Cartagena Calling
Cartagena is the most visited spot in Colombia. It’s also perhaps the top choice in this country right now for an investment in a rental property. There has been and will continue to be steady growth in this city both in property values and in the number of tourists shopping for short-term accommodation here.
Cartagena is a branded city. This isn’t Paris or London, but the name Cartagena is recognized the world over. It doesn’t really matter what goes on in the rest of Colombia or even the rest of the world. Premium cities like this one carry on.
Not only is Cartagena an established city on the world map, it’s also a rapidly improving destination. Five new hotels and two new shopping malls are under construction, each an effort by foreign investors to capitalize on the expanding tourist figures. The city is enjoying expanding air service, as well, including discount direct flights from New York. Cartagena is also an increasingly popular cruise destination.
All of this in a walled city…meaning limited space for continued development. In other words, there’s growing demand but restricted supply.
Note, as well, that there are no restrictions on short-term rentals in Cartagena (as there are in Medellin, for example).
What could you buy? This is the most expensive property market in this country (thanks to its long-standing global appeal), so you could spend US$3,000 per meter or more. That’s the bad news. The good news is that a successful rental investment could still be made for less than US$100,000, as short-term rentals are typically small here. A renovated studio frontline to the ocean and in the most sought-after neighborhood for rentals is currently on the market for the equivalent of US$95,000.
The cheapest property market in Colombia? That’d be Cali, where you can buy for as little as US$750 per square meter. Next cheapest on a per-square-meter basis is the colonial city of Popayan (US$800 per square meter)…followed by our favorite destination in this country, Medellin, where current values in the best neighborhoods average US$1,500 to US$1,600 per square meter.
Kathleen Peddicord
P.S. These figures and overviews are excerpted from the series of property presentations given by Colombian property experts and investors during this week’s Live and Invest in Colombia Conference in Medellin. Lots of specific current property examples were shared, including top current buys both for personal use and for investment, in key markets across the country.
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