The cheapest Lima districts by price per m² (2026)
n = 5,828 sale listings · source: urbania.pe · as of 2026-09-17 · methodology →
By median price per m², San Miguel leads Lima at $1,717/m², with Surco ($1,756/m²) and Pueblo Libre ($1,798/m²) behind it. Barranco sits last at $2,545/m².
The full order: San Miguel $1,717/m², Surco $1,756/m², Pueblo Libre $1,798/m², Jesús María $2,110/m², Magdalena $2,162/m², Miraflores $2,423/m², San Isidro $2,510/m², Barranco $2,545/m². Figures are district medians across 0 tracked sale listings, as of 2026-09-15.
The gap is real money: $2,545/m² at one end against $1,717/m² at the other, a 1.52x difference per square metre. On a typical 70 m² apartment that is roughly $57,943 between the dearest district on this page and the cheapest — for the same amount of floor, in the same city.
Cheap is not the same as high-yielding
The obvious move on a table like this is to buy the cheapest square metre and expect the best return. It does not work, and the reason is worth understanding before you shop on price.
Cheap districts are cheap because the rents there are low too. San Miguel is the cheapest entry on this page at $1,717/m², but it rents for $9.44/m² a month against $14.55/m² in Barranco. You pay less and you collect less, close to proportionally.
Put the two ends side by side and the reason is plain. Barranco costs 1.48 times what San Miguel costs per square metre — and it rents for 1.54 times as much. Prices and rents scale together almost exactly, so the ratio between them, which is all a yield is, barely moves.
Net long-term yields across every district on this page run 4.4% to 5.3% — a band narrow enough that the cheap end holds no systematic advantage.
What a cheaper district does buy is a smaller cheque for the same floor area, so more of your capital stays free, and a tenant profile skewed to local long-stay renters rather than expatriates or short lets. Those are real reasons to buy at this end. A higher yield is not one of them.
District by district
San Miguel — $1,717/m², about $120,182 for a typical 70 m² flat. Rents at $9.44/m² a month. Net long-term yield 5.3%.
Surco — $1,756/m², about $122,949 for a typical 70 m² flat. Rents at $9.50/m² a month. Net long-term yield 4.8%.
Pueblo Libre — $1,798/m², about $125,856 for a typical 70 m² flat. Rents at $9.90/m² a month. Net long-term yