Villas for sale in Los Flamingos, Benahavis.

Villas in Los Flamingos — frontline-golf living, sea views, a gated valley with three courses.

Los Flamingos is villa country first and foremost. The resort runs for several kilometres up a gated valley behind 24-hour security, and the houses are set along the fairways of three courses — Flamingos, Alferini and Tramores — at the Villa Padierna golf club. Plots are generous here, generally between 1,000 and 3,000 square metres, which gives the villas room to spread out: most are detached, two storeys over a basement, with five or six en-suite bedrooms and built areas that typically run from around 500 up to 700-plus square metres. The newer builds lean contemporary, with clean lines, deep terraces and pools angled at the green and the sea beyond.

Within the valley, the villa stock clusters in named pockets — the Villa Padierna villas nearest the Palace hotel, plus enclaves such as Tee 5 — each with its own feel and its own line of sight to the coast. Buyers tend to be international and golf-minded: families wanting a secure main home near Atalaya and the international schools, and second-home owners who value the resort's privacy and the short run down to San Pedro and Puerto Banús. As a price guide, frontline-golf villas here generally start in the mid-single-digit millions and climb well into eight figures for the larger contemporary houses on the best plots. We'll always tell you which of those are fairly priced for their position and which are not.

Los Flamingos — Benahavís's gated golf hillside on the New Golden Mile, three Villa Padierna courses and frontline villas with sea views between Marbella and Estepona.

Who lives in Los Flamingos

Los Flamingos is a manned, 24-hour gated community, so it draws people who want privacy and a tidy, finished environment rather than the bustle of the seafront. The owners are overwhelmingly international: Benahavís as a whole is one of the most foreign-owned property markets in Spain, and Los Flamingos sits firmly at the upper end of that. You'll find Northern Europeans, Britons, Scandinavians, Middle Eastern and American families, a mix of full-time residents, second-home owners and golfers who came for a week at the Anantara Villa Padierna Palace and never quite left. It's a quiet, car-dependent estate of villas and low-rise apartment blocks, not a village with a high street, so it suits buyers who value calm, security and golf on the doorstep over walking to a café. Families are well served by the international schools a short drive down the hill, which is why you see plenty of children here, not just retirees.

Architecture & property types

Villas dominate Los Flamingos, and they set the tone of the whole estate. The classic look is the large detached villa on its own plot, many of them frontline-golf, stepped down the slopes so the living rooms and pools face out over the fairways to the sea. You'll find two broad generations side by side: the earlier Mediterranean-Andalusian style from the resort's first build-out, with arches, tiled roofs and mature gardens, and the newer wave of contemporary villas, all clean white volumes, floor-to-ceiling glass and flat roofs. Alongside the villas, the estate holds a healthy run of apartments and penthouses in gated low-rise developments, plus building plots for those who want to design their own home. There are roughly nine separate residential pockets within Los Flamingos, names like Alanda Los Flamingos and Lomas del Marqués among them, each with its own gate, gardens and communal pools. A practical note: not every villa labelled 'frontline golf' has an unobstructed sea view, because the hillside steps and rooflines get in the way lower down, so the orientation and exact position of a plot matter enormously to both lifestyle and resale.

Price expectations

Los Flamingos is a premium address, and the prices reflect that. Apartments and penthouses are the most accessible way in: smaller apartments generally start in the mid-hundreds of thousands of euros, while larger units and penthouses with proper panoramic golf-and-sea views typically run from around one million upwards. Villas are where the estate makes its name, and they cover a wide band. A more modest or older villa needing updating might sit around the lower-to-mid seven figures, while the larger contemporary frontline-golf villas with full sea views typically land in the several-million-euro range, and the trophy new-builds at the very top reach well into eight figures. Building plots are priced according to size, position and view. As a rule, you pay a clear premium for genuine, uninterrupted sea views and for proximity to the golf and the hotel, and we'll always tell you when a particular villa is priced above what its position honestly justifies, and why.

Lifestyle, schools & getting around

Life here revolves around golf and the resort. The estate is built around the Villa Padierna courses, three 18-hole layouts: Flamingos, Alferini and Tramores, with a golf academy on site. At its heart sits the five-star Anantara Villa Padierna Palace, with its large spa, several restaurants and bars, tennis and a private beach club down on the coast, all of which residents can tap into without leaving home. The nearest beaches, El Saladillo and Guadalmansa, are only about five minutes down the hill, with the wider sweep of the New Golden Mile and Estepona's beach clubs a little further along. For families, the international schools are a genuine draw: Atalaya International School, Atlas American School and the International School of Estepona are all a manageable drive away. Getting around is easy by car. The estate sits between the coastal A-7 and the AP-7 toll motorway, so Puerto Banús, San Pedro and Marbella are roughly fifteen minutes one way and Estepona about the same the other, with both Málaga and Gibraltar airports comfortably under an hour. You will want a car here; this is not an area built for walking everywhere.

How we work in Los Flamingos

We treat Los Flamingos the way we treat the whole coast: honestly, and with our feet on the ground. Because the estate splits into so many separate developments and the hillside changes a view dramatically from one plot to the next, we won't just send you a list, we'll tell you which villas truly hold their sea view, which terraces get sun and shelter, and which communities have sensible service charges and well-run communal areas. We'll flag the homes we think are over-priced for their position and explain exactly why, and we'll point you to the quieter corners if peace matters more to you than being beside the first tee. Whether you're after a frontline-golf villa, a low-maintenance penthouse or a plot to build on, if you'd like a straight answer about Los Flamingos from people who actually know it, drop us a line.