Area guide · The harbour village at Marbella’s eastern edge
Property for Sale in Cabopino
Fifteen tower blocks were drawn for this beach in 1973. Two years later they were taken off the plan and a low harbour village went up instead, between a protected dune field and a Nasrid watchtower.
in Cabopino today
for a house here
was built around
half an hour to the airport
The place
A harbour with a village stacked around it
Cabopino is the last address in Marbella going east. The municipal boundary with Mijas runs across the sand a few hundred metres beyond the harbour wall, and the easternmost cadastral parcel in the whole municipality sits here. It is about twenty minutes from Marbella’s old town in one direction and a quarter of an hour from Fuengirola in the other.
What makes it unusual is its arithmetic. The cadastral register counts 375 homes on thirty seven parcels, which is close to the opposite of every other address at this end of the coast. Marbesa, two kilometres west, has 350 homes on two hundred and fifty two. Cabopino is not an estate of plots. It is a village stacked around a working harbour, and you walk in it.
This guide sets out how it came to be, what the street register says about it, what living here is actually like, and what the numbers say, including the running costs that no official body publishes and that we hold ourselves.
We are not selling you a postcode. We are here to help you buy the right home on it, with the legal and urbanistic homework done before you sign.
The quay at Cabopino. The buildings step down and fan around the water rather than standing up in front of it, which was a deliberate decision taken in 1975.
Where exactly it is
The last address in Marbella, going east
The eastern end of the municipality read west to east, along the coast rather than out to sea. Marbesa and the pine ground at Artola lie behind and to the west, the protected dune field runs along the beach in between, and the marina sits at the far end of it with the Mijas boundary a few hundred metres beyond. The watchtower stands on the sand between the dunes and the harbour.
- 1Cabopino marinaThe harbour the village was built around, 169 berths
- 2CabopinoThe village itself, stepped around the water
- 3Dunas de ArtolaThe declared natural monument along the beach, 19.27 hectares
- 4Torre LadronesThe Nasrid watchtower on the point, protected since 1985
- 5ArtolaThe pine ground immediately inland, and the golf behind it
- 6MarbesaThe flat beachside grid two kilometres west
Orthophoto PNOA © Instituto Geográfico Nacional de España. Rotated so the area reads across the frame; the north mark keeps it honest. Pins mark the centre of each place, not a boundary.
There was nothing here
A dune field and a watchtower, then a harbour cut into the shore
The same frame of coast, flown twice, seventy years apart. In 1956 it is the dune cordon, pine, the old coast road and the tower on its sandy point, with no harbour of any kind. The marina and the village arrive in the second half of the seventies.
Nothing was added to these frames and nothing was moved. The only thing that changes is how much of the ground is spoken for. Historic and current imagery © Instituto Geográfico Nacional de España, both rendered through one frame at one scale.
How it came to be
Fifteen towers were drawn here. An architect took them down
The project filed in April 1973 was called Cabo Pino and it was fifteen blocks of vertical design, set on the maritime and terrestrial zone at the edge of the Calahonda urbanisation. Had it gone up, this stretch would read like the parts of the coast east of here that did.
It was not built. The academic record is unusually direct about why: having studied and understood the disastrous consequences that such a layout would have for one of the finest landscapes on the whole Costa del Sol, the architect Rafael Arévalo drew a new scheme in May 1975, much more horizontal and adapted to the topography and the landscape of the ground. That is a sentence you almost never get to write about this coast in the seventies, and everything people like about Cabopino follows from it.
What he drew instead was a Mediterranean fishing village: a symbiosis of the land and the water, a large scenographic plaza holding the quay, organic layout, and buildings that step down rather than stand up. The ayuntamiento’s own heritage catalogue describes the result as reproducing a traditional Mediterranean fishermen’s town, where the stacking of the different floors and the use of different colours make it look as though it sits on the side of a hill, with balconies open to the marina. It follows the line of an arroyo, it fans around the harbour, and because it faces south it never touches the main road.
The harbour is the reason the village exists at all. A 1987 study of Andalusia’s marinas for the regional government sets it out plainly: if Puerto José Banús lies west of Marbella, the marina at Cabo Pino is the second example of the same kind of scheme and it lies east, inside another large urbanisation. It groups Cabo Pino with Puerto de la Duquesa as the type of marina that creates its value by turning ground which is not on the coast into ground which is. Today the harbour holds 169 berths and is run under a concession from the regional government’s public ports agency. The village around it carries Nivel 3 partial protection in Marbella’s 2010 general plan.
