Selling homes to Colombians living abroad: the data

If you sell housing in Colombia, one in every eight buyers doesn't live in the country. And that share is climbing fast.

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The numbers

Camacol, through its Coordenada Urbana data system, measured that as of November 2025 12.1% of new housing sales in Colombia went to non-residents: 10.0% to Colombians living abroad and 2.1% to foreign nationals.

The jump is what stands out. In April 2025 that figure was 8.8%. It climbed more than three points in seven months.

Where they buy from

The United States accounts for 68.1% of purchases made from abroad, and Spain for 14.6%.

Where they buy

Non-resident participation is highest in Quindío (25.1%), Valle del Cauca (21.2%) and Magdalena (20.7%). In those departments, one in every four or five buyers is outside the country.

What's driving it: remittances

Colombia's central bank reported US$10.854 billion in remittances through October 2025, growing 11.7% year over year. They now represent 2.8% of GDP; a decade ago they were 1.1%.

And roughly 15% of that money goes toward buying or financing housing. Camacol calculated the relationship: every 10% increase in remittance value translates into a 2.5% to 3.0% rise in trailing twelve-month housing sales.

And there's a second remote buyer

The same analysis found that 12.5% of sales were made by Colombians living in a department other than where the project is located.

Added to non-residents, that means roughly one in four sales is made by someone who doesn't live where the building is. For that quarter of your market, the physical sales room simply doesn't exist.

What that buyer needs (and almost nobody gives them)

Someone in Miami or Madrid is making a decision worth hundreds of millions of pesos about a building that doesn't exist yet, in a city they can't fly to this month. That anxiety isn't solved with a brochure.

What does work:

• Touring the whole apartment, not looking at six photos. Being able to enter every space and stay as long as they want.
• Seeing the real view from their floor and orientation. It's the number-one question from remote buyers, because it's the one thing they can't verify later.
• Understanding which finish they get, with the ability to compare options on screen before choosing.
• A live session with the sales rep. A video call, the rep moving through the project and answering in the moment. That's what replaces the visit.
• Hours that exist for them. Miami is one hour ahead; Madrid, seven. If you only staff 8 to 5 Colombia time, half of those conversations never happen.

For a buyer living abroad, the virtual tour isn't a complement to the visit. It is the visit.

This is already happening

Grupo Koi's manager told us how they sold the Cronus project to buyers in several cities and countries, with no model apartment and deals closed 100% virtually. The full interview is here.

If your project is in Quindío, Valle, Magdalena, Bolívar or Antioquia, this buyer is already in your funnel. The question is whether you have what it takes to serve them — which is exactly what a virtual sales room solves.

Sources

Portafolio — Camacol / Coordenada Urbana: sales to non-residents · Camacol — Economic Report 121: internationalization of housing