Area guide · Casares, the village and the coast
Casares
A white village on a rock, a blue flag beach fourteen kilometres below it and a golf valley in between. One municipality, and two quite different ways of living in it.
Photograph: NashvilleScholar, CC BY-SA 4.0
in Casares today
for a villa here
up to the village
a historic ensemble
The place
A white village on a rock, and a coast of its own below
Casares is one municipality with two addresses, and most people who come to buy here have already decided which of the two they want. Casares Pueblo is the white village in the photographs, stacked on a limestone rock beneath its castle, fourteen kilometres up the road from the sea. Casares Costa is the shore itself, at kilometre 146 of the coast road between Estepona and Manilva, with Playa Ancha, Bahía de Casares and Casares del Mar along the water and the golf valley of Finca Cortesín and Doña Julia just behind.
The village is a protected historic ensemble, declared in 1978, and the birthplace of Blas Infante, whose house on Calle Carrera is now a museum. The coast has the municipality’s blue flag beach, a walkway that runs the length of its shoreline and the course where the Solheim Cup was played in 2023. Between them is open country, with a Roman bathhouse on a river and a ridge where griffon vultures nest, and the same town hall looks after all of it, for 9,009 residents at the last official count.
This guide sets out how the village and the coast came to be, what the castle, the tower on the shore and the baths left behind, what living in each half is actually like, and what the numbers say, including the running costs that no official body publishes and that we hold ourselves.
Casares Pueblo under Sierra Crestellina, the houses climbing the rock to the castle at the top. Photograph: ZC.Marbella, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where exactly it is
From the beach up to the rock
The municipality read the way you drive it, from the sand at Casares Costa up the fourteen kilometres of the MA-8300 to the village. The golf valley of Finca Cortesín and Doña Julia comes first, a few minutes behind the beach, then the Baños de la Hedionda on the river to one side, then the village on its rock with the ridge of Sierra Crestellina behind it.
- 1CasaresPinned on the village, on the castle at the top of the rock
- 2Sierra CrestellinaThe limestone ridge behind the village, a protected site where griffon vultures nest
- 3Baños de la HediondaThe sulphur baths on the river, Roman in origin
- 4Doña JuliaThe golf course in the valley, beside Finca Cortesín
- 5Finca CortesínThe course that held the Solheim Cup in 2023, on the road up to the village
- 6Casares CostaThe shore, with Playa Ancha, the coast path and the Torre de la Sal
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.
The village was already here
A village that was already finished, and a shore that was not yet begun
The same frame was flown twice, seventy years apart, and the fixed points have not moved. In 1956 the village is complete on its rock and the tower stands on its promontory, with farmland and scrub between the two. What has filled in since is the shore and the valley behind it, which is most of what Casares sells today.
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
A fortress on the frontier, and a tower beside the salt pans
The village owes its position to a fortress, and the fortress to a frontier. The council’s heritage record finds the first written references to the castle in Arab sources of the thirteenth century, when Casares stood within the Marinid protectorate as one of the strongholds between the Strait and the mountains of Ronda. From the top of the rock the garrison had sight lines to Jimena, Castellar and Gibraltar, and the walls, 770 metres round, simply follow the edge of the ravine.
From the fourteenth century this was the border with Castile, and the town’s own history records a meeting here between the Nasrid king Muhammad V and Pedro I. Casares capitulated in 1485, after Ronda fell. Three centuries later, during the French occupation, the bands raised in the village harried the invading army until it withdrew in 1813, and the town was never subdued. The fountain in the plaza, finished in 1785 under Carlos III, still runs with water brought down from the sierra.
On the shore the equivalent monument is the Torre de la Sal, and it is not like the round watchtowers along the rest of this coast. It is square, two storeys high and probably Nasrid, and in 1567 it appears in the record as the castle where the Duke of Arcos had wanted to found a settlement, under an order given by Charles I in 1528. The Duke built salt pans beside it, which is where the name comes from, and the tower still stands above the small beach that shares it.
