Is Medellin real estate more expensive than Rio de Janiero?

Medellin

I came across an interesting article about Medellin real estate prices in El Colombiano, Medellin´s largest newspaper today. When I first saw it, I nearly spilled my Juan Valdez Iced Mocha on my lap. The title of the article read (in Spanish) “In real estate we are in the big leagues”. The article was written in response to a quote by the Secretary of Catastro, the government body charged with formulating real estate values for apartments in Medellin. He went on to compare Medellin to other such South American real estate hot spots like Rio de Janiero and Santiago, Chile. His office began collecting property value information for the 2011 census in March of this year and the first phase of the process has yet to be completed. Officials estimate that Phase 1 will not conclude until sometime in January. That there are still many months ahead did not discourage the Secretary of Housing from saying that the government does not have to wait until the final results of the census are in before revaluating property values for tax purposes.

The report was met with anger from some commercial property and business owners in Downtown Medellin. They argue that the last time tax assesors came through, property values increased upwards of 2,000% and that another increase could mean more businesses would have to close their doors.

El Centro - Medellin

The economy, they say, is stagnant and occupancy rates in many of the area´s shopping centers hovers at less than 70% and that rats for commercial leases are down 30-40% over last year and sales are down nearly 60%

With economic figures like that, where did the government come up with the idea that Medellin real estate is in the ´Big leagues´? According to the article, the idea seems to have come from a report that some apartments in El Poblado have recently sold for close to 4,000,000 COP per square meter. While that may be true for a select number of Medellin apartments, I recently completed my own survey of sorts related to the average price per square meter for apartments in Medellin. We found that, although real estate prices in Medellin have increased steadily over the last few years, the average asking price for apartments in El Poblado are still around 2,000,000 COP per square meter.

My assumption is that were the Secretary given the opportunity to ´reformulate´ his remarks, he would gladly take it.