Terraces above the water at Cabopino. The stacking of the floors and the use of different colours is what the heritage catalogue describes, and it is why the village reads as a hillside town that happens to be at sea level.
Fifteen vertical blocks replaced with a low harbour village, on the architect’s own initiative.
The marina the village was built around, run under a regional government concession.
Living here
Everything within a walk, and a car for everything else
The most useful thing about living here is what the 1975 redesign bought. Cabopino was laid out as a village around a quay, so the harbour, the restaurants, the beach, the boardwalk through the dunes and the golf are all within a few hundred metres of the front doors. On a coast where most addresses need a car to reach a coffee, that is the difference, and it is why people arrive on a Friday here and do not move the car until Sunday.
Schools mean driving west. The international schools of Marbella east are grouped around Elviria and Las Chapas, five to ten minutes along the A-7, with English International College at Ricmar further along the same road and the Golden Mile schools about forty minutes away. The run is out of the summer traffic rather than into it, which matters more in July than it sounds in February.
Healthcare is the same direction. Hospital Costa del Sol, the public hospital for the whole western Costa del Sol, is on the A-7 about fifteen minutes west, with the private clinics grouped around Marbella town beyond it, and Fuengirola about the same distance the other way. Nothing is far and nothing is on the doorstep, and there is no train to Marbella, so a car is part of life.
The beach is the reason to be here at all, and it is protected. The dune cordon that the north westerly winds and the longshore drift built along this coast once ran about twenty kilometres. What survives of it in front of Cabopino was declared the Monumento Natural Dunas de Artola o Cabopino in 2003, 19.27 hectares of it, with three kinds of dune in the same short walk: mobile dunes on the front of the beach with the ripples still showing, older ones behind them already held down by vegetation, and fossil dunes furthest in under a dense pine wood. The ayuntamiento renewed 1,250 square metres of the boardwalk through it in June 2026 and widened it from 2.5 to 3 metres. The beach itself has flown a Blue Flag again in 2026.
Schools
The international schools of Marbella east are around Elviria and Las Chapas, five to ten minutes west; English International College at Ricmar is further along the same road.
Healthcare
Hospital Costa del Sol on the A-7 about fifteen minutes west, the public hospital for nine municipalities, with the private clinics grouped around Marbella town.
Getting about
About twenty minutes to Marbella town, half an hour to Málaga airport, a quarter of an hour to Fuengirola, and the Mijas boundary immediately east.
The beach
A Blue Flag beach running along a declared natural monument of 19.27 hectares, with a boardwalk the ayuntamiento renewed and widened in June 2026.
What things cost
What is asked, and what was paid
Two numbers both get called “the price” here, and setting them side by side without saying which is which is how a guide contradicts itself. So they are kept apart. Registered sale prices are only published by postcode, and Cabopino sits in 29604, which also covers Elviria, Las Chapas, Hacienda Las Chapas, El Rosario, Marbesa, Costabella and Artola. That is a much wider and much more mixed area than this harbour. The asking prices are Cabopino’s own.
Asking prices, per square metre
The bar is the middle half of what is being asked for each type in Cabopino right now, from the cheapest quarter to the dearest. The number in the row is the typical figure. Nothing here has necessarily sold at these prices; that is what the panel beside it is for.
Asking prices per built square metre, resale stock listed in Cabopino, 114 properties in total, as at 8 August 2026. From our own records.
What buyers actually paid
Registered sale prices are only published by postcode, and postcode 29604 covers Cabopino together with Elviria, Las Chapas, Hacienda Las Chapas, El Rosario, Marbesa, Costabella and Artola. So the deed figure below is for the whole district rather than for Cabopino alone. Across it, homes completed this year at a typical €3,970 per square metre, 15 per cent below Marbella as a whole. Houses went for €4,213 over an average 266 square metres, against €4,924 for a Marbella house.
Read the two panels together and the lesson is the usual one: asking prices run over standing stock, which quietly accumulates every overpriced home that never sells, while deeds count only what traded. The gap between them is mostly that selection effect, not a discount waiting to be claimed.
