Are foreigners still buying property in Medellín?

How many foreigners actually buy homes in Medellín?

Not many, but more than almost anywhere else in Colombia. Antioquia remains one of the country's strongest markets for foreign home buyers.

Camacol’s latest detailed census of international home sales gives us the clearest number. Foreigners who did not live in Colombia bought 3.28% of new homes sold in Antioquia in its November 2025 measurement. Only Magdalena, at 7.3%, and Bolívar, at 3.67%, ranked higher.

That 3.28% needs some context. It covers new housing projects tracked by Camacol, rather than every resale apartment changing hands in Medellín. We therefore cannot use it as a perfect citywide count. But it gives us something much more useful than brokerage anecdotes: a consistent measurement showing that genuine foreign buyers are still unusually present in Antioquia.

You may also have seen a bigger number. In May 2026, Camacol said roughly 14% of new homes sold in Medellín were going to buyers living abroad (Blu Radio, 20 May 2026). That figure includes both foreigners and Colombians living overseas, which is why it is so much higher.

So foreign buying is still very real. The numbers simply become much smaller once we separate actual foreigners from the Colombian diaspora.

Recent measure	Share of new-home sales	Who is included	What it tells us
Antioquia foreign buyers	3.28%	Foreign non-residents only	Genuine foreign demand remains high by Colombian standards
Bolívar foreign buyers	3.67%	Foreign non-residents only	Slightly higher than Antioquia
Magdalena foreign buyers	7.3%	Foreign non-residents only	Highest measured share
Medellín/Antioquia buyers abroad	~14%	Foreigners + Colombians abroad	Much broader international-demand measure

Do foreigners really buy one in four homes in Medellín?

No. Claims that foreigners buy roughly one in four Medellín homes mostly come from mixing foreigners with Colombians who live abroad.

This distinction changes the story considerably.

A figure of roughly 25 out of every 100 Medellín homes being bought from outside Colombia has circulated for years. It showed how international the housing market had become. But "buyer living abroad" and "foreigner" are different categories.

Camacol now measures the two groups separately. Across Colombia, foreigners represented 2.1% of its November 2025 new-home sales, while Colombians living abroad accounted for 10%. In non-VIS housing, which covers the higher-priced market most relevant to international investors, the difference was even bigger: foreigners represented 4%, compared with 15.6% for Colombians overseas.

Recent reporting around Medellín has sometimes continued to call the entire group “foreign buyers,” even when the underlying Camacol number includes Colombians abroad.

For anyone trying to understand whether Americans, Canadians or Europeans are taking over Medellín’s housing market, that shortcut creates a badly inflated impression.

Buyer group in Camacol's latest census	All new homes	Non-VIS homes
Foreign non-residents	2.1%	4.0%
Colombians living abroad	10.0%	15.6%
Combined buyers abroad	12.1%	19.6%
Residents in Colombia	87.9%	80.4%

Is foreign buying in Medellín still growing?

Probably not at the pace people imagine. The latest data suggests that foreigners remain active in Medellín, but their share has softened while purchases by Colombians abroad have grown much faster.

Camacol measured foreign non-residents at about 2.5% of national new-home sales in its first international-buyer census in July 2024. That share was 2.4% in April 2025 and 2.1% by November 2025. In the higher-priced non-VIS segment the drop was clearer: 5.3%, then 4.3%, then 4.0%.

Antioquia stays well above that national average, at 3.28% in the November 2025 census, but nothing suggests its share is rising either.

Those movements are too small to call a collapse, especially because the surveys are snapshots rather than a perfect transaction series. Still, the direction is worth taking seriously. We do not see evidence that actual foreign buyers are taking a larger and larger piece of the market every year.

Meanwhile, Colombians abroad have gone the other way. Their national share rose from 4.7% in July 2024 to 6.4% in April 2025 and 10% in November 2025. All buyers living abroad together went from 8.8% to 12.1% of sales in just seven months.

International demand is therefore growing faster than foreign demand itself. These days, the Colombian diaspora is doing much more of the heavy lifting.

Who are the foreigners buying property in Medellín?

American buyers dominate the foreign side of Colombia’s housing market, and Medellín has an unusually large pipeline of Americans who already know the city.

Camacol found that 68.1% of foreign non-resident home buyers in its latest census came from the United States. Spain contributed another 14.6%. Every other country shared the remaining 17.3%.

Americans and Spaniards alone therefore represented almost 83% of measured foreign purchases.