The name most people in Andalucía attach to Casares belongs to a later century. Blas Infante was born at Calle Carrera 51 on 5 July 1885. He wrote Ideal Andaluz, led the movement for Andalusian autonomy and gave the region its anthem and its flag, and he was shot in August 1936, in the first weeks of the civil war. The house is kept as his Casa Natal, and the old church inside the castle walls reopened in 2010 as the cultural centre that carries his name.
A villa in the golf valley behind Casares Costa. The stock runs from village houses on the rock to apartments by the beach and villas on the fairways, which is what a whole municipality produces and a single estate does not.
The year the fortress town capitulated to Castile, after the fall of Ronda.
Blas Infante, author of the Andalusian anthem and flag, is born at Calle Carrera 51.
Living here
Two ways of living under one town hall
The Hospital de Estepona, inaugurated in February 2021, serves six municipalities and Casares is one of them, so emergencies, operating theatres and outpatient clinics are about ten minutes along the coast road from Casares Costa. In the village the Centro Médico de Casares has doctors every day, and the town hall keeps an office in each of the three settlements, so paperwork on the coast does not mean a drive up the hill.
State schooling follows the three settlements of the municipality, and the council lists each centre. CEIP Blas Infante, in the village, takes children from infants through primary and into the first cycle of secondary, CEIP Los Almendros does the same job for El Secadero, and secondary pupils go on to IES Las Viñas in Manilva, the next town west. In July the council runs summer schools in the village, in El Secadero and at the sports complex in Casares Costa, with swimming, padel and excursions.
The road is simple to describe and worth driving once before you choose. The coast road passes Casares Costa at kilometre 146, with the AP-7 toll motorway just inland for longer runs, and the MA-8300 leaves it there and climbs fourteen kilometres to the village, about twenty five minutes. Estepona is around fifteen minutes east of the coast, Marbella about thirty five, Gibraltar a similar distance west and Málaga airport a little over an hour. A bus links the village with Manilva and Estepona, and the nearest railway is at Fuengirola.
Playa Ancha carries the blue flag for 2026, and the Senda Litoral lets you walk the whole Casares shore and on across the river to Sabinillas. Inland, the Sierra Crestellina is a protected Paraje Natural of some 490 hectares where griffon vultures nest, with a signed route up to its mountain refuge and back down to the village, and the Baños de la Hedionda sit on the river between the two.
Casares Pueblo from above, whitewashed houses and tiled roofs packed onto the rock below the castle. Photograph: ZC.Marbella, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Schools
CEIP Blas Infante in the village and CEIP Los Almendros in El Secadero; secondary at IES Las Viñas in Manilva. Council summer schools in all three settlements.
Healthcare
Hospital de Estepona, opened 2021 and serving Casares, about ten minutes from the coast, with the Centro Médico de Casares in the village.
Getting about
Coast road at km 146, AP-7 inland. Fourteen kilometres from beach to village, about 15 minutes to Estepona, 35 to Marbella or Gibraltar.
Beach and sierra
Playa Ancha with the blue flag for 2026, the whole shore walkable on the Senda Litoral, and vultures over Sierra Crestellina behind the village.
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 published by postcode, and 29690 is the whole municipality of Casares and nothing else, the village, the coast and the golf valley together. The deed figure on this page is Casares’s own.
Asking prices, per square metre
The bar is the middle half of what is being asked for each type in Casares 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 Casares, 625 properties in total, as at 8 August 2026. From our own records.
What buyers actually paid
Every figure here is a registered deed price, the amount declared in front of a notary when the sale completed, for postcode 29690. Homes completed this year at a typical €2,720 per square metre, 1 per cent above Casares as a whole. Houses went for €2,609 over an average 137 square metres, against €2,538 for a house in Casares as a whole.