- Postcode 29604, all homes€3,970546 deeds
- Postcode 29604, apartments€3,745389 deeds
- Postcode 29604, houses€4,213157 deeds
- Marbella, all homes€4,6654,037 deeds
- Marbella, houses€4,924776 deeds
JUST Real Estate analysis of registered deed prices, Portal Estadístico del Notariado, year to date, captured 15 August 2026. Postcode 29604 covers Cabopino together with Elviria, Las Chapas, Hacienda Las Chapas, El Rosario, Marbesa, Costabella and Artola. Prices are moving: the official house price index for Andalucía rose 4.1 per cent in the year to 2025 Q4 (INE); the index is not published below regional level.
What you can buy
The stock that actually exists here
for sale in Cabopino
41% of the stock
35% of the stock
8% of the stock
No official body publishes what is available to buy, only what has already sold, so this part comes from our own intelligence. Through our network memberships we see every resale property listed through an agency on this coast, which means we know both what is genuinely on the market in Cabopino and where the same home is being advertised more than once. This covers resale stock only, not new construction sold directly by developers.
The shape of what comes to market follows the shape of the register, and the register here is unusual: 375 homes on thirty seven cadastral parcels. That is a village of flats and stepped terraces rather than an estate of plots, which is why apartments and houses both appear in quantity while raw land essentially does not. The other giveaway is the commercial units. Very few Marbella addresses put shop and restaurant premises on the resale market at all, and the ones that do are the ones built around a quay. Compare two asking prices on the same street only after you know which way each of them faces.
- Apartments4741% of listings
- Houses and villas4035% of listings
- Townhouses98% of listings
- Penthouses76% of listings
Resale stock listed in Cabopino as at 8 August 2026, from our own records. Treat it as accurate to within five to ten per cent: a few near identical apartments in the same building are not always recognised as the same home when the sources are brought together.
Asking prices and supply as at 8 August 2026 · deed prices captured 15 August 2026 · refreshed each week
What it costs to own
The figure nobody official publishes
Every buyer eventually asks what a home here costs to hold, and no public body answers it. We can, because we record it. Across the Cabopino listings that publish their running costs, the median annual property tax, the IBI, is €1,226, and the median community charge is €3,276. Together that is €4,502 a year before utilities, and the community charge is much the larger half of it.
That total is the heaviest at this end of the coast, and the reason is structural rather than accidental. Marbesa, two kilometres west, runs at €2,617 a year on the same measure, El Rosario at €3,256 and Elviria at €3,544, all of them places where most owners hold a house on their own plot and pay for very little in common. Cabopino is the opposite arrangement: a village of 375 homes stacked around a harbour shares gardens, lifts, lighting, pools and quayside, and the bill for all of it lands in the community charge. The Golden Mile, at the other end of the municipality and of the price range, runs at €6,967.
None of that is a reason to hesitate. It is a reason to know the number before you make an offer rather than after, and to have it in front of you when a seller’s agent tells you the fees are modest.
per year
per year
per year
A shared pool and garden at Cabopino. On an address built this way the community charge is the larger half of the running cost, and this is what it pays for. From our own records, 52 listings publishing running costs, as at 8 August 2026.
Cabopino compared to nearby areas
The Marbella east ladder, in order
Five addresses share this end of the coast and one deed postcode, and they do not trade level. Cabopino is the only one of them built around a harbour, and it is the only one where what you are buying is usually a share of something rather than a plot of your own.
| Address | Typical asking, per m² | Listed | Running costs, per year | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cabopino | €6,098 | 40 | €4,502 | The harbour village, the dunes and the golf behind |
| Artola | €4,373 | 18 | too few to say | The pine ground immediately inland, quieter and greener |
| Marbesa | €6,706 | 105 | €2,617 | Flat beachside grid of houses, two kilometres west |
| Elviria | €5,306 | 167 | €3,544 | Inland and rising, larger, greener and more mixed |
| Las Chapas | €6,139 | 35 | too few to say | The stretch further west along the coast road, mixed in every sense |
Typical is the median asking price per built square metre for houses and villas listed in each area (apartments where an area has no villa stock) as at 8 August 2026; running costs are the median annual IBI plus community charge where enough listings publish them. From our own records.
Cabopino asks more per square metre for an apartment than most of this coast and less for a house than the beachside grids next door, which is exactly what you would expect of a place where the good addresses look at water rather than at a garden. Which of these five is right for you depends on whether you want to walk out of the front door into a village or out of the back door into your own ground, and that is a conversation rather than a table.
Wider context: our guide to Marbella, area by area, and the Marbella property market data behind every figure on this page.
Who buys here
Three buyers, and what Cabopino gives each of them
The home you walk out of.