Medellín’s visitor data lines up remarkably well with that pattern. The city’s tourism intelligence system counted 310,517 visitors from the United States in 2025, making America its biggest international source market by a wide margin. Spain also ranked among the city's top five.

That overlap helps explain why US buyers show up so frequently in local real-estate agencies. Medellín already has hundreds of thousands of Americans passing through the city, renting apartments, returning several times and learning individual neighborhoods before some eventually decide to buy.

Tourism does not automatically turn into property purchases, obviously. The useful point is that Medellín keeps replenishing a very large pool of potential buyers from the exact country that already dominates foreign home purchases.

Foreign buyer origin	Share of foreign purchases
United States	68.1%
Spain	14.6%
All other countries	17.3%

Where are foreign buyers concentrating in Medellín?

Foreign property demand in Medellín is heavily concentrated around higher-priced southern neighborhoods and the corridor toward Envigado, rather than being spread evenly across the city.

Camacol’s work on international housing demand has repeatedly found stronger foreign interest in higher-value non-VIS projects. That fits what we see on the ground in El Poblado, the southern Medellín hills and nearby Envigado, where projects are easier to market internationally and the housing stock suits buyers arriving with dollar incomes.

El Poblado is also a major market even before we consider foreigners. La Lonja recorded 1,915 new homes sold there during 2025. Medellín as a whole sold 6,371.

That means El Poblado alone accounted for roughly 30% of Medellín’s new-home sales.

We cannot say that foreigners bought those 1,915 apartments. The available data does not identify nationality at that neighborhood level. But it explains why foreign demand can feel huge in El Poblado while remaining only a few percent of Antioquia-wide transactions.

A buyer walking around Provenza, Manila or parts of Las Lomas is seeing one of the most internationally exposed slices of the entire market. That experience tells us very little about what is happening in Robledo, Buenos Aires or most working- and middle-class neighborhoods.

Are foreigners mostly buying huge luxury apartments in Medellín?

No. The typical foreign purchase looks much more like a compact upper-market apartment than a giant luxury property.

Camacol measured the average non-VIS home bought by a foreign non-resident at 70.6 square meters in its November 2025 census. It had an average of only 1.85 bedrooms.

Foreigners actually bought smaller non-VIS homes than local residents. Colombians living in Colombia averaged 84.6 square meters and 2.16 bedrooms.

That 14-square-meter gap is revealing. Foreign buyers are often choosing smaller properties in more expensive locations, rather than using their purchasing power simply to buy much more space.

The average profile fits a one- or two-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood with strong international appeal surprisingly well. Those units work for part-time residents, couples, solo buyers and short-term-rental investors.

The eye-catching penthouses and multimillion-dollar villas exist, of course. They are just a poor picture of what the average foreign buyer is actually purchasing.

Buyer	Average non-VIS size	Average bedrooms
Foreign non-resident	70.6 m²	1.85
Colombian living abroad	71.9 m²	1.98
Colombian resident	84.6 m²	2.16

Is Medellín still cheap enough to attract foreign buyers?

Medellín still looks cheap beside most US cities, but the bargain is much less obvious for dollar buyers than it was. Listed apartments now ask a median of about $2,364 per m² (TuLugar, 22 October 2026), and the average used apartment advertised in Medellín costs COP 871 million, about $273,000, the highest of the big Colombian cities (El Colombiano, 25 August 2026).

The biggest change lately has come from the currency.

In 2023, one US dollar bought COP 4,325 on average. It still bought COP 3,757 at the end of 2025. On 22 October 2026 the official TRM was about COP 3,190, so a dollar buys about 15% fewer pesos than at the start of this year. Forecasts for a rebound disagree, so don't count on one.

Take a COP 500 million apartment. At the 2023 average rate, it cost about $116,000. Today it costs about $157,000.

The buyer needs about $41,000 more (35%) even though the apartment's peso price has not changed.

And peso prices have not stood still: DANE measured new-home prices in the Medellín metro area up 9.14% in the year to Q2 2026. Foreign buyers are squeezed from both directions. Apartments cost more pesos, while each dollar buys fewer of them.

Someone arriving today from Miami or New York can still find Medellín inexpensive compared with comparable central neighborhoods back home. But the old pitch that almost everything in El Poblado looks absurdly cheap in dollars is becoming harder to defend.

Property price	At the 2023 average (COP 4,325/USD)	At COP 3,190/USD (22 Oct 2026)	Extra dollars required
COP 300m	~$69,000	~$94,000	~$25,000
COP 500m	~$116,000	~$157,000	~$41,000
COP 700m	~$162,000	~$219,000	~$57,000
COP 1bn	~$231,000	~$313,000	~$82,000

Is the stronger Colombian peso starting to push foreigners out of Medellín?

