Cabo’s villa market reads as one destination at the headline level and behaves as two at the booking level. Across the 56 properties we track in Los Cabos, the Pedregal gate at the western edge of Cabo San Lucas and the Palmilla corridor 3.4 miles east toward San José del Cabo price like different markets. As of 12 May 2026, our median six-bedroom January week is $42,400 in Pedregal and $24,650 in Palmilla. The same eight-bedroom step is $68,200 against $46,900. The 38% Pedregal premium has held within two points for three consecutive seasons, and the buyers we hear from confuse the two often enough that it deserves an honest map.
The corridor itself is short. Drive Highway 1 east out of Cabo San Lucas toward the airport and you cross Bahia Chileno, Bahia Santa Maria, and the One&Only Palmilla resort entrance in under nine minutes. What changes in that window is the coastline. Pedregal sits on the Pacific, with rip currents that close most of its beach to swimming for much of the year. Palmilla sits on the Sea of Cortez side, where the bays are calm and family-swimmable. That single oceanographic fact is most of the rate spread.
The bedroom-by-season rate map
The table below shows median 2026 rates per 7-night week across our 56-villa dataset, by bedroom count and season. The Pedregal column reflects the gated community south of Highway 1 (Pedregal de Cabo San Lucas, Querencia-adjacent at the upper end). The Palmilla column reflects the resort-adjacent neighborhood between Bahia Santa Maria and One&Only Palmilla. Mexican value-added tax (16%) and the 3% hospitality tax are on top; staff gratuity is typically 18% of the rental.
| Bedrooms | Season | Pedregal (7 nts) | Palmilla (7 nts) | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 BR | Jan-Mar peak | $32,500 | $19,800 | +64% |
| 6 BR | Jan-Mar peak | $42,400 | $24,650 | +72% |
| 6 BR | May-Jun shoulder | $26,200 | $16,400 | +60% |
| 7 BR | Jan-Mar peak | $54,800 | $34,500 | +59% |
| 8 BR | Jan-Mar peak | $68,200 | $46,900 | +45% |
| 8 BR | Christmas fortnight | $185,000 | $112,500 | +64% |
The narrative number is the headline 38% (a weighted average across our six-to-eight-bedroom inventory at peak winter). The bedroom-by-bedroom math is wider at the smaller counts because Palmilla has more six-bedroom-and-below supply, which softens the median there. At the eight-bedroom-and-above tier the two neighborhoods converge somewhat: there are only seven properties in Pedregal at that scale and four in Palmilla, and the trophy-rate buyers do not bargain-hunt across a 3.4-mile drive.
What you are buying in Pedregal
Pedregal de Cabo San Lucas, the gated community on the hillside south of the marina, was developed by Diamante and is structurally a private-road grid carved into the Pacific cliffs. From most of its higher-elevation lots you see Land’s End and Lover’s Beach. The community’s amenity is its tunnel-access exclusivity (a single ingress and egress, manned 24 hours), its 4-minute walk or shuttle into the Cabo San Lucas marina restaurant strip, and the architecture, which leans heavily toward Steve Hermann, Olson Kundig, and similar contemporary statement work .
What you are not buying is a swim beach. Pedregal Beach is a Pacific-facing stretch with strong undertows, and most of the villa rental contracts say so in the fine print. The pools are the recreation; the ocean is the view. If the group is families with children under twelve, that distinction matters. If the group is six adults who plan to be in the marina restaurants by seven, it does not.
The rental channels we work with in Pedregal include Cabo Platinum, Villa Experience, and the Pedregal’s own internal rental program, with overlap into Onefinestay’s Mexico portfolio for a small number of properties. Inspirato and Exclusive Resorts hold a handful of member units inside Pedregal that do not appear on the open market.
What you are buying in Palmilla
Palmilla is, properly, the corridor between Bahia Santa Maria and the One&Only Palmilla resort entrance, with the Villas del Mar private community at its core and Querencia at its upper boundary. The selling points are calm bays (Bahia Santa Maria and Bahia Chileno both within a six-minute drive), the One&Only restaurant access for residents of certain rental products, the Greg Norman-designed Querencia golf course, and a more horizontal, less vertiginous architecture than Pedregal.
The trade-off is distance from Cabo San Lucas itself. From Villas del Mar to the marina is a 14-minute drive in light traffic and twenty-five in February rush. The villa kitchens and provisioning logistics matter more here, because the right answer is often to eat at the property four nights of seven, not to commute. The Palmilla rate set is also softer because the inventory turns over faster (more individually owned, fewer locked into a single rental program) and competes against the One&Only resort villas, which set a public ceiling.
Operators we see most often in Palmilla include Villa Experience, Earth Villas, Haute Retreats, and Onefinestay , with One&Only Palmilla’s own villa channel a separate product entirely.
Who should pick which
Pedregal earns its premium for three buyer profiles. First, mixed-age groups with mobility considerations who want the marina walk-in. Second, owner-celebrant trips (60th birthdays, big anniversaries) where the architecture is part of the gift. Third, off-season buyers in May and October who want Pedregal at a 28% to 35% rate cut against January and can swim at the property pool.
Palmilla earns its rate for two profiles. First, multi-generational families with children, where a calm bay matters more than a marina restaurant. Second, golfers, given Querencia, El Dorado (Cabo del Sol corridor), and Cabo Real all sitting within twelve minutes. If the trip is two couples without kids and the agenda is restaurants, sportfishing, and nightlife, Pedregal is the right neighborhood and the rate is fair. If the trip is six adults plus four kids and the agenda is the beach, Palmilla is the right neighborhood and the rate is correct.
The four we passed on
The properties below were considered for our Cabo best-of and removed for the reasons given. Names are withheld where the operator’s legal channel has not been notified.
A 7-bedroom Pedregal cliff villa . Listed beachfront. The marketed beach is a 280-step rocky cove, not the kind of beachfront a $52,000 week implies. Three of the bedrooms share a single hall bath. Pass.
A 6-bedroom Palmilla resort-side villa. Marketing copy implies One&Only resident access. The actual contract grants pool-deck access on a request basis only, with a documented record of denials in February peak. The villa is otherwise fine. The marketing is dishonest. Pass.
An 8-bedroom Pedregal estate. Mandatory 22% staff gratuity above the 18% market norm, on top of an opaque $9,800 cleaning fee that is not itemized. The villa is well staffed and well kept. The pricing is gamed. Pass until the line items get honest.
A 5-bedroom Palmilla golf villa. Beautiful house. The retaining wall on the seaward slope shows visible cracking in the May 2026 photo set we obtained. Until it is engineered out, we will not send buyers.
What we are watching
Three forces will move the Pedregal-Palmilla spread in 2027. The Marriott Cabo expansion will add roughly 200 new residences in the Cabo San Lucas-adjacent corridor; if the rental release is in volume, it will compress Pedregal’s rate ceiling. The peso-dollar move (the peso strengthened roughly 11% against the dollar in the trailing twelve months) has begun to bite the open-market dollar-quoted operators; bookings are coming in marginally softer at the trophy end. And the hurricane reinsurance market is repricing Pacific Mexico after the 2023 to 2025 Hilary-Lidia-Otis cluster ; the villas absorbing those increases are mostly in Pedregal.
Last updated 2026-02. We have not adjusted our editorial for the commission rate. See how-we-make-money for the full disclosure.