Area guide · The beachside grid at Marbella’s eastern end
Property for Sale in Marbesa
A low, flat grid of houses on the sand at the far eastern end of Marbella, laid out in 1961 and named street by street after the whole of Spain.
Photograph: pip13, CC BY 2.0
in Marbesa today
for a villa here
almost all of them houses
half an hour to the airport
The place
Flat ground, low houses and the sand at the end of the street
Marbesa is the beachside grid at the eastern end of Marbella, between the old coast road and the sand, about twelve kilometres east of the town and a few minutes short of the Mijas boundary. It is flat, low and almost entirely houses, which on this coast makes it unusual before you have looked at anything else.
It was drawn up early. The company behind it had its site extended to 448,000 square metres in 1961, the plan went into the municipal archive in 1962, and the cadastral record shows building from 1963 onwards. Sixty years later the register counts 252 parcels and 350 homes across 92,453 square metres of floor area, which is a small average house on a generous piece of ground.
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 house on it, with the legal and urbanistic homework done before you sign.
A street on the grid running straight down through the pines to the water. Marbesa faces the beach rather than turning its back on it, which is a legacy of the access rules the ayuntamiento enforced here in 1974. Photograph: pip13, CC BY 2.0.
Where exactly it is
Between the coast road and the sand
The eastern end of Marbella read west to east, along the coast rather than out to sea. Marbesa sits on the beach side of the old road, with Carib Playa immediately east of it, the pine and dune ground at Artola beyond that, and the marina at Cabopino a few minutes further on. Behind it, across the old coast road, the ground rises at Hacienda Las Chapas.
- 1MarbesaThe grid itself, between the coast road and the beach
- 2Carib PlayaThe neighbouring beachside estate, immediately east
- 3ArtolaEast along the coast, the dunes and the pine ground
- 4CabopinoThe marina and the natural monument, ten minutes east
- 5Hacienda Las ChapasInland across the old coast road, on the rising ground
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
Sand, pines and the old road, then a grid of low houses
The same frame of coast, flown twice, seventy years apart. In 1956 it is field boundaries, pine and the dune line behind the beach. The grid is laid out in the sixties and the houses fill it through 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
Drawn in 1961, approved ten years later
In 1961 a company called Marbe S.A. had its site here extended to 448,000 square metres, to a project by the architect Willi Schoebel. The plan parcial went into the municipal archive the following year as expediente 83/62. That is very early for this end of the coast. Puerto Banús did not yet exist, and the road past the door was still the old N-340.
Approval took a great deal longer than drawing it. The Marbesa plan did not receive its definitive approval until 27 May 1971, nine years after it was filed, and by then a good deal of the estate had already been built. That gap is the single most useful thing a buyer can know about the place, because it explains why the paperwork on individual houses here varies more than it does in estates that were consented first and built afterwards. We check it property by property.
One building broke the pattern and it is still the tallest thing here. In June 1970 the Coronado hotel apartments went up inside Marbesa, the first hotel apartment building in Marbella, to a project by the architect Fernando Rodríguez Ibáñez, and the academic record notes plainly that it exceeded the eight storey maximum the plan parcial had set. Everything else on the grid stayed low, and the contrast between one block and several hundred houses is what you see arriving.
In November 1974 the ayuntamiento wrote to twenty two named urbanisations, Marbesa among them, requiring them to comply with the general plan and in particular with its rules on public access and beaches. That is a small administrative fact with a large everyday consequence. The beach in front of Marbesa is public and reachable, and the grid runs down to it rather than turning its back.
A single storey house on the grid, opening straight onto its garden. The register counts 350 homes across 92,453 square metres of floor area, which is a modest house on a generous plot.
The site as extended in 1961, to a project by the architect Willi Schoebel.
Nine years after the plan was filed, which is why the paperwork here rewards checking.
