Summary
Houses in Arequipa ask about $1,539 (about S/ 5,300) per m² of built area (TuLugar, October 2026), so a 150 to 200 m² family house comes to roughly $231,000 (about S/ 795,000) to $308,000 (about S/ 1,060,000).
The data is thin: TuLugar had only 117 house listings for the city, and its 3-bedroom median of $562,000 rests on just 8 of them, mostly big houses. Treat every figure here as a rough guide, not a market index.
Smaller houses cost less in total: at the city median, a 100 m² house works out at about $154,000 and a 120 m² one at about $185,000.
Cayma is the most expensive district we have figures for, at $2,288 per m² for houses, about 49% above the city median. Yanahuara asks $1,619 and José Luis Bustamante y Rivero $1,554.
If you want to build, urban lots under 500 m² ask a median $76,000 (about S/ 261,000) across the city, but a lot in Cayma asks about $219,000.
The cheaper districts (Socabaya, Paucarpata, Alto Selva Alegre, the edges of Cerro Colorado) had too few house listings to price. Cerro Colorado is where the city is growing, with 262,080 residents in the 2025 census.
On a $300,000 resale house, buying costs come to about S/ 32,700 to S/ 33,950, or 3.2% to 3.3% of the price, not the 5% to 7% often quoted. Add a lawyer and a building inspection on top.
Property tax is low: on a house the municipality values at S/ 300,000, predial is about S/ 1,470 ($425) a year.
We found no reliable 2026 price trend for Arequipa. The last reading we have, from Properati in May 2026, showed house prices down 6.1% on a year, so don't assume prices only go up.
Per m², a house costs only about 7% more than an apartment ($1,539 against $1,441), and you get land with it. The price of that land is the extra work: title, registered construction and earthquake checks.
Bottom line: in a good district, aim at or below the city's $1,539 per m², pay only for construction that's registered with SUNARP, and budget about 3% to 4% on top for buying costs plus your own checks.
What do houses cost in Arequipa, from the cheapest to the biggest?
What's the median and average house price in Arequipa?
The best figure we have is the price per m²: houses in Arequipa ask a median $1,539 (about S/ 5,300) per m² of built area, from 117 house listings (TuLugar, October 2026). That's about 17% more than the Peru-wide house median of $1,318 per m².
We couldn't find a reliable median or average total price for a house in the city. The only one published, TuLugar's 3-bedroom median of $562,000 (about S/ 1,930,000), comes from just 8 listings, which implies houses of about 365 m². That's a big family house in a good district, not a typical one.
A more useful way to read the market: at the city median, a 150 m² house costs about $231,000 (about S/ 795,000), and a 200 m² house about $308,000 (about S/ 1,060,000). Older houses that need work sit below that, newer ones in Cayma well above.
These are asking prices. Expect to negotiate, especially on houses that have been listed for months or need roof, wiring or structural work.
What's the cheapest livable house budget?
Expect the cheapest livable houses to start around S/ 300,000 to S/ 400,000 ($87,000 to $116,000). That's a rough estimate from listings in the outer districts, not a measured median.
At this price, livable usually means a basic structure, working utilities, simple finishes and often an unfinished upper floor, not a polished family home.
You'll find these houses in Socabaya, Paucarpata, Alto Selva Alegre, the upper parts of Miraflores (Arequipa), the edges of Cerro Colorado, Yura and the less central parts of José Luis Bustamante y Rivero.
A cheap house can work, but check the title, road access, water pressure, the roof and whether every floor and extension is registered before you make an offer.
How much do 2 and 3-bedroom houses cost?
Two-bedroom houses are rare in Arequipa, and there's no published median for them. At the city's $1,539 per m², an 80 to 100 m² house would come to about $123,000 (about S/ 423,000) to $154,000 (about S/ 530,000); in the cheaper districts you'll pay less.
For a 3-bedroom of 120 to 180 m², the same calculation gives about $185,000 (about S/ 636,000) to $277,000 (about S/ 953,000).
TuLugar's 3-bedroom median is much higher, at $562,000, but it's based on only 8 listings. It tells you that big 3-bedroom houses in Cayma and Yanahuara are on the market, not what a normal one costs.
Going from 2 to 3 bedrooms often costs more than the extra room, because you usually also pay for a bigger plot and parking.
How much do 4-bedroom houses cost?
