Buy or rent? How many years to rent an apartment in 31 cities of 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.
In Barranquilla an apartment of 2 rooms costs the same as 12.3 years of its rent, the lowest ratio of 31 Colombian cities; in Palmira it costs 18.6 years. In Bogotá they are 17.0 years (540 million pesos of price compared to 2.65 million pesos per month). The less years, the better to buy before rent, before costs and funding.
Summary: We compare the sale price and rental of 186,841 apartments of the same number of rooms in 31 cities.
Updated: 18 October 2026 (data from 18 October 2026) · Next update: monthly.
Summary
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Less years (2 hab.) | Barranquilla: 12.3 |
| More years (2 hab.) | Palmira: 18.6 |
| Bogotá (2 hab.) | 17.0 years |
Years of rent equivalent to price, per room
| City | 1 hab. (years) | 2 hab. (years) | 3 or more. (years) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barranquilla | 12.3 | 12.3 | 12.4 |
| Pereira | 15.8 | 12.8 | 12.4 |
| The eyebrow | — | 12.8 | 13.7 |
| Armenia | — | 13.0 | 13.3 |
| Bucaramanga | — | 13.3 | 14.6 |
| The Star | — | 13.9 | 14.9 |
| Jamundí | — | 14.0 | — |
| Cucutta | — | 14.1 | 15.4 |
| Medellin | 13.6 | 14.3 | 13.5 |
| Cajicá | — | 14.5 | 13.4 |
| Soacha | — | 14.5 | 15.4 |
| The Retreat | 12.0 | 14.5 | 15.7 |
| Sabaneta | 12.9 | 14.7 | 14.6 |
| Beautiful | — | 14.8 | 13.3 |
| Envigado | 15.5 | 14.9 | 15.6 |
| Madrid | — | 15.0 | 14.6 |
| Cali | 13.3 | 15.1 | 11.6 |
| Ibagué | — | 15.1 | 20.8 |
| Villavicencio | — | 15.3 | 15.8 |
| Itagüí | — | 15.5 | 14.0 |
| Chia | 14.7 | 15.6 | 13.4 |
| Rionegro | 14.4 | 16.0 | 16.7 |
| Floridablanca | — | 16.2 | 15.0 |
| Santa Marta | 14.4 | 16.7 | 15.2 |
| Marinilla | — | 16.8 | 16.7 |
| Bogotá | 14.3 | 17.0 | 12.6 |
| Mosquera | — | 17.7 | 17.3 |
| Manizales | — | 17.7 | 15.4 |
| Puerto Colombia | — | 17.8 | 14.3 |
| Cartagena | 18.6 | 18.4 | 15.6 |
| Palmira | — | 18.6 | — |
- indicates less than 30 ads for sale or for rent.
Detail of apartments with 2 rooms
| City | Sales price (medium) | Monthly rental (median) | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barranquilla | 340 million pesos | 2.30 million pesos | 12.3 |
| Pereira | 400 million pesos | 2.60 million pesos | 12.8 |
| The eyebrow | 385 million pesos | 2.50 million pesos | 12.8 |
| Armenia | 350 million pesos | 2.25 million pesos | 13.0 |
| Bucaramanga | 319 million pesos | 2.00 million pesos | 13.3 |
| The Star | 400 million pesos | 2.40 million pesos | 13.9 |
| Jamundí | 205 million pesos | 1.22 million pesos | 14.0 |
| Cucutta | 220 million pesos | 1.30 million pesos | 14.1 |
| Medellin | 720 million pesos | 4.20 million pesos | 14.3 |
| Cajicá | 330 million pesos | 1.90 million pesos | 14.5 |
| Soacha | 165 million pesos | 0.95 million pesos | 14.5 |
| The Retreat | 750 million pesos | 4.30 million pesos | 14.5 |
| Sabaneta | 511 million pesos | 2.90 million pesos | 14.7 |
| Beautiful | 320 million pesos | 1.80 million pesos | 14.8 |
| Envigado | 750 million pesos | 4.20 million pesos | 14.9 |
| Madrid | 216 million pesos | 1.20 million pesos | 15.0 |
| Cali | 280 million pesos | 1.55 million pesos | 15.1 |
| Ibagué | 245 million pesos | 1.35 million pesos | 15.1 |
| Villavicencio | 220 million pesos | 1.20 million pesos | 15.3 |
| Itagüí | 465 million pesos | 2.50 million pesos | 15.5 |
| Chia | 290 million pesos | 1.55 million pesos | 15.6 |
| Rionegro | 500 million pesos | 2.60 million pesos | 16.0 |
| Floridablanca | 370 million pesos | 1.90 million pesos | 16.2 |
| Santa Marta | 700 million pesos | 3.50 million pesos | 16.7 |
| Marinilla | 342 million pesos | 1.70 million pesos | 16.8 |
| Bogotá | 540 million pesos | 2.65 million pesos | 17.0 |
| Mosquera | 265 million pesos | 1.25 million pesos | 17.7 |
| Manizales | 350 million pesos | 1.65 million pesos | 17.7 |
| Puerto Colombia | 427 million pesos | 2.00 million pesos | 17.8 |
| Cartagena | 750 million pesos | 3.40 million pesos | 18.4 |
| Palmira | 245 million pesos | 1.10 million pesos | 18.6 |
Frequently asked questions
How many years of rent is an apartment in Bogotá? An apartment of 2 rooms is equivalent to 17.0 years of your rent (October of 2026).
Where should we buy more than rent in Colombia? For this measure, in Barranquilla: 12.3 years of rent.
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? How many years to rent an apartment in 31 cities of Colombia (October 2026). Aptology (aptologia.com). https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/anos-de-alquiler-para-pagar-un-apartamento-ciudades-colombia-2026. Data: datos.csv, CC BY license 4. 0.
Sources and data
- DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23475906 (Zenodo)
- Original study (Spanish): ¿Comprar o arrendar? Cuántos años de arriendo cuesta un apartamento en 31 ciudades de Colombia (octubre 2026)
- GitHub (CSV, PDF): https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/anos-de-arriendo-para-pagar-un-apartamento-ciudades-colombia-2026
- Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/datasets/aptologia/anos-de-arriendo-para-pagar-un-apartamento-ciudades-colombia-2026