Property management in Tulum, Mexico
GEMA Properties is a private administration office for owners of exceptional houses. This page is about property management in Tulum, Mexico, and it starts with the fact that decides everything else here: there are two Tulums, and your house is in one of them. Houses in the planned subdivisions are connected to a public network; the beach road is not, because that strip was built inside Ejido Pino Suárez land and has neither sanitary drainage nor an electricity supply, so its hotels, restaurants and businesses run on their own generating plants — the words are the state tourism secretary's, in December 2025. We work for the owner, never for the guest, and the first thing we establish is what your house is actually connected to.
One person answerable for the whole house · A monthly statement with gross, deductions and net · No fixed or setup costs · We speak to the owner, never to the guest.
What we look after in Tulum
Tulum property management, in an office like this one, means the custody of a house that is empty most of the year, and not the letting of an apartment to a tenant. If the phrase means leases, tenants and renewals to you, this is a different job. Four services do the work, and each is set out in full on its own page — here you get only the part that changes because the house is here.
Why a house in Tulum is looked after differently
Two infrastructure regimes share one municipality. Aldea Zamá was built as a master-planned community from day one — paved streets, buried utilities, real sidewalks, bike lanes, reliable water and power, and streets that drain when a storm hits. A short drive away, the beach road runs on its own generating plants. Those are not two versions of the same job: one house needs a vendor calendar, the other needs a machine with a logbook, fuel, service hours and a written answer to what happens the day the plant stops. The public network that would close the gap has been announced since 2019, when CAPA presented the construction of the drinking-water and drainage network for the whole southern coastal strip, from the roundabout in town to the entrance arch of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, along with the regulation tank for the Aldea Zamá distribution zone. It is an announcement of works, and the state was still describing that strip as unserved six years later. A custody plan is written on what is connected the day it is signed.
Sargassum is a line in the year here, not an incident. Of the major destinations on the Riviera Maya, Tulum consistently records the heaviest accumulation, for three reasons that stack: a south-facing open coast, the absence of offshore reef structures that might break up incoming mats, and more limited heavy-equipment cleaning than the Cancún hotel zone. The season runs April through October, and is genuinely heavy from May through August. One fact, and it orders twelve months: terraces, ironwork and pool equipment are washed more often through the heavy stretch, and everything that wants the house open — you in it, work happening outdoors — moves to the clear one.
The storm season has a local precedent, and it is not September. Beryl came ashore as a Category 2 just east of Tulum early on Friday 5 July 2024. So roof coverings, high pruning and anything that needs scaffolding are closed out before June here — on a date, not on a forecast, and not on the seasonal average.
The parts of Tulum we take on
When owners compare property management companies in Tulum, the question that actually separates them is which of the two infrastructure regimes the house sits in. The differences below are operational before they are aesthetic.
| Where the house is | What changes for an owner who is not here |
|---|---|
| Aldea Zamá | Master-planned from the start, with paved streets, buried utilities and streets that drain in a storm, and contemporary infrastructure with subterranean services. Vendors arrive the way they would in a city, so the plan is genuinely a calendar. |
| La Veleta | Many streets still dirt or half-paved, limited drainage, roads that flood in heavy rain and dust over everything in the dry season; a 2025 paving project helped the main arteries, but side streets are still rough. The variable is the access, not the house: the route in gets planned, and the dust becomes a cleaning frequency. |
| Tulum Centro | The trades are minutes away, which is the whole margin. It is also the zone whose pumping and water pressure that same CAPA programme was meant to reinforce, and the façade takes the town's traffic. |
| Región 15 (Kukulcán) | Infrastructure still under development, with places that could lack utilities and paved roadways. Nothing is scheduled before we have verified what actually reaches the house. |
| Holistika | Known for its focus on sustainability and well-being, tucked further away, a longer trip to the beach and the town centre. Long stays, and a garden that weighs more in the year's plan than the façade does. |
| The beach road (carretera Boca Paila) | No sanitary drainage, no grid connection, businesses running on their own generating plants. Fuel, running hours and a logbook — and an operating cost that runs whether or not anyone is in the house. |
Property management in Mexico is not one trade with six addresses: what a house needs in Tulum is not what the same house would need in San Miguel de Allende, and if yours is further up this coast the work belongs to another team. You can see the six places we work in and pick yours.