A 4-bedroom house is usually 200 to 250 m² or more. At the city median, that's about $308,000 (about S/ 1,060,000) to $385,000 (about S/ 1,320,000), and more in Cayma, where houses ask $2,288 per m².
Houses with 5 or 6 bedrooms are too few, and too different (family homes, old casonas, plots sold for redevelopment), for any average to mean much. Price them one by one, by built area and land.
How much do new-build houses cost?
We found no figure for the premium on new houses in Arequipa. Most new construction in the city is apartments, and new houses come mainly from small builders and gated developments in Cayma, Cerro Colorado and Sachaca.
For reference, in Lima, new apartments ask about 21% to 26% more per m² than buildings over 5 years old (BCRP). A new house in Arequipa will also cost more than an old one, but you pay for modern structure, parking and cleaner paperwork, which matter in a city that gets earthquakes.
How much do houses with land cost?
Land is what makes the difference. Across the city, urban lots under 500 m² ask a median $76,000 (about S/ 261,000), from 85 listings, mostly in outer areas.
In the good districts it's another story: lots in Cayma ask about $1,293 per m² (a median of $219,000), and in José Luis Bustamante y Rivero about $1,104 per m² (a median of $312,000). In Cayma, a 300 m² plot alone is worth about $388,000 (about S/ 1,330,000) before you count the house.
In Yanahuara, Cayma, Sachaca, the Cercado and Umacollo, the land can matter more than the house, because buyers see room to extend, rent out or redevelop.
Peru Property Prices
Where are houses cheapest and most expensive in Arequipa?
Which neighborhoods have the lowest house prices?
The lowest house prices are in Socabaya, Paucarpata, Alto Selva Alegre, the upper parts of Miraflores (Arequipa), Yura, the edges of Cerro Colorado and the less central parts of José Luis Bustamante y Rivero.
We have no reliable house price per m² for these districts: the portals had too few listings. Apartments give a hint: about $1,225 per m² in Cerro Colorado and $1,060 in José Luis Bustamante y Rivero, against $1,441 for the city.
Watch out: in José Luis Bustamante y Rivero, houses ask about $1,554 per m², close to the city median. Cheap apartments there don't mean cheap houses.
These areas are cheaper because you trade central access for steeper streets, longer commutes, simpler finishes, unfinished floors or weaker links to Cayma, Yanahuara and the main schools.
Which neighborhoods have the highest house prices?
Cayma is the most expensive district we have figures for: houses ask about $2,288 (about S/ 7,850) per m², about 49% above the city median. Yanahuara follows at $1,619, then José Luis Bustamante y Rivero at $1,554.
Sachaca, Umacollo, Vallecito and parts of the Cercado are also expensive for the right house, but there were too few listings to give a figure.
At Cayma prices, a 150 m² house comes to about $343,000 (about S/ 1,180,000). In Yanahuara, the same size is about $243,000 (about S/ 836,000): houses there are often older sillar buildings, and they ask slightly less per m² than Yanahuara's apartments ($1,665).
These districts cost more because land is scarce, schools and private services are close, and Avenida Ejército is easy to reach. Buyers are mostly local professional families, business owners and returning Peruvians.
How much do houses cost near the city center?
Near the center, in the Cercado, Vallecito, Umacollo and the closer parts of Yanahuara, houses are often old casonas or sillar homes. Prices vary so much with the state of the building and heritage rules that no average holds; use Yanahuara's $1,619 per m² as a rough benchmark.
Along the main roads (Avenida Ejército, Avenida La Marina, Avenida Dolores, Avenida Aviación and the Variante de Uchumayo), access is easier but traffic and noise bring prices down on the busiest stretches.
Near the well-known schools (Lord Byron, Max Uhle, Prescott and the Cayma–Yanahuara school belt), family houses ask closer to Cayma's $2,288 per m².
In the areas expats like most (Cayma, Yanahuara, Umacollo, Vallecito and Sachaca), expect to pay at or above the city median of $1,539 per m².
How much do houses cost in the suburbs?
Suburban houses range from basic homes in Socabaya or Paucarpata to big plots with gardens in Sachaca, Sabandía and Characato. The spread is so wide that one average would mislead you.
The suburbs house buyers look at most are Sachaca, Cerro Colorado, the edges of Cayma, Socabaya, Paucarpata, Characato, Sabandía and Yura, each with a different trade-off between space, commute and services.
