Is it cheaper to rent a house or apartment per square metre? Comparison in 52 Latin American 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.
In 49 of 52 cities the square meter of a house is rented cheaper than that of an apartment; the biggest difference is in Monterrey (Mexico) (- 61.1%). In El Carmen de Viboral (Colombia), however, the house is rented + 14.3% per m² in front of the apartment.
Abstract: We compare the rent per m² of 132,113 houses and apartments for rent in 52 cities with 30 ads or more of each type.
Updated: 18 October 2026 (data from 18 October 2026) · Next update: monthly.
Summary
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Cheapest house per m² | 49 of 52 cities |
| Higher discount of the house | Monterrey, Mexico: - 61.1% |
| Higher recharge of the house | El Carmen de Viboral (Colombia): + 14.3% |
Rental by m²: house vs. apartment
| City | House (USD / m² per month) | Apartment (USD / m² per month) | House vs. apartment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monterrey, Mexico | 7.32 | 18.84 | -61.1% |
| San Pedro Garza Garcia (Mexico) | 11.30 | 25.10 | -55.0% |
| Fernando de la Mora (Paraguay) | 4.94 | 10.92 | -54.8% |
| Guadalajara (Mexico) | 7.45 | 16.21 | -54.1% |
| São Paulo, Brazil | 5.90 | 12.41 | -52.5% |
| Asunción (Paraguay) | 6.01 | 12.52 | -52.0% |
| Zapopan, Mexico | 7.93 | 15.99 | -50.4% |
| Luque (Paraguay) | 5.68 | 10.99 | -48.3% |
| Santa Marta (Colombia) | 7.32 | 14.14 | -48.2% |
| Monteria (Colombia) | 4.60 | 8.03 | -42.7% |
| Bogotá, Colombia | 9.43 | 15.16 | -37.8% |
| Villavicencio (Colombia) | 5.33 | 8.55 | -37.7% |
| Mexico City, Mexico | 11.28 | 18.05 | -37.5% |
| Cartagena, Colombia | 8.90 | 13.86 | -35.8% |
| Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia) | 4.79 | 7.26 | -34.1% |
| Pereira, Colombia | 6.93 | 10.47 | -33.8% |
| Rosario (Argentina) | 5.87 | 8.78 | -33.1% |
| Montevideo, Uruguay | 9.95 | 14.60 | -31.9% |
| Medellín (Colombia) | 10.56 | 15.46 | -31.7% |
| Caracas, Venezuela | 8.42 | 12.10 | -30.4% |
| Itagüí (Colombia) | 8.76 | 12.57 | -30.3% |
| San Isidro (Argentina) | 13.10 | 18.62 | -29.7% |
| Quito, Ecuador | 5.09 | 7.22 | -29.5% |
| Guayaquil, Ecuador | 6.00 | 8.50 | -29.4% |
| Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) | 8.93 | 12.50 | -28.6% |
| La Estrella (Colombia) | 8.61 | 12.04 | -28.6% |
| Sabaneta (Colombia) | 9.28 | 12.89 | -28.0% |
| Armenia, Colombia | 7.31 | 10.12 | -27.8% |
| Floridablanca (Colombia) | 6.71 | 9.24 | -27.4% |
| Córdoba (Argentina) | 6.79 | 9.19 | -26.2% |
| Barranquilla (Colombia) | 7.85 | 10.57 | -25.7% |
| Bello, Colombia | 7.85 | 10.47 | -25.0% |
| Cúcuta (Colombia) | 5.25 | 6.91 | -24.1% |
| Cali (Colombia) | 7.36 | 9.43 | -21.9% |
| Lima, Peru | 7.51 | 9.58 | -21.6% |
| La Ceja (Colombia) | 9.20 | 11.73 | -21.5% |
| Tiger (Argentina) | 14.00 | 17.50 | -20.0% |
| El Retiro (Colombia) | 12.76 | 15.47 | -17.5% |
| Manizales (Colombia) | 8.10 | 9.80 | -17.4% |
| Bucaramanga, Colombia | 7.85 | 9.30 | -15.5% |
| La Paz, Bolivia | 4.77 | 5.62 | -15.3% |
| Buenos Aires, Argentina | 10.59 | 12.47 | -15.1% |
| Ibagué (Colombia) | 6.03 | 7.09 | -15.0% |
| Envigado (Colombia) | 13.12 | 15.35 | -14.6% |
| Cuenca, Ecuador | 4.69 | 5.30 | -11.5% |
| Chia (Colombia) | 9.55 | 10.47 | -8.8% |
| Piedecuesta (Colombia) | 6.55 | 6.98 | -6.3% |
| Cajicá (Colombia) | 10.06 | 10.66 | -5.6% |
| Rionegro (Colombia) | 11.56 | 11.78 | -1.9% |
| La Calera (Colombia) | 9.82 | 9.75 | +0.7% |
| Arequipa (Peru) | 6.27 | 5.82 | +7.7% |
| El Carmen de Viboral (Colombia) | 9.12 | 7.98 | +14.3% |
Medians of the rent per m² in the majority currency of each city, converted to dollars; without matching by neighborhood or size (the houses are usually larger).
Frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to rent a house than an apartment? per square meter, yes in 49 of 52 cities.
Where's the difference greater? In Monterrey, Mexico: the house is rented - 61.1% 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.
- 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.
- 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). Is it cheaper to rent a house or apartment per square metre? Comparison in 52 Latin American cities (October 2026). Aptology (aptologia.com). https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/alquiler-casa-vs-apartamento-por-m²-ciudades-latinoamerica-2026. Data: datos.csv, CC BY license 4. 0.
Sources and data
- DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23475840 (Zenodo)
- Original study (Spanish): ¿Sale más barato arrendar una casa o un apartamento por metro cuadrado? Comparación en 52 ciudades de Latinoamérica (octubre 2026)
- GitHub (CSV, PDF): https://github.com/elbroker/aptologia-datos/tree/main/estudios/arriendo-casa-vs-apartamento-por-m2-ciudades-latinoamerica-2026
- Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/datasets/aptologia/arriendo-casa-vs-apartamento-por-m2-ciudades-latinoamerica-2026