Costa Rica Property Rental is a listings marketplace for vacation homes across the country, from villas above Tamarindo to eco-lodges in Monteverde and casitas on the Caribbean side. Owners list their own properties, and travelers deal with them directly instead of going through a big booking platform.
The job
Redesign the site from scratch and rebuild it as a working application. That meant searchable listings, owner accounts, and a database behind them, with the browsing side still fast enough that travelers stay to look.
What was built
- A complete redesign in warm cream and jungle green, with oversized type over full-bleed coastal photography and the search bar built right into the hero
- Browsing by region, so Guanacaste, the Nicoya Peninsula, the Central Pacific, Arenal, and the Caribbean each get their own way in
- Search and filters for property type, guests, bedrooms, nightly price, and amenities like a pool, ocean view, or pet-friendly, with sorting by price, rating, and size
- Owner sign-in and a “list your property” flow, so owners manage their own listings
- Direct contact between traveler and owner: pick a coast, message the host, confirm the stay with them
- A journal for travel and regional content
- Built on Next.js, with listings and accounts stored in a Neon Postgres database and deployed on Vercel. Public pages are prerendered, so they load quickly even though the data behind them is live
- Hosting and ongoing care by Digital Anchor
Why it matters
Not every site belongs on the same stack. A marketplace with accounts, listings, and search is application work, so this one runs on a full framework and a real database. The choice follows the job the site has to do, and the people browsing never feel the machinery.