Cerro Colorado is the big one: it's now the largest district of Arequipa, with 262,080 residents in the 2025 census, ahead of Paucarpata (148,064) and Cayma (106,043).
What areas in Arequipa are improving and still affordable?
The areas worth a look are Cerro Colorado outside its priciest pockets, parts of Alto Selva Alegre, Paucarpata near the main roads, Socabaya and parts of José Luis Bustamante y Rivero.
Cerro Colorado is where most of the growth is: the biggest population, apartments at about $1,225 per m², and the airport. In March 2026, the airport operator and the MTC signed a deal for more than $67 million (about S/ 230 million) of works, including about $35 million to double terminal capacity. No start date has been published.
The other sign is better road access toward Avenida Aviación, Avenida Ejército and the Variante de Uchumayo, which makes daily life easier without paying Cayma or Yanahuara prices. We found no price growth figure for any of these districts, so don't pay a premium for "potential".
70+pagesWhat extra costs should I budget for a house in Arequipa right now?
What are typical buyer closing costs for houses?
For a resale house, budget about 3% to 4% of the price for buying costs, before a lawyer. On a $300,000 house (about S/ 1,032,000), that's about S/ 32,700 to S/ 33,950 ($9,500 to $9,850), or 3.2% to 3.3%.
The biggest item is alcabala: 3% of the price above the first 10 UIT, which are tax-free (10 UIT = S/ 55,000 in 2026). Here, that's about S/ 29,310. SUNARP registration adds about 0.3% plus S/ 44.50 (about S/ 3,140), and the notary about S/ 250 to S/ 1,500.
If you buy a new house from a developer, alcabala applies only to the land share, so costs drop to about 1% to 2%. The 18% IGV on new builds is already in the price.
The agent's commission (3% to 5%) is usually paid by the seller. A lawyer and a building inspection have no fixed rate: get quotes before you sign.
How much are property taxes on houses?
The predial is charged on the value the municipality gives the house (the autovalúo), which is usually well below the market price. On an autovalúo of S/ 300,000, it's about S/ 1,470 ($425) a year; on S/ 600,000, about S/ 4,350 ($1,250).
The rates are national and progressive: 0.2% up to 15 UIT, 0.6% from 15 to 60 UIT, and 1% above 60 UIT. On top come the arbitrios (rubbish, parks, security), which depend on the district and the street; we found no typical figure.
That's why two houses with similar prices can have different tax bills: what counts is the municipal value, the land and the construction that's actually registered.
How much is home insurance for a house?
We couldn't find a reliable published premium for home insurance in Arequipa. Ask for quotes from two or three Peruvian insurers, with the same insured value and deductible, so you can compare.
Make sure earthquake cover is included: Arequipa is in a seismic zone. Premiums go up for old masonry and sillar houses, weak roofs, water damage risk and high contents value.
What are typical utility costs for a house?
As a rough estimate, a family house uses about S/ 350 ($100) to S/ 800 ($235) a month in utilities: electricity, water and sewerage, gas and internet.
Houses cost more to run than apartments: gardens, water pumps and tanks, and bigger households all push the water and electricity bills up. Ask the seller for a few recent bills from SEAL (electricity) and SEDAPAR (water).
What are common hidden costs when buying a house?
The costs buyers forget: title clean-up, registering extensions, roof repairs, damp treatment, seismic reinforcement, old wiring, pumps, water tanks, parking and zoning limits. On an older house, they can add up to tens of thousands of soles.
The one that surprises first-time buyers most is unregistered construction. A house can look fine and still have floors that aren't on the SUNARP record, which causes problems for a loan, a resale or a renovation permit.
Pay for a legal check of the title and a technical inspection before you sign. Neither has a fixed rate, so get two quotes; on a $300,000 house, it's a small price next to the S/ 29,310 of alcabala alone.
70+pagesThis is just a preview page. Prices and rents move fast: your guide is refreshed every month, and you always get the latest version.
What do locals and expats say about Arequipa house prices?
Do people think houses are overpriced in Arequipa?
Many locals and expats feel houses in Cayma, Yanahuara, Umacollo and Vallecito are expensive, especially at Cayma's $2,288 per m², and see fairer value in the outer districts.
The main complaint is that prime house prices are high next to local salaries, especially when older homes still need roof, wiring, parking or seismic work.
