

I bought my first condo here for $97,000, fell in love with Kite Beach, learned to kitesurf, and never got on the plane home. Then came the kite school, then the cafe. I have been living this life since 2010, watching friends and strangers buy properties up and down this coast, rent them out, love it, hate it, break even, make money, and occasionally lose their shirts. I have seen the whole range, and I have paid for some of those lessons personally, which is why I talk about them out loud instead of pretending they did not happen.

So when I sit down with someone whose spreadsheet shows 70 percent occupancy at $150 a night, I pull up a blank spreadsheet of my own and we start over together.

Here is the honest answer: less than the listing brochure implies, more than the pessimists say. Understanding the costs before you buy is what closes that gap. Let me walk you through the real math, the way I wish someone had walked me through it.

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The First Number Everyone Gets Wrong: Occupancy

The number I use, based on what I have watched across this coast since 2010, is 40 to 50 percent averaged across the full year. Forty to fifty percent, not the 70 or 80 you see in brochures. Roughly 146 to 183 nights booked out of 365, if you are managing it well.

Here is why. High season runs roughly December through March, plus Easter week. That stretch is real, it is busy, and rates hold up. Then there is a decent shoulder on either side. But September and October are dead. I mean genuinely quiet. The guests are not coming, the wind drops off, and the Airbnb algorithm is not going to save you. If your math only works at an optimistic occupancy rate, your math does not work.

Still, 40 to 50 percent at a smart nightly rate is real income. I am telling you to run your numbers honestly. If you want to go deeper on the full cost picture before you even get to rental income, the Rental ROI on Dominican Republic Property: The Real Math guide is worth a read.

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A Simple Look at What the Numbers Might Look Like

Numbers here are illustrative; every property is different, and you should build your own spreadsheet with your own agent and your own manager before you sign anything. To make the table useful, say you have a one-bedroom condo renting at $150 a night. For this example I use 20 percent for management at the low end and 30 percent at the high end, so you can see both.

Item	Low end (~146 nights, 20% mgmt)	High end (~183 nights, 30% mgmt)
Nightly rate	$150 (hypothetical)	$150 (hypothetical)
Gross rental nights per year	~146	~183
Gross annual rental income	~$21,900	~$27,450
Property management fee	~$4,380 (20%)	~$8,235 (30%)
HOA / maintenance fees (monthly)	varies by complex	varies by complex
Utilities (electric, water, internet)	varies by property and season	varies by property and season
Annual maintenance reserve	varies by purchase price	varies by purchase price
IPI property tax (annual, if applicable)	varies by assessed value	varies by assessed value
Net income before HOA, utilities, maintenance, and tax	~$17,520	~$19,215

That net line is before the costs that still vary by property, so your real take-home will be lower once you plug in your actual HOA, electric, and maintenance numbers. But this shape is real, and the gap between gross and net is always bigger than new buyers expect.

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The Costs That Eat Your Lunch If You Ignore Them

Management fees

If you are not living here, you need a property manager. You cannot manage a short-term rental remotely from Ohio or Germany and expect it to run well, which means handing real responsibility to someone on the ground. A good manager takes a significant cut of gross revenue, and what you are paying for is someone to meet guests, handle the broken AC at midnight, coordinate cleaning, and keep your listing from collecting bad reviews. Budget for it from day one.

HOA fees

Several gated communities on this coast have monthly HOA fees. These cover security, pool maintenance, grounds, sometimes water. They are not optional, and they do not pause when your unit is empty. Fees vary widely between communities and can be revised year to year, so get the current figure in writing before you commit to a unit. If you want to understand how HOA structures actually work here before you start comparing complexes, HOA 101: Condo Fees in the Dominican Republic is worth a read.

Electric

Electric in the Dominican Republic is not cheap, and it is not always on. Most rental properties run an inverter system with batteries, or a generator, or both, because guests expect air conditioning and the grid is not going to guarantee it. Air conditioning in a Caribbean climate is a real line item, and the cost swings with occupancy, the season, and how much of the load the inverter carries, so ask the current owner for twelve months of actual bills rather than an estimate.

Maintenance

In my experience, things tend to break faster in a humid Caribbean climate. Budget a meaningful annual maintenance reserve, especially in a humid climate, and skew toward the higher end for older builds. Say you paid $200,000; that would be $2,000 to $4,000 a year as an illustration of what that reserve line might look like, which sounds like a lot until the water heater and the AC unit go in the same month.

The vacancy months are not free

When the unit is empty, you are still paying HOA, electric (at a minimum), and your manager’s retainer if you have one. September and October are not a break. They are two months of costs with no revenue offset.

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What About Long-Term Rentals?

Some owners skip the short-term game entirely and go long-term. Lower rate, less hassle, steadier income. It is a real option and for some properties and some owners it makes more sense. The tradeoff is that your rate per night is lower, and rental law here works differently than it does back home. Talk to a Dominican attorney before you sign a long-term lease with any tenant.

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The Honest Upside

Okay, I have been handing you caveats, so let me be fair.

If you buy a well-located, well-maintained property at a realistic price, hire a competent manager, set rates that match the actual market, and you are not depending on rental income to cover your mortgage, this can genuinely work. Some owners on Kite Beach and in Sosua are running consistent numbers at the right properties. The ones who are doing it well bought smart, priced right, and treated it like a business, not a hobby.

And here is the thing I always come back to. A lot of the people I know who own rental property here are not doing it purely for the yield. They come down for a month or two a year, their unit covers most of its own costs, and they have a home base in a place they love. For some owners the lifestyle value does most of the work, and that is a perfectly valid reason to buy, as long as you know it going in.

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What I Tell Every Buyer Before They Sign

Run the math at 40 percent occupancy and budget for management fees; ask your manager their rate upfront. Put in your real HOA. Add a maintenance line. If it still makes sense at those numbers, then let’s talk seriously. If it only works at optimistic numbers, I would rather tell you that now than sell you a headache. That is the whole thing.

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Hit Me Up

If you want to run actual numbers on a specific property, or if you are just trying to figure out whether this whole idea makes sense for your situation, I am happy to talk it through. No pressure, no pitch.

Hit me up on WhatsApp, +1 829 252 3417. Even if you are not buying, I am happy to answer anything. That is what the coffee at the cafe is for.

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