Living here
Built for February as well as August
The most useful thing about living here is the flatness. Marbesa was laid out as a grid on level ground between the road and the sea, so the walk to the beach is a walk rather than a drive down a hill, and the same is true of getting to a neighbour, a shop or a beach bar. On a coast that spends most of its time on slopes that is a real difference, and it is why the address suits people who intend to be here in winter as well as summer.
Schools are the run inland. The international schools of Marbella east are up around Elviria and Las Chapas, a few minutes north west, and the ones on the Golden Mile hillside are about half an hour west, so a family has a genuine choice rather than one option. The trip is out of the summer traffic rather than into it, which matters more in July than it sounds in February.
Healthcare means driving west. Hospital Costa del Sol, the public hospital for the whole western Costa del Sol, is on the A-7 about fifteen minutes away, and the private hospitals and clinics are grouped around Marbella town beyond it. Nothing here is far, but nothing here is on the doorstep either, and a car is part of life: there is no train to Marbella.
The sea is the reason to be on this grid at all. The beaches at this end of Marbella are the last of the old dune coast, formed by north westerly winds and longshore drift into a cordon that once ran unbroken west to the mouth of the Río Real. Most of it has gone under building. What survives immediately east of here, at Artola and Cabopino, is a declared natural monument, and it is a ten minute drive or a long walk along the sand.
The beach in front of Marbesa in February, with the levante blowing and the houses coming down to the sand. This is the last stretch of the old dune coast, and the protected part of it begins a few minutes east. Photograph: joselito2311, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Schools
The international schools of Marbella east are up around Elviria and Las Chapas, a few minutes inland; the Golden Mile schools are about half an hour west.
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
Fifteen minutes to Marbella town, about half an hour to Málaga airport, a few minutes to the Mijas boundary. A car is part of life.
The beach
At the end of the street, on the last stretch of Marbella’s old dune coast, with the protected dunes at Artola and Cabopino ten minutes east.
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 Marbesa sits in 29604, which also covers Elviria, Las Chapas, El Rosario, Artola, Cabopino and Hacienda Las Chapas. That is a much wider and much more mixed area than this grid. The asking prices are Marbesa’s own.
Asking prices, per square metre
The bar is the middle half of what is being asked for each type in Marbesa 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 Marbesa, 137 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 Marbesa together with Elviria, Las Chapas, Hacienda Las Chapas, El Rosario, Costabella, Cabopino and Artola. So the deed figure below is for the whole district rather than for Marbesa 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 Marbesa together with Elviria, Las Chapas, Hacienda Las Chapas, El Rosario, Costabella, Cabopino 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 Marbesa
77% of the stock
8% of the stock
5% 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 Marbesa 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. This is a grid of houses on their own plots, 350 homes across 252 cadastral parcels, and that is broadly what appears for sale: detached and semi detached houses, a thin scattering of apartments, and almost no raw land, because the grid was drawn in 1961 and there is nothing left in it to draw. A fair proportion of what does sell here sells to be rebuilt rather than lived in as found, which is worth knowing before you compare two asking prices on the same street.
- Houses and villas10677% of listings
- Apartments118% of listings
- Plots75% of listings
- Penthouses54% of listings
Resale stock listed in Marbesa 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 house here costs to hold, and no public body answers it. We can, because we record it. Across the Marbesa listings that publish their running costs, the median annual property tax, the IBI, is €1,657, and the median community charge is €960. Together that is €2,617 a year before utilities, pool and garden.
It is worth seeing that next to the neighbours. Elviria, inland and to the north west, runs at €3,544 a year on the same measure, Cabopino at €4,502, El Rosario at €3,256 and the Golden Mile at €6,967. The community charge is what moves the figure most, and on a grid of individual houses rather than gated blocks it tends to be the smaller half of the bill. The tax follows the size of the ground underneath.
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 pool and garden on a flat Marbesa plot. The two figures beside this are the tax and the community charge; the pool and the garden come on top of them. From our own records, 39 listings publishing running costs, as at 8 August 2026.
