Buy or rent in Latin America? How many years of rent is worth an apartment of 2 rooms in 48 cities (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.

Luque (Paraguay) is the 48 city of Latin America and Portugal where an apartment 2 costs less years of its own rent: 10.7; in Santiago (Chile) it costs 38.6 years. Among the capitals, the relationship goes from 12.6 years in Mexico City to 38.6 in Santiago; Bogotá is in 17.0.

Abstract: We compare sales price and rental of 88,710 apartments of 2 rooms in 48 cities of 13 countries.

Updated: 18 October 2026 (data from 18 October 2026) · Next update: monthly.

Summary

Years of rent worth an apartment of 2 rooms

Medians converted to dollars; the number of years does not depend on the rate when selling and renting are in the same currency.

Frequently asked questions

What city in Latin America is it better to buy than rent? By price / rent ratio, in Luque (Paraguay): 10.7 years of rent.

Where is it most expensive to buy in front of rent? In Santiago, Chile: 38.6 years.

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.
• Coins: never mix different coin ads without converting them. Conversión a dólares con la tasa de mercado de ExchangeRate-API (open.er-api.com, actualización del 18 Oct 2026): 1 USD = 3,182.80 COP, 1 USD = 18.47 M.N, 1 USD = 5.09 BRL, 1 USD = 3.44 PEN, 1 USD = 982.44 CLP, 1 USD = 1,514.57 ARS, 1 USD = 40.20 UYU, 1 USD = 5,705.37 PYG, 1 USD = 61.27 DOP, 1 USD = 0.89 EUR, 1 USD = 11.72 BOB; la UF chilena a 41,178.64 CLP (mindicador,cl. 18-oct-2026). The ads published in dollars are used as they are.
• Coins: In each city and operation only the majority currency of the ads is used (the ads in another currency are excluded) and the median is converted to dollars at the rate mentioned; no different currency ads are ever averaged.
• 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.
• Season destinations: Punta del Este, Maldonado and Punta Cana are excluded from the comparisons of years of rent because many rental ads are seasonal (monthly summer price), which inflates the rent and would give an artificially low relationship.
• 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 in Latin America? How many years of rent is worth an apartment of 2 rooms in 48 cities (October 2026). Aptology (aptologia.com). https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/anos-de-alquiler-para-pagar-un-apartamento-ciudades-latinoamerica-2026. Data: datos.csv, CC BY license 4. 0.

Sources and data

• DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23475757 (Zenodo)
• Original study (Spanish): ¿Comprar o arrendar en Latinoamérica? Cuántos años de arriendo vale un apartamento de 2 habitaciones en 48 ciudades (octubre 2026)
• GitHub (CSV, PDF): https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/anos-de-arriendo-para-pagar-un-apartamento-ciudades-latinoamerica-2026
• Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/datasets/aptologia/anos-de-arriendo-para-pagar-un-apartamento-ciudades-latinoamerica-2026

More questions

• What city in Latin America is it better to buy than rent?
• Where is it most expensive to buy in front of rent?
• What does the study “Buy or rent in Latin America? How many years of rent is worth an apartment of 2 rooms in 48 cities” show?

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