What an owner two thousand miles away is actually buying
A property manager in Tulum is judged by the eleven months you are not there, not by the week you are. The vacation rental property manager and the caretaker are two different jobs, and on this coast a house needs both: one sells the calendar, the other makes sure there is still a house to sell. Tulum Airbnb management, short-term letting, vacation rentals — the platform changes the name of the first job and not the content of the second.
That is what absentee owner property management means in practice: the house has to be legible from far away. So the generating plant has a logbook, the sargassum months have a cleaning frequency, the municipal charge has a line, and all of it arrives in one document each month instead of in messages you have to assemble yourself.
Getting started
A valuation in Tulum begins with one question — what is this house connected to — because the answer sets everything after it: the condition the house is in today, the plan the year requires, and the document that hands you both in writing. It is not the same reading for a house set in the jungle behind La Veleta as for one on the Boca Paila road that makes its own electricity. Asking costs nothing and commits you to nothing, and there are no fixed or setup costs either: only a percentage of income, net of expenses.
If you would rather, the same form sits on contact.
Do you manage houses on Tulum's beach road?
Yes, and the brief there is written around a machine rather than around a network: no sanitary drainage, no connection to the electricity grid, so the house runs on its own generating plant, with fuel, running hours, a logbook and an operating cost that continues whether or not anyone is in it. The description is not ours. It belongs to the state tourism secretary, Bernardo Cueto, who in December 2025 attributed Tulum's troubles to development decisions taken many years earlier «sin planeación» — without planning. It also changes which counter you stand at: the water utility for Tulum is CAPA, the state body, and not the concession that serves the north of Quintana Roo, so a connection, a meter or a disputed bill is filed with a different office here than in Cancún — and on the beach road there is no meter to file about.
Which parts of Tulum do you cover?
Aldea Zamá, La Veleta, Tulum Centro, Región 15 — Kukulcán —, Holistika and the beach road along the carretera Boca Paila. That list is an infrastructure map rather than a prestige one, and it carries a date: the drinking-water and drainage network for the southern coastal strip was presented in July 2019, by CAPA's director general Gerardo Mora Vallejo, before the town's mayor, and six years later the state was still describing that strip as unserved. So what we commit to is what reaches your street on the day we sign, and the map is redrawn when a street is connected — not when a network is announced.
When do you schedule heavy maintenance in Tulum?
Between November and April, with outdoor work closed out before June. The date comes from a local precedent rather than a seasonal average: Beryl came ashore just east of Tulum as a Category 2 on 5 July 2024, so leaving a roof or high pruning until July is betting against a storm that has already arrived on that date here. For a house we take on mid-year the year is entered where it stands: whatever needs scaffolding waits for November, and whatever does not — the generating plant, the roof drains, the shutters and their fixings — is brought forward, because those are the parts a July storm tests first.
How is the Derecho de Saneamiento Ambiental built in Tulum?
It is a municipal charge per room per night of lodging, and its footing is each municipality's own Ley de Hacienda — «some for several years now and others recently, as for example Tulum and Bacalar», which is the company Tulum keeps on this charge: the recent ones, not the settled ones. Here it rises with each person sleeping in the room — 30 % of the UMA for the first, 20 % for the second, 15 % for the third and 10 % for the fourth — where in Cancún it is a single percentage per room per night. We publish no amount, and not out of discretion: the charge is expressed in UMA, the UMA is restated every year, and a number printed on a page would be stale within months. The figure that applies to your case is confirmed by your accountant against the UMA in force, and which lodging categories the charge reaches in Tulum is set by that same municipal Ley de Hacienda.
Do we have to fly into Cancún to reach the house?
Not since December 2023, when Tulum's own airport opened about twenty kilometres from town, built for 5.5 million passengers a year. The official record of the handover counts a second apron as well — 28 stands for general aviation, and 1,500 hectares acquired of which 1,200 went to the airport complex — which is the line that matters if you arrive on a private aircraft rather than a scheduled one. The Maya Train also stops twice inside the municipality, in Tulum Centro and beside the airport. For scale on what changed: Tulum's airport and Cancún are 173 kilometres of road apart, and that transfer used to be part of every arrival.
Request a private valuation of your property
In Tulum the valuation begins by establishing what the house is connected to: the condition it is in today and the plan the year requires both follow from that. You will receive the answer in writing.