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 29690, all homes€2,720591 deeds
- Postcode 29690, apartments€2,746442 deeds
- Postcode 29690, houses€2,609149 deeds
- Casares, all homes€2,690597 deeds
- Casares, houses€2,538151 deeds
JUST Real Estate analysis of registered deed prices, Portal Estadístico del Notariado, rolling 12 months, captured 15 August 2026. Postcode 29690 is the whole municipality of Casares, the village and the coast together. 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 Casares
42% of the stock
37% of the stock
9% 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 Casares 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 shows both halves of the municipality at once. Apartments are the largest group at around two in every five listings and houses are close behind at more than a third, which is the coast and the golf valley on one side and the villas and village houses on the other. Penthouses make up most of the rest, with a small number of townhouses and a real slice of building land. The council began drafting a new general plan with the regional government in January 2024 and approved its first draft in April 2025, with public meetings in the village, in El Secadero and on the coast, so the planning position of a plot is something we check before you view it.
- Apartments26442% of listings
- Houses and villas23437% of listings
- Penthouses579% of listings
- Plots345% of listings
- Townhouses203% of listings
Resale stock listed in Casares 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 Casares listings that publish their running costs, the median annual property tax, the IBI, is €712, and the median community charge is €2,376. Together that is €3,088 a year before utilities, garden and pool.
That places Casares in the middle of this western corner of the coast, and well below its grandest neighbour. Sotogrande, across the provincial line, runs at €4,387 a year on the same measure, while Manilva, next door, comes in at €2,259 and Estepona town at €2,522. The property tax in Casares is close to both of those, and what separates them is the community charge, because so much of the Casares coast is a managed community with gardens, pools and staff to keep.
None of that is a reason to hesitate anywhere, 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
From our own records, 264 listings publishing running costs, as at 8 August 2026.
Casares compared to nearby areas
The western end of the coast, side by side
Casares shares its shore with Manilva on one side and Estepona on the other, and a buyer who has come this far west usually looks across the provincial line to Sotogrande as well. The four sit within half an hour of each other and offer very different things for the money.
| Address | Typical asking, per m² | Listed | Running costs, per year | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casares | €3,704 | 263 apartments | €3,088 | A white village on a rock and a golf coast below it, fourteen kilometres apart |
| Manilva | €3,239 | 405 apartments | €2,259 | The next municipality west, with a longer run of shore around Sabinillas |
| Estepona town | €4,957 | 851 apartments | €2,522 | A working town with its own old quarter, port, market and hospital |
| Sotogrande | €4,696 | 449 houses and villas | €4,387 | Across the provincial line in Cádiz, an estate of houses and building plots |
Typical is the median asking price per built square metre for the type of home most listed in each area, named beside the count (houses and villas, or apartments), as at 8 August 2026; running costs are the median annual IBI plus community charge where enough listings publish them. From our own records.
Manilva is the least expensive of the four to buy into and to hold, and Sotogrande the most expensive to hold by a distance. Casares sits between them, and what it adds is the pair that none of the others has, a protected hill village and a tournament golf course inside one boundary. Estepona gives you a full town on the doorstep, and Casares gives you its hospital and its shops ten minutes away with a quieter shore to come home to. Which of those matters more depends on how you plan to use the home, and that is a conversation rather than a table.
Wider context: our property market data behind every figure on this page.
Who buys here
Three buyers, and what Casares gives each of them
The village house.
Casares Pueblo is a declared historic ensemble with a town hall, a school, a medical centre and a plaza with a fountain of 1785 that still runs, and all of it is there in January as much as in August. A house in these streets is bought for the rock, the castle above it and the view down to the Strait, with the beach about twenty five minutes away by car.
The home on the coast.
Casares Costa puts a blue flag beach, a walkable shoreline and two golf courses within a few minutes of each other, and Estepona, with its hospital and its town, is next along the coast road. Most of what is offered here is an apartment or a penthouse in a managed community, built for owners who want to arrive, open the terrace doors and find everything working.
The golfer.
