The most important number in Tulum real estate right now is not a listing price. It is not a cap rate. It is not a "projected ROI" from a developer's brochure. It is somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 — the number of unsold housing units sitting in inventory across the municipality, according to the president of AMPI Tulum, on the public record.
That range is wide on purpose — AMPI president Mario Antonio San Miguel Herrera used it in a January 2026 press conference to describe a sector he called "stagnant." And when the head of the local realtor association uses that word publicly, the brochure version of the market is already obsolete.
Se hablaba de que por lo menos había entre 10 y 30 mil unidades de vivienda que no se habían vendido y que se encontraba estancado este sector... dentro de dos años y medio esos inventarios que están con sobreoferta van a ir gradualmente reduciendo.
"There was talk that there were at least between 10 and 30 thousand housing units that had not been sold and that this sector was stagnant... within two and a half years those oversupplied inventories will gradually reduce."
— Presidente AMPI Tulum (Mario Antonio San Miguel Herrera)· Press Conference· Session 2026-01-16
What happened
The post-COVID development boom flooded Tulum with studio and one-bedroom vacation rental units — the product that Instagram-era developers built for the Airbnb thesis: buy a studio, furnish it, list it, collect passive income. That thesis attracted massive capital. The capital produced massive inventory. And the inventory is now sitting.
Se frenó ya la producción de este tipo de producto que es el vacacional, que ahí fue donde se desató esa gran sobreoferta de producto de unidades de tipo estudio de una recámara.
"Production of this type of vacation rental product has already stopped — that is where the great oversupply was unleashed, units of studio type and one bedroom."
— Presidente AMPI Tulum (Mario Antonio San Miguel Herrera)· Press Conference· Session 2026-01-16
Production has stopped. That word — "se frenó" — is the AMPI president's, not ours. The market self-corrected before any regulator intervened, because developers ran out of buyers before they ran out of land.
The bifurcation: what is moving and what is not
The oversupply is not uniform. It is concentrated in commodity studios and one-bedrooms in undifferentiated developments — the "you get a rooftop pool and a lobby rendering" product that proliferated between 2021 and 2024. The AMPI president was specific: the developers clearing inventory are those with superior amenities, prime locations, and genuine value-add. The rest are holding.
Meanwhile, a completely different segment is facing scarcity. The market is shifting from digital nomads and couples to families — and families want houses, villas, and larger residences that almost nobody was building during the studio boom.
Tulum se ha estado convirtiendo poco a poco en un mercado más familiar. Anteriormente era un nicho más de pareja, más de personas digitales que viajaban solos. Ya cada vez vemos más familias y están buscando más casas, más residencias, más villas.
"Tulum has been gradually converting into a more family-oriented market. Previously it was more of a couples niche, more digital nomads who traveled alone. Now we increasingly see more families looking for houses, residences, villas."
— Presidente AMPI Tulum (Mario Antonio San Miguel Herrera)· Press Conference· Session 2026-01-16
The counter-narrative: Tulum still sells more than anyone
The AMPI vice-president offered a useful counterpoint in the same session: Tulum still sells more units than any other municipality in Quintana Roo. The absorption rate looks low because the inventory is so large, not because demand has collapsed. Demand has returned to normal pre-COVID levels and is diversifying — the buyer mix is now roughly 50% Mexican, 50% international (U.S., Canada, Latin America, Europe, with emerging Asian interest).
Tulum sigue hoy por hoy vendiendo más unidades que cualquier otro municipio en el estado. Ese es un dato muy importante.
"Tulum continues today selling more units than any other municipality in the state. That is a very important fact."
— Vicepresidente AMPI Tulum (Jorge Miguel Hernández)· Press Conference· Session 2026-01-16
This is the honest picture: the market is oversupplied in one segment and underserved in another. Total demand is healthy. But if your specific investment is a studio in a commodity development, the macro demand number is not going to save you — your competition is 10,000 to 30,000 units deep.
What to watch
- Quarterly absorption data from AMPI and the February real estate fair — the 2.5-year estimate was set in January, and we will track whether it is holding.
- Developer distress signals: fire sales, unfinished projects, bankruptcy filings. These create the deepest discounts for opportunistic buyers.
- New construction permits by product type — if vacation rental permits stay near zero while villa permits rise, the bifurcation thesis is confirmed.
- Rental rate trends in the oversupplied segments — declining nightly rates on Airbnb for Tulum studios would accelerate developer capitulation.
The brochure version of Tulum is "booming." The public-record version is more precise: booming in the segments nobody was building, stagnant in the segment everyone was building. That distinction is worth knowing before you sign.