Buy or rent? Years of rent that is worth housing in Barcelona, Lisbon, Porto and the capitals of Latin America (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 Lisbon the square meter of an apartment is equivalent to 27.1 years of rent and in Barcelona to 23.0 years, compared to 12.5 years in Bogotá. In comparison, the lowest ratio is in Caracas, Venezuela (9.6 years) and the highest in Santiago, Chile (27.5).
Abstract: We compare the price / rental ratio of the square meter in 10 Catalan municipalities with official data and in 14 capitals and Porto with ads.
Updated: 18 October 2026 (data from 18 October 2026) · Next update: monthly.
Summary
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Lisbon | 27.1 years |
| Barcelona | 23.0 years |
| Bogotá | 12.5 years |
| Lower | Caracas, Venezuela: 9.6 |
Years of rent worth the square meter
| City | Years of rent worth the m² | Gross return | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caracas, Venezuela | 9.6 | 10.4% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Quito, Ecuador | 11.5 | 8.7% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Asunción (Paraguay) | 12.4 | 8.0% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Bogotá, Colombia | 12.5 | 8.0% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) | 13.2 | 7.6% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Mexico City, Mexico | 13.4 | 7.5% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Lleida, Spain | 15.0 | 6.7% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Santiago (Dominican Republic) | 15.0 | 6.6% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Reus (Spain) | 16.1 | 6.2% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| La Paz, Bolivia | 16.3 | 6.1% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Buenos Aires, Argentina | 17.1 | 5.8% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Tarragona (Spain) | 17.3 | 5.8% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Montevideo, Uruguay | 17.4 | 5.8% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Spain) | 17.7 | 5.6% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Girona (Spain) | 18.1 | 5.5% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Terrassa, Spain | 18.2 | 5.5% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Lima, Peru | 18.6 | 5.4% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Sabadell (Spain) | 20.0 | 5.0% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Mataró (Spain) | 20.4 | 4.9% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Badalona (Spain) | 20.8 | 4.8% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Barcelona, Spain | 23.0 | 4.3% | Officer (Incasòl + MIVAU) |
| Porto (Portugal) | 25.4 | 3.9% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Lisbon, Portugal | 27.1 | 3.7% | Announcements (Aptology) |
| Santiago (Chile) | 27.5 | 3.6% | Announcements (Aptology) |
Spain: rental per m² of contracts (Incasòl) and value valued per m² (MIVAU). Rest: medium of apartment ads for sale and for rent per m². The sources are not identical.
Frequently asked questions
Is there more to rent in Barcelona or Bogotá? By price / rent ratio, Bogotá: 12.5 years compared to 23.0.
How many years of rent is a flat in Lisbon? 27.1 years per square metre (October announcements of 2026).
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.
- Spain: official data (Incasòl, contract rental 2024 - 2025; MIVAU, value assessed 2026); years do not match and are not prices ordered.
- 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? Years of rent that is worth housing in Barcelona, Lisbon, Porto and the capitals of Latin America (October 2026). Aptology (aptologia.com). https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/comprar-o-alquilar-espana-portugal-vs-latinoamerica-2026. Data: datos.csv, CC BY license 4. 0.
Sources and data
- DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23475827 (Zenodo)
- Original study (Spanish): ¿Comprar o alquilar? Años de alquiler que vale la vivienda en Barcelona, Lisboa, Oporto y las capitales de Latinoamérica (octubre 2026)
- GitHub (CSV, PDF): https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/comprar-o-alquilar-espana-portugal-vs-latinoamerica-2026
- Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/datasets/aptologia/comprar-o-alquilar-espana-portugal-vs-latinoamerica-2026