Buy or rent according to the estrato? Years of rent worth the square meter by estrato and city in Colombia (October 2026)
Machine-assisted English version of the Spanish original by Aptología. All figures are locked to the original (numbers are copied, not re-translated); if in doubt, the Spanish original prevails.
The combination of city and estrato where the square meter is paid with less years of rent in Colombia is Barranquilla, estrato 5: 10.3 years; the highest is Manizales, estrato 5, with 17.4 years. In the national average the estratos 3 to 6 are between 12.4 and 12.8 years, so within each city the neighborhood weighs more than the estrato. 19 cities have at least three measurable estratos.
Abstract: We cross the price per m² for sale and for rent of 177,376 apartments per city and estrato.
Updated: 18 October 2026 (data from 18 October 2026) · Next update: monthly.
Summary
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Estrato 1 | 10.6 years |
| Estrato 2 | 13.4 years |
| Estrato 3 | 12.8 years |
| Estrato 4 | 12.5 years |
| Estrato 5 | 12.5 years |
| Estrato 6 | 12.4 years |
Colombia by estrato
| Strand | Sale by m² (million) | Rental per m² per month | Years of rent | Gross return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5.13 | 40,427 | 10.6 | 9.5% |
| 2 | 4.25 | 26,349 | 13.4 | 7.4% |
| 3 | 4.91 | 31,897 | 12.8 | 7.8% |
| 4 | 5.98 | 40,000 | 12.5 | 8.0% |
| 5 | 6.94 | 46,154 | 12.5 | 8.0% |
| 6 | 7.97 | 53,448 | 12.4 | 8.1% |
Years of rent by city and estrato
| City | Estrato 1 | Estrato 2 | Estrato 3 | Estrato 4 | Estrato 5 | Estrato 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barranquilla | — | 14.0 | 12.2 | 12.1 | 10.3 | 10.9 |
| Cali | — | — | 13.4 | 13.1 | 11.1 | 12.4 |
| Bogotá | 11.2 | 14.4 | 13.7 | 13.0 | 11.9 | 11.8 |
| Medellin | — | 12.4 | 12.7 | 13.4 | 13.2 | 13.1 |
| Cartagena | — | — | 11.3 | 11.0 | 14.0 | 16.4 |
| Cucutta | — | — | 13.6 | 12.4 | 14.0 | — |
| Bucaramanga | — | — | 14.5 | 13.2 | 12.5 | 13.1 |
| Chia | — | — | 14.5 | 13.3 | 12.6 | — |
| Sabaneta | — | 12.5 | 13.4 | 14.8 | 13.8 | — |
| Cajicá | — | — | 14.1 | 13.9 | 14.0 | — |
| Itagüí | — | — | 13.3 | 14.7 | 14.3 | — |
| Floridablanca | — | — | 14.2 | 14.3 | 14.3 | — |
| Envigado | — | 14.3 | 13.7 | 14.4 | 14.8 | 14.2 |
| Santa Marta | — | — | 12.1 | 13.1 | 16.0 | 16.2 |
| Pereira | — | — | — | 13.5 | 15.1 | 14.6 |
| Armenia | — | — | 14.1 | 14.3 | 14.7 | 14.4 |
| The eyebrow | — | — | 14.7 | 14.2 | 16.6 | — |
| Manizales | — | — | 14.6 | 14.0 | 17.4 | 14.8 |
| Rionegro | — | — | 15.2 | 16.2 | 17.2 | 15.9 |
- indicates less than 30 ads for sale or rent in that cell.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important way to buy for rent? In the estrato 1: the m² is worth 10.6 years of rent.
And in estrato 6? 12.4 years of rent per m².
Methodology
- Source: night events of the Aptology database (aptologia.com) of 18 October 2026: current housing ads in real estate portals of 13 countries, collected by Aptology and seen online between 11 and 18 October 2026. Court: 18 October of 2026.
- Debugging: exact duplicates (same city, area, type, price, currency, area, rooms and bathrooms) and prices outside the percentile 1 - 99 of each country, operation, currency and type are removed; the price per m² uses only ads with declared area between 12 and 2,000 m² and is also cut to P1-P99.
- What is measured: prices ordered (published), not closing prices. For rent, monthly rent without HOA fee, common expenses or condo.
- Minimum sample: each published figure is based on at least 30 ads; cells with less are omitted.
- Colombia: Prices in Colombian pesos, no currency conversion.
- Years of rent to pay for the house: The average sales price (monthly average rental × 12) between the same type of ads and the cell; it is the price / rent ratio (price-to-rent ratio) and is equivalent to 100 - gross profitability. It does not include HOA fee, taxes, vacations, financing or recovery: it is a reference to compare to purchase and rent, not an investment recommendation.
- Limitations: The coverage depends on the portals that travel Aptology in each country and is greater in large cities and in the medium-high and high segments; the area is the one that declares the announcement, unverified; the area names come from the portals.
- Privacy: only aggregates are published; no personal data, link to ads or name of advertiser is published.
- Open data: datos.csv, CC BY license 4. 0.
How to quote
Pinzón Pineda, D. M. (2026). Buy or rent according to the estrato? Years of rent worth the square meter by estrato and city in Colombia (October 2026). Aptology (aptologia.com). https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/anos-de-alquiler-para-pagar-vivienda-por-estrato-y-ciudad-colombia-2026. Data: datos.csv, CC BY license 4. 0.
Sources and data
- DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23475924 (Zenodo)
- Original study (Spanish): ¿Comprar o arrendar según el estrato? Años de arriendo que vale el metro cuadrado por estrato y ciudad en Colombia (octubre 2026)
- GitHub (CSV, PDF): https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/anos-de-arriendo-para-pagar-vivienda-por-estrato-y-ciudad-colombia-2026
- Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/datasets/aptologia/anos-de-arriendo-para-pagar-vivienda-por-estrato-y-ciudad-colombia-2026