The market is active but not huge: SUNARP registered 17,462 sales and 9,189 mortgages in the whole Arequipa region in 2025, record numbers. We found no figure for how long houses take to sell; ask agents how long similar houses stayed on the market.
Are prices still rising or cooling?
Nobody publishes a reliable 2026 price index for Arequipa, so be wary of anyone quoting a precise yearly growth rate.
The last house-specific reading we have is Properati's: S/ 4,781 ($1,400) per m² in May 2026, up 6.9% on January 2026 but down 6.1% on May 2025. We couldn't recheck it in October, and it's not comparable with TuLugar's $1,539.
For comparison, apartment prices in Lima rose 10.9% in dollars over the year to the first quarter of 2026 but fell 1.0% in soles after inflation (BCRP). The exchange rate matters too: if a house is priced in dollars, the stronger sol doesn't change what you pay in dollars; if it's priced in soles, it now costs you more dollars than in 2024 (about 3.44 soles per dollar today, against an average of 3.75 in 2024).
Over the next year, documented houses in Cayma, Yanahuara, Sachaca and the better parts of Cerro Colorado should hold up better than old, big houses that are hard to renovate.
Should you buy a house or an apartment in Arequipa?
Per m², the gap is small: houses ask $1,539 and apartments $1,441 across the city, about 7% more for a house (TuLugar, October 2026). With a house you also get land, a patio and room to extend.
What you pay for that is work and risk. Houses are harder to check (extensions that aren't registered, old sillar walls, roofs, water), harder to rent out, and harder to resell: a 3-bedroom median built on 8 listings shows how few houses are on the market at any time.
If you want rental income, an apartment is simpler. A 1-bedroom in Cayma asks about $96,000 and earns about 3.3% net on a long lease. We found no rent figures for houses.
If you want to live in it, a house in Yanahuara at about $1,619 per m² costs little more than an apartment there ($1,665). In Cayma, houses ask $2,288 against $1,552 for apartments, so you pay a lot more for the land.
70+pagesWhat should you check before buying a house in Arequipa?
Start with the title. Get the partida registral from SUNARP and check the cargas y gravámenes (mortgages, liens, lawsuits). Make sure the built area on the record matches what you see: if the seller added floors without registering them, you'll pay to fix it.
Check the structure. Arequipa gets strong earthquakes, and many older houses are built of sillar or unreinforced brick. Pay an engineer to look at the walls, the roof and any upper floor added later.
Check water and access: water pressure and tanks, pumps, and whether the street is paved and reachable by car, especially on the hills of Cayma and Alto Selva Alegre.
Plan the money. Any payment of S/ 2,000 or $500 or more has to go through a bank, so you can prove it. And if you don't live and earn in Peru, don't count on a mortgage: banks have no standard offer for non-residents.
Good news for foreigners: Arequipa city is far from the borders, so the ban on foreign ownership within 50 km of a border doesn't apply. You can buy in your own name, as a Peruvian would. Buying doesn't give you residency, though.
Our methodology
This article estimates what houses cost in Arequipa, by size, bedrooms and district, plus the costs of buying and owning one. It covers houses only, not apartments, land on its own or commercial property.
House prices are asking prices from TuLugar (October 2026), the most recent listing analysis with house figures for the city and for Cayma, Yanahuara and José Luis Bustamante y Rivero. The samples are small (117 house listings for the city, 8 for the 3-bedroom median), so we turned prices per m² into totals by size ourselves and said so. Where a figure only exists for apartments, we said that too.
Tax and fee rules come from official sources: SAT for alcabala, MEF for the 2026 UIT, the national property tax law for predial, and SUNARP and EximiaHaus for registry and notary costs. All examples were calculated by us.
We checked these figures in October 2026. Sol amounts are converted at about 3.44 soles per US dollar (and 3.85 soles per euro), the SUNAT/SBS rate of October 22, 2026.
Where we had no direct figure (house insurance, arbitrios, time to sell, the price trend in 2026, house prices in the cheaper districts), we said so rather than guess. Your own costs will depend on the house, its paperwork, its district and how hard you negotiate.
Key sources used for this analysis include TuLugar Arequipa, TuLugar Cayma, TuLugar's September 2026 Peru report, Properati, SAT (alcabala), MEF (UIT 2026), EximiaHaus (notary and SUNARP costs), El Búho (SUNARP Arequipa 2025), El Búho (2025 census) and the SUNAT exchange rate.
