Working out the return yourself: the costs everyone leaves out

Every sales office has a yield projection and none of them signs it. The only number worth anything is the one you build yourself from verifiable costs, and half of those costs never appear in the presentation.

A yield projection is a commercial opinion, not an obligation: it is not in the promise of sale, not in the deed, and nobody answers for it. We publish no return ranges and we do not say what will happen to a property's price, because that cannot be known and asserting it would be selling. What can be done is to build the calculation from data that has a source: you estimate possible gross income from real operating information, and on the cost side sit the property tax and betterment levy assessed by the District, the condominium dues and reserve fund reported by the building manager, insurance, replacement of furnishings, the management commission, vacancy, façade maintenance in seafront buildings, and the taxes on the eventual sale. Once all of that is subtracted, the result rarely resembles the slide.

Cartagena is administered as a district rather than an ordinary municipality, and that determines whom you ask for what: the certificado de tradición y libertad, the registry history and encumbrance certificate, comes from the Oficina de Registro de Instrumentos Públicos, the public deeds registry; parcel identification from the cadastre; land-use certificates and building permits from the District and the curadurías urbanas, the private licensing offices; environmental matters from Cardique; anything touching the sea from DIMAR, the maritime authority; while the deed is executed before a notary and the registration tax is paid to the Gobernación de Bolívar, the department government. These are separate bodies with separate procedures, and a seller who folds them all into one office is simplifying. For a buyer abroad the practical consequence is that the file is assembled remotely and in pieces, with powers of attorney worth preparing before any purchase promise is signed, and that the city holds land realities that share no single procedure: the walled historic center under its protection regime, the built-out peninsula, and the northern shoreline still taking shape. So settle early on which authority answers which question, and request each document from its own source.

What is specific to Cartagena

What to verify, step by step

1. Ask the building manager for the current dues, the state of the reserve fund, and whether any special assessment is approved or under discussion.
2. Request the property tax statement from the District and ask whether a betterment levy has been decreed over the property.
3. Read the condominium bylaws and the owners' meeting minutes to find out whether daily rentals are allowed, because if they are not, the calculation you were shown does not apply.
4. Get in writing the commission charged by whoever will manage the rental and which expenses remain the owner's.
5. Consult DANE for housing price and construction cost indices, and Camacol and the Lonja for their own figures, to compare against what the sales office told you.
6. Ask an accountant how rental taxes and the taxes on an eventual sale affect your outcome, because a net return is measured after tax.

Mistakes that cost money

• Calculating on full occupancy. Vacancy and the low season are part of the arithmetic, not an exception to it.
• Forgetting wear. A furnished short-stay unit consumes furnishings and maintenance, and that expense recurs every year.
• Treating the sales office's projection as a commitment. Ask whether it is in the promise of sale; if it is not, it is advertising and binds nobody.

Frequently asked questions

What return does a Cartagena property deliver?

We give no ranges, and be wary of anyone who does without seeing your unit, its dues and its bylaws. The calculation is built case by case from verified costs.

Will it appreciate?

We do not make that claim. We can tell you what public works exist and link the official source; what happens to the price is unknowable, and anyone promising otherwise is selling.

Does the sales office's projection bind anyone?

Only if it was written into the document you signed. Ask for it in writing and ask whether it goes into the promise of sale: that ends the discussion.

Where to check it

• Alcaldía Mayor de Cartagena de Indias — property tax, betterment levies and District procedures
• DANE — the building census, housing price indices and construction cost data
• Camacol Bolívar — the industry's own figures on housing starts and launches in Bolívar
• Lonja de Propiedad Raíz de Bolívar — commercial appraisals and appraisers listed on the open register
• Registro Nacional de Turismo — whether a property may legally be used for tourist accommodation and who has registered it
• DIAN — the tax ID, withholding on sale and the capital gains tax
• Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Cartagena — land use, the rules applying to the property and protected land
• Cartagena de Indias — the rules of the municipality Cartagena belongs to

Official bodies. Specific figures are requested there, not copied from a listing.

Updated 2026-11-05