The stronger peso is probably slowing some foreign buyers down, but we still see plenty of evidence that foreigners are staying in the Medellín market.

The effect on purchasing power is too large to dismiss. A $150,000 budget converted into about COP 649 million at the 2023 average rate. Today it buys only about COP 479 million.

That is about COP 170 million of lost purchasing power.

For an investor choosing between neighborhoods, COP 170 million can completely change the property search. A newer El Poblado apartment may become an older resale unit. El Poblado may become Laureles. Medellín may become Envigado, Sabaneta or another market entirely.

We also have some evidence of softer foreign participation. As seen above, the national foreign share slipped from about 2.5% to 2.1% between July 2024 and November 2025, even before the peso's biggest move in 2026.

But Medellín's overall housing market was booming during roughly the same period. La Lonja recorded 6,371 new-home sales in Medellín during 2025, 56% more than the previous year. Valle de Aburrá sales rose 44% to 17,350.

Foreigners therefore became a slightly smaller part of a market that was selling many more homes.

For now, the stronger peso looks more like a drag on foreign demand at the margin than something chasing foreigners away. Camacol's next census will show whether the 2026 peso rally made the drag bigger.

Are foreigners pushing Medellín property prices up?

Foreign buyers can have a noticeable effect on prices in El Poblado and other internationally popular areas, but they are far too small a group to explain Medellín’s entire housing-price increase.

The 3.28% Antioquia foreign-buyer share puts a useful ceiling on the argument. Even allowing for resale transactions that Camacol does not capture, actual foreigners remain a minority of buyers.

Their impact becomes much stronger once we zoom into a few neighborhoods and property types.

Foreigners disproportionately shop for non-VIS housing, and Camacol measured their share at 4.0% nationally in that segment versus only 1.2% in VIS housing. They also tend to favor relatively compact units in premium locations. That puts foreign money directly into markets where land is scarce and developers know buyers may be comparing prices with Miami, Toronto or Madrid rather than with Medellín salaries.

Broader external demand adds another layer. Colombians abroad accounted for 15.6% of non-VIS sales in Camacol’s latest national census. Combine them with foreigners and 19.6% of new non-VIS purchases, almost one in five, came from someone living outside Colombia.

That group has enough weight to influence pricing in certain projects.

Still, Medellín has plenty of homegrown reasons for expensive housing: scarce buildable land in desirable locations, construction costs up 6.86% in a year (DANE, August 2026), restricted new supply in some areas and strong rental demand. Medellín also had the highest inflation of the big cities in September 2026, at 7.04%.

Foreigners are part of the price story, especially around El Poblado. Treating them as the main explanation for citywide prices goes much further than the data supports.

Is Medellín’s property market itself still strong?

It had a record 2025, but it has cooled in 2026. Foreign buyers are not propping up a dead market, but they are no longer arriving in a frenzy either.

La Lonja counted 6,371 new homes sold inside Medellín during 2025, up 56% from the previous year. Across the Valle de Aburrá, sales reached 17,350, an increase of 44%.

Rental conditions were tight as well, and still are. La Lonja said placements of used rental homes in strata 4, 5 and 6 increased 33% during 2025, while the number of homes available to rent fell by around 6%.

More properties were finding tenants while available inventory was shrinking. In 2026, average asking rents in Medellín reached about COP 4.92 million, up 8.7% between June 2025 and June 2026 (El Colombiano).

Sales, though, have turned. New-home sales in the Medellín area (a wider count than La Lonja's city-only figure) fell about 15% in the first half of 2026 (8,596 units vs 10,054 a year earlier), and Camacol Antioquia counted a 17.5% drop. Nationally, sales were down 11.9% from January to September 2026. Expensive credit explains much of it: the central bank raised its rate to 12.25% in September 2026 and the average mortgage rate was 15.02% that month.

For Medellín, the picture is a market that is slowing from a high level, with prices still rising (+9.14% for new homes in the metro area) and rents still climbing.

Medellín-area indicator	Result	Change
Medellín new-home sales, 2025	6,371	+56%
Valle de Aburrá new-home sales, 2025	17,350	+44%
Medellín-area new-home sales, H1 2026	8,596	−15%
Used-home rental placements, strata 4–6, 2025	—	+33%
Available rental supply, 2025	—	~−6%
New-home prices, Medellín metro (DANE, Q2 2026)	—	+9.14%

Is Airbnb still giving foreigners a reason to buy in Medellín?

