Bogotá serviced apartments: is 99 days on market meaningful?

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A closer look at the Bogotá listings has made the 99-day figure less convincing rather than more useful. The serviced apartments I’m watching are advertised from COP 2,755,000,000 to COP 4,133,000,000, but I cannot tell how many genuinely sold rather than being withdrawn or relisted.

Waiting for broad citywide weakness is tempting, although supply and seller motivation appear quite different in the two neighbourhoods we prefer. Would a better approach be to check recent completed sales in each area, then make an offer only where a unit has verifiable exposure and a motivated seller? Otherwise I may be treating the oldest visible stock as evidence for the whole local market.
 
The online stock can easily make the market look slower than it is. Attractive, correctly priced units leave the sample, while stale listings remain and keep ageing. I’d separate completed sales, active listings and withdrawals rather than treating the current 99-day figure as a single measure.
 
How are you defining “find a buyer”? If it means the listing disappeared, you cannot tell whether it sold, was withdrawn or was reposted. Also, are you counting from the first appearance of the property or from the latest listing? A price cut or new agent could reset the visible clock without changing the property’s real exposure.
 
Exactly. I would track the unit itself where possible, not just the listing entry. A disappearing apartment is useful information, but it is not automatically a completed deal. Even a modest table with first-seen date, changes in asking price, last-seen date and status would make the sample more informative.
 
The neighbourhood boundaries may be doing more work than the city average. Two apartments described under the same broad area can appeal to different buyers because of their immediate surroundings and building quality. I’d draw tight boundaries around the actual streets or buildings you would consider, then compare only genuinely competing units.
 
I’d also split serviced apartments by condition. A finished, furnished unit that can operate immediately is not competing on identical terms with one needing work, new furniture or building-level improvements. Ninety-nine days could simply be an average of properties with very different buyer pools.
 
I’m not convinced condition should be separated too aggressively. Buyers compare the total proposition, including the cost and inconvenience of bringing a weaker unit up to standard. Removing those listings may produce a cleaner number but an unrealistically narrow view of the alternatives available to a buyer.
 
Both views can be kept by recording condition as a field rather than excluding anything. Then compare like with like first and use the broader set as context. I’d do the same for asking-price changes: the timing of the first reduction may reveal more about seller motivation than total days online.
 
Buyer financing is another missing piece. At this price level, a listing may attract interest but still take longer to complete if the intended buyer needs financing. A cash-ready buyer and a financed buyer do not create the same timeline, so completed-sale dates alone may blur marketing time and transaction time.
 
Can you get reliable completed prices, rather than just confirmation that something closed? Asking-price movement helps, but the useful comparison for an offer is where buyers and sellers actually met. If that information is incomplete, I would avoid interpreting 99 days as evidence that every seller is ready for a large concession.
 
Seller motivation matters too. A unit listed as a low-priority test of the market can sit for months without saying much about demand. Look for behaviour: repeated reductions, improved presentation, an agent change, or a return after withdrawal. None proves urgency, but together they distinguish passive sellers from those actively trying to close.
 
There’s also a denominator problem. If new-listing volume rose recently, the active pool will contain many young listings and pull the apparent age down. If few new units arrived, the same pool will naturally look older. I’d chart new entries alongside exits and withdrawals for each of the two neighbourhoods.
 
For the actual offer decision, I’d shortlist direct substitutes and ignore the temptation to solve the whole Bogotá market. Record their first-seen dates, current asks, reductions, condition and whether they vanish or return. Then ask the seller’s agent about timing and flexibility without assuming that a long listing automatically means distress.
 
One caveat: serviced apartments may not form a uniform category even within a tight boundary. Building rules, operating arrangements and what is included in the sale can change the buyer pool. Those details should be confirmed for each property under Colombian practice rather than inferred from the listing label.
 
The thread seems to have landed on a sensible interpretation: 99 days is a signal about the visible sample, not yet a market-clearing time. The next useful step is to reconcile vanished listings with completed sales and withdrawals, preserve the original listing date through reposts, and compare only close substitutes within the two chosen neighbourhoods. That should show whether waiting improves negotiating leverage or merely reduces the available selection.
 
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