This is what Cabopino is actually for. The quay, the restaurants, the beach, the dune boardwalk and the first tee are all within a few hundred metres of the front doors, and the layout was drawn to be walked rather than driven. Almost nowhere else on this coast puts that much within reach of a flat.
The boat.
There are 169 berths in the harbour the village was built around, and the address exists because of them. If a boat is part of the reason you are buying on this coast at all, the arithmetic of living two minutes from it rather than twenty is worth doing properly.
The long hold.
The beach in front is a declared natural monument of 19.27 hectares, the tower on it is a Bien de Interés Cultural with integral protection, and the village itself is catalogued in the general plan. Neither the outlook nor the density here is going to be rewritten, and the register shows only thirty seven parcels to begin with.
Common questions
Questions we are asked about property for sale in Cabopino
Is Cabopino a gated community?
No. Cabopino is a village around a public harbour, made up of separate communities, several of which have their own gates and their own security. The quay, the beach and the boardwalk through the dunes are public. Arrangements differ block by block, so ask us about a specific address before you decide.
How far is Cabopino from Marbella town?
About twenty minutes west along the A-7, with Fuengirola about a quarter of an hour east and Málaga airport around half an hour. The Mijas boundary is a few hundred metres beyond the harbour. There is no train to Marbella, so plan on driving.
What type of property for sale in Cabopino is most common?
Apartments, which is unusual for this end of Marbella. Of the 114 resale properties currently listed here, 47 are apartments and 7 are penthouses, against 40 houses and 9 townhouses. The cadastral register explains it: 375 homes on thirty seven parcels.
What is the beach at Cabopino like?
It runs along a declared natural monument. The Dunas de Artola o Cabopino were protected by decree in 2003, 19.27 hectares of them, and they hold mobile dunes at the front of the beach, older vegetated ones behind and fossil dunes under pine furthest in. A boardwalk crosses them, renewed and widened by the ayuntamiento in June 2026, and the beach flew a Blue Flag again in 2026.
What does it cost to run a home in Cabopino?
More than anywhere else at this end of the coast. Across the listings that publish their running costs, the median annual IBI is €1,226 and the median community charge €3,276, together €4,502 a year. The community charge is the larger half, because a village stacked around a harbour shares gardens, lifts, pools and quayside that a detached house does not. No official body publishes this figure. It comes from our own records.
Why is there a watchtower on the beach?
Torre Ladrones is Nasrid in origin, from between the 13th and 15th centuries, and it was reworked in the middle of the 16th when its base was reinforced to the shape you see now. It is a square prism 3.65 metres a side and 14.60 metres high, named for the ladroneras, the projecting galleries at the top from which its keeper defended it. The Instructions of 1497 required Marbella to keep a lookout in it permanently. It was inscribed as a protected monument in 1985.
For sale now
Current property for sale in Cabopino
What is for sale in Cabopino on our site right now, updated as listings come on and go off. For more detail on any home, or to arrange a viewing, get in touch with the team.
Plot for sale in Cabopino, Marbella Este
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- 5 beds
- 4 baths
- Interior: 300 m²
2 bedroom apartment for sale in Cabopino, Marbella Este
The apartment has a tourist license. This spacious apartment is perfectly located in the beautiful beachside area of Cabopino, offering 95 sqm of living space with the potential to add a third bedroom. It sits within…
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Free download
The Marbella Buyers Guide
Everything a buyer needs before the first viewing in Cabopino or anywhere else on the coast: the purchase process step by step, the taxes and fees, the checks that decide whether a property is sound, and how the market has actually been behaving.
- ProcessReservation, private contract, completion at the notary, and the timings between them.
- CostsTransfer tax, VAT on new build, notary, registry and legal fees, worked through on a real price.
- ChecksCadastre, land registry, planning status, community accounts and running costs.
Prefer to read it online? The buyers guide page. Every figure on this page sits in the Marbella property market data.
Talk to us
Tell us how you want to live at this end of the coast
Cabopino, the pine ground at Artola behind it and the beachside grid at Marbesa suit very different people, and the difference is not price. Tell us what the days should look like, and we will send you the addresses that deliver it, with the honest drawbacks of each and the running costs in front of you before you view.
A person reads this and a person replies, usually the same day. No automated drip, no passing your details to another agency, and no obligation to view anything.
JUST Real Estate was founded in Marbella in 2015. We have 25 years of experience in this market.