Yes, but buying a Medellín apartment for Airbnb currently requires much better property selection than it did when simply entering the market early was enough.

AirDNA data through September 2026 shows 14,957 active short-term-rental listings across Medellín. Average occupancy was 63%, the average daily rate was $72 and annual revenue per active listing was about $15,500.

The year-over-year movements are unusually large. Active listings fell 37.5% and the average daily rate dropped 16.4%.

The listing drop needs careful reading: much of it reflects how AirDNA counts active listings, not a ban. What is clear is that operators are accepting lower nightly prices. The city's own survey of registered tourist homes found 50.5% occupancy in the first half of 2026, slightly below 52.2% a year earlier.

The rules have also tightened. Only 8,322 Medellín tourist homes hold an RNT registration, against roughly 15,000 listings, and the city ran 408 inspections between 2024 and September 2026, leading to 105 temporary suspensions. Tourist housing has been banned in low-mix residential zones since 2014, fines go up to 2,000 minimum wages, and a POT revision proposed in September 2026 would define where tourist housing is allowed (it is not a blanket ban).

At the same time, tourism remains huge. During 2025, more than 2 million Colombian and foreign non-resident passengers entered through the José María Córdova migration point, and the first half of 2026 brought 1,003,756 international air arrivals.

Foreign investors therefore still have a real customer base. What they no longer have is a guarantee that an average apartment with average management will produce exceptional returns.

Has Colombia’s property investor visa become much harder for foreign buyers?

Yes. The property threshold for Colombia's Migrant Investor visa jumped in 2026, and many normal Medellín apartment purchases no longer qualify.

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry requires a property used for the M Investor visa to be worth at least 350 statutory monthly minimum wages.

The 2026 minimum wage is COP 1,750,905, up 23%. Multiply that by 350 and the required property value comes to COP 612.8 million. In 2025 it was COP 498.2 million.

At about COP 3,190 per dollar, that works out to about $192,000. The 2025 threshold was worth about $123,000 at that year's average rate, so the hurdle rose roughly 56% in dollars in a single year. The property must also be in your sole name and registered as foreign investment with the Banco de la República.

The stronger peso makes the hurdle noticeably more painful for Americans. And unlike a few years ago, COP 612.8 million is no longer an unusually high budget in the most popular foreign-buyer neighborhoods.

This affects one specific type of buyer: someone who wants property ownership to qualify them for an investor visa. Foreigners are still allowed to own Colombian real estate without becoming residents, so someone buying purely for lifestyle or investment does not need to cross this threshold.

Even so, the visa is now a much weaker reason to stretch into Medellín property than it was when the same peso requirement translated into far fewer dollars.

Investor-visa calculation	Current amount
Required multiple	350 minimum monthly wages
Minimum monthly wage	COP 1,750,905
Required property value	~COP 612.8m
Dollar equivalent at COP 3,190/USD	~$192,000
2025 threshold, for comparison	COP 498.2m (~$123,000 at the 2025 average rate)

Is Medellín still attracting enough foreigners to keep property demand alive?

Yes. Medellín’s international visitor base is still large enough to keep feeding new potential residents and property buyers into the city.

In the first half of 2026, Medellín counted 1,003,756 international air arrivals, the first time a half-year passed one million (Alcaldía, 3 September 2026). José María Córdova handled more than 14 million passengers in 2025, over 4.2 million of them international.

Not every indicator is rosy: hotel occupancy fell to 59.0% in the first half of 2026, down 6.6 points from a year earlier.

Another useful long-term comparison comes from migration data. Foreigners and Colombians living abroad represented 36% of arrivals through José María Córdova in 2014. By the first half of 2025, the share had reached 61.5%.

That is a fundamental change in who passes through Medellín.

The US connection remains especially important. Americans accounted for 310,517 Medellín visitors in 2025 and, as pointed out above, 68.1% of Camacol’s measured foreign home buyers nationally.

So even after the currency advantage weakened, Medellín kept attracting enormous numbers of people from its most important foreign property-buying market. That gives foreign housing demand a much deeper base than a temporary social-media trend.

Are foreigners still going to buy Medellín property from here?

Yes, but the next wave of foreign buyers will probably be more selective than the buyers who arrived when Medellín was dramatically cheaper in dollars.

Several reasons to buy remain strong. Foreigners can own Colombian real estate without first becoming residents. Medellín keeps attracting large numbers of American and other international visitors. Rental demand remains deep. Antioquia ranks near the top of Colombia for foreign home purchases, and El Poblado continues to have a large, liquid property market.