Marbesa 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. Marbesa is the flat, beachside one, and the addresses around it are higher, greener or newer in ways that show up in the asking prices.
| Address | Typical asking, per m² | Listed | Running costs, per year | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marbesa | €6,706 | 105 | €2,617 | Flat beachside grid of houses, the sand at the end of the street |
| El Rosario | €5,795 | 114 | €3,256 | Above the old road to the west, older and leafier |
| Cabopino | €6,098 | 40 | €4,502 | The marina, the golf and the protected dunes |
| 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 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.
Marbesa is the one address in this group that is genuinely flat and genuinely beachside, and the market prices it for that rather than for views it does not have. Which of these is right for you depends on whether you want to walk to the sand or look down at it, 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 Marbesa gives each of them
The year-round home.
This is what Marbesa is actually for. It is flat, so you walk rather than drive within it, the beach is at the end of the street, and the register shows a place of houses rather than holiday blocks. Very little of the year here depends on the season.
The house with a garden, at a coastal address.
The arithmetic is the argument: 350 homes across 92,453 square metres of floor area means modest houses on generous ground, a few minutes from the sea. Almost nowhere closer to Marbella offers that shape of thing.
The rebuild.
Most of what stands here went up between the sixties and the eighties, and the register shows work still being recorded in 2024. Buyers who want to make a house their own rather than inherit somebody else’s finish tend to end up on this grid. Check the consent history first, and we will.
Common questions
Questions we are asked about property for sale in Marbesa
Is Marbesa a gated community?
No. Marbesa is an open residential grid of individual houses on public streets, not a single gated development, and the ayuntamiento enforced public access and beach access rules here in 1974. Some individual houses have their own gates and security arrangements. Ask us about a specific address before you decide.
How far is Marbesa from Marbella town?
About fifteen minutes west along the A-7, with the Mijas boundary a few minutes east and Málaga airport around half an hour away. There is no train to Marbella, so plan on driving.
What type of property for sale in Marbesa is most common?
Houses. The cadastral register counts 350 homes across 252 parcels here, and of the 137 resale properties currently listed, 106 are houses and 11 are apartments, with 5 penthouses and only 7 plots of land.
Can you walk to the beach from Marbesa?
Yes, and that is most of the point of the address. The estate is flat, laid out as a grid between the old coast road and the sand, so the beach is a walk from anywhere in it rather than a drive.
What does it cost to run a home in Marbesa?
Across the listings that publish their running costs, the median annual IBI is €1,657 and the median community charge €960, together €2,617 a year before utilities and garden. No official body publishes this figure. It comes from our own records.
Why are the streets named after Spanish places?
Because whoever laid the estate out in the early sixties worked through an atlas of Spain, and the names are still on the official register: ten regions, nine islands, an Asturian corner of Oviedo, Gijón, Avilés, Mieres, Luarca, Pravia and Covadonga, and three monuments in the Alhambra, the Alcázar and the Escorial.
For sale now
Current property for sale in Marbesa
What is for sale in Marbesa 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.
AMAZING VILLA IN MARBELLA
- 3 beds
- 2 baths
- Plot: 400 m²
Villa for sale in Marbesa, Marbella East
- 4 beds
- 4 baths
- Plot: 640 m²
- Interior: 357 m²
Forget just an investment – seize a lifestyle! This isn’t just a villa; it’s your exclusive key to direct beach access and the sun-drenched glamour of Marbesa, one of the Costa del Sol’s most sought-after coastal gems. Imagine waking up…
- 3 beds
- 3 baths
- Plot: 335 m²
- Interior: 117 m²
Free download
The Marbella Buyers Guide
Everything a buyer needs before the first viewing in Marbesa 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
Marbesa, Carib Playa and the ground rising behind them suit very different people, and the difference is not only price. 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.
JUST Real Estate was founded in Marbella in 2015. We have 25 years of experience in this market.
