New-construction sales hit $196.7M in May 2026, up 27.8% year over year, even as available inventory fell 11%. Developers are releasing allocations again for the first time in years — which makes the question of when in a project's timeline to buy more important than the headline discount.
Panama City's pre-construction market has been thin for years, with most developer inventory sitting completed or already under construction rather than newly launched. That's shifting. Through May 2026, developers sold roughly 620 new and under-construction units for a combined $196.7 million — up 27.8% from the same month in 2025 — while both available and completed inventory continued to shrink. For buyers evaluating a founders-style allocation, the more useful question isn't whether pre-construction is worth considering again. It's which point in a project's build-out actually offers the best balance of price and risk.
Three figures from the most recent market data frame the current moment:
Roughly 620 new and under-construction units sold in May 2026 alone, 27.8% higher in dollar terms than May 2025 — fewer transactions, but considerably more capital deployed per unit.
Developers had approximately 15,499 new units on the market as of May 2026, down from roughly a year earlier, even as new presale allocations reopen.
Finished, move-in-ready stock keeps tightening, which is part of why developers are now testing new pre-construction launches rather than only selling down existing supply.
A project's price rarely moves in one step between launch and delivery. It typically moves in stages, and each stage trades a lower price for a different kind of uncertainty:
| Stage | What's actually happening | Typical entry price |
|---|---|---|
| Reservation / pre-launch | A limited allocation opens before public marketing. Least information available — no confirmed construction start, no bank financing in place yet. | Lowest on the curve |
| Public launch | Broader marketing begins, unit selection narrows to what's left after early reservations. | Modest step-up |
| Construction start | Bank financing has typically activated and a real delivery window becomes possible to evaluate against visible progress. | Moderate step-up |
| Near delivery | The building is largely built and most construction-timeline risk has already resolved. | Closest to resale comps |
The exact size of each price step, and how many stages a given project uses, is set individually by the developer and isn't standardized across Panama's market — the figures above describe a common pattern, not a fixed formula. Confirm a specific project's staged pricing schedule directly with the developer or with us before committing capital.
The earliest reservation price is the lowest number you'll see. It's rarely the best trade — because at that stage, you're the one absorbing the risk the price is supposed to compensate for.
Reservation-phase pricing looks the most attractive on paper, and sometimes it is the right call for a buyer with a long horizon and a developer they already trust from a prior project. But for most buyers weighing a founders-style allocation for the first time, the window shortly after visible construction begins tends to offer a more defensible trade: financing is in place, the delivery timeline has something real to be checked against, and a meaningful part of the original discount is typically still on the table. Paying to skip that uncertainty near delivery, on the other hand, means giving up most of what made pre-construction worth considering in the first place.
This is the same lens we apply before any project enters our founders inventory — allocations like Dieci and Selvática are shown with their actual staged-pricing schedule and construction status up front, not just an entry number. If you're weighing a pre-construction allocation anywhere in Panama City right now, we're glad to walk through where a specific project sits on its own price curve.