IMO the way of thinking goes wrong here. These are two different market segments, and different "rules" apply. We?ve always lived in a respected and good area, and never ever paid more than 10k pesos a month (200 USD) for 3 bedrooms. Those are not touristic areas, but not barrios in the bad sense either. We?ve had middle class neighbors who have careers.
The higher priced segment would be that targeted to expats/tourists, gated communities, tourist zones etc. I could be mistaken, but I believe that on those areas mostly the population is more expats/less locals...
If not for anything else, and due to the fact that I thankfully already speak fluent Spanish, for security reasons I would never live in a touristic zone in the DR. The areas we have lived in, have reportedly very low crime rates, as opposed to many touristic areas, which are in the news rather frequently, unfortunately. The important thing to note here is of course, that there are bad barrios, in which it?s unsafe to move around even during the day, and there are good barrios where people have more or less normal lives.