The course at Finca Cortesín was designed by Cabell Robinson and has held the Volvo World Match Play and, in 2023, the Solheim Cup, and Doña Julia lies beside it in the same valley. Villas and apartments sit around the fairways a few minutes from the beach, and a buyer weighing them against Sotogrande or the courses of Marbella will find the comparison a serious one.
Common questions
Questions we are asked about Casares
What is the difference between Casares Pueblo and Casares Costa?
They are two parts of one municipality, about fourteen kilometres apart, and they share a postcode and a town hall. Casares Pueblo is the white village on its rock beneath the castle, a declared historic ensemble. Casares Costa is the shore at kilometre 146 of the coast road, between Estepona and Manilva, with Playa Ancha, Bahía de Casares, Casares del Mar and the golf valley of Finca Cortesín and Doña Julia behind it. El Secadero, in the Guadiaro valley, is the third settlement.
How far is Casares from Marbella and Málaga airport?
From Casares Costa the drive to Marbella is about thirty five minutes and to Málaga airport a little over an hour, with Estepona around fifteen minutes away and Gibraltar about thirty five. The village is a further fourteen kilometres up the MA-8300, roughly twenty five minutes from the beach.
Does Casares have a blue flag beach?
Playa Ancha, the main beach at Casares Costa, holds the blue flag for 2026. It is 1,300 metres long and about fifty wide, with a promenade behind it, and it also flies the Q for tourist quality alongside Playa Chica. The Senda Litoral coast path joins the Casares beaches to each other and carries on over the river to Sabinillas.
What type of property for sale in Casares is most common?
Apartments come first and houses a close second, as you would expect of a municipality with a coast, a golf valley and a village. Of the 625 resale properties currently listed here, 264 are apartments and 234 are houses, with 57 penthouses, 20 townhouses and 34 plots of land alongside them.
What does it cost to run a home in Casares?
A home in Casares costs noticeably less to hold than one in Sotogrande and a little more than one in Manilva, and the figures are ours. Across the listings that publish their running costs, the median annual IBI is €712 and the median community charge €2,376, together €3,088 a year before utilities and garden. Sotogrande runs at €4,387 on the same measure. No official body publishes this figure. It comes from our own records.
What golf is there in Casares?
The best known course is Finca Cortesín, eighteen holes designed by Cabell Robinson, a few minutes behind the beach on the road up to the village. It held the Volvo World Match Play, which Ian Poulter won there in 2011, and the Solheim Cup in September 2023, which finished level at fourteen points each and stayed with Europe. Doña Julia lies beside it in the same valley.
For sale now
Current property for sale in Casares
A selection of what is for sale in Casares right now. Every home we are listing here, with asking prices, is on the page for property for sale in Casares.
4 bedroom villa for sale in Casares
- 4 beds
- 2 baths
- Plot: 25 m²
- Interior: 139 m²
4 bedroom villa for sale in Finca Cortesin, Casares Golf
- 4 beds
- 6 baths
- Plot: 2,342 m²
- Interior: 552 m²
Sold
3 bedroom apartment for sale in Finca Cortesin, Casares Golf
- 3 beds
- 4 baths
- Interior: 231 m²
2 bedroom ground floor apartment for sale in Casares Golf
- 2 beds
- 2 baths
- Plot: 39 m²
- Interior: 120 m²
2 bedroom apartment for sale in Majestic, Casares Golf
- 2 beds
- 2 baths
- Interior: 100 m²
2 bedroom penthouse for sale in Casares Golf
- 2 beds
- 2 baths
- Interior: 91.71 m²
Free download
The Marbella Buyers Guide
Everything a buyer needs before the first viewing in Casares 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 our property market data.
Talk to us
Tell us which Casares you want
The village on the rock, the beach at Casares Costa and the golf valley between them are three different lives at three different prices, and the difference is not only money. Tell us what the days should look like, and we will send you the streets 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.
We have 25 years of experience in this market.