The weaker parts of the story are mostly financial.

Dollar purchasing power has fallen sharply. Prime neighborhoods have become more expensive. The investor-visa threshold is now COP 612.8 million. Short-term rentals still work, but nightly rates are down 16.4% and the city is enforcing registration, so buying blindly is dangerous.

That changes who is likely to keep buying.

A foreigner who visits Medellín repeatedly, wants to live there part of the year, has family or business ties, or has found a property with unusually good rental economics still has plenty of reasons to purchase. Someone whose entire thesis was “Medellín is ridiculously cheap and every Airbnb makes money” has a much weaker case today.

Foreign demand should therefore continue, but buyers are likely to become more sensitive to the exact neighborhood, building rules, purchase price and rental strategy.

What did the 12.25% rate hike change for foreign buyers in Medellín?

Most foreign buyers pay cash, so the rate itself barely touches them. Bancolombia's loan for buyers abroad is only for Colombians abroad or foreigners with Colombian family ties, at 16.00% EA for non-VIS homes and a maximum 70% loan-to-value.

What changes is everyone else. The Banco de la República raised its rate to 12.25% on 30 September 2026, up from 9.25% at the start of the year, and the average mortgage rate reached 15.02% EA in September. Local buyers who need a loan are pulling back, which is one reason new-home sales in the Medellín area fell about 15% in the first half of 2026.

For a cash buyer, that means bargaining power. Developers and resale sellers with slow-moving stock have more reason to negotiate. Use it: ask for a discount or included parking and storage rather than accepting the list price. Keep the other side in mind too: one-year bank deposits (CDT) pay about 12.5%–12.8%, so a property yielding 3% net has to earn its keep through price growth.

Rate	Level (Sept–Oct 2026)
Central bank policy rate	12.25% (9.25% early 2026)
Average mortgage rate, 11 lenders	15.02% EA
Bancolombia loan from abroad, non-VIS	16.00% EA, max 70% LTV
Best 1-year CDT deposits	12.5%–12.8% EA

What should a foreign buyer check before buying in Medellín now?

The building rules first. If you plan to rent by the night, the condominium bylaws must allow tourist use, the plot must sit in a zone where tourist housing is permitted, and each unit needs its own RNT, renewed every year between 1 January and 31 March. Changing the bylaws needs 70% of the owners' coefficients, so don't buy on a promise that "they will vote it".

Then the running costs. Building administration fees rose 17.14% nationally in the year to September 2026 (DANE), and predial is charged on top. As a non-resident owner you pay 35% income tax on your net Colombian rental income: a 7% gross yield typically ends up near 3% net after costs and tax.

Then the paperwork. Budget about 3% of the price for closing costs with a lawyer and title study. Bring the money through the official exchange market so the purchase is registered as foreign investment with the Banco de la República: you need that registration for the investor visa and to send sale proceeds home later.

Finally, the structure. The 10 August 2026 earthquake caused no major building damage in Medellín (604 technical visits, 0 demolitions by 14 August), but on a hillside city it is still worth asking for the building's structural history, retaining walls and the developer's track record.

So, are foreigners still buying property in Medellín?

Yes. Foreigners are clearly still buying property in Medellín today, but the foreign-buying story is smaller and more mature than the most dramatic headlines suggest.

The strongest evidence is Camacol’s latest detailed census: foreign non-residents bought 3.28% of new homes in Antioquia, one of the highest shares in Colombia. That is enough to make foreigners important, especially once their purchases cluster in El Poblado, southern Medellín and other premium areas.

The bigger change is happening around them. Colombians living abroad now buy almost five times more new housing than foreigners do (10% vs 2.1%). The Medellín market boomed in 2025 and is cooling in 2026. Tourism keeps bringing large numbers of Americans into the city. At the same time, a much stronger peso, higher local prices and a COP 612.8 million investor-visa threshold have made Medellín about 35% more expensive in dollars than in 2023 for the same peso price.

So we would describe the current market as active rather than booming, and better for a patient cash buyer than it was two years ago.

Foreigners have certainly not abandoned Medellín. They are still buying enough property to affect particular neighborhoods and projects. What has faded is the extraordinary financial advantage that helped create the first rush of international buyers.

Today’s foreign buyer generally needs a better reason to buy than “Medellín is cheap.” The fact that thousands are still choosing to do it anyway is probably the clearest evidence that foreign demand has become a lasting part of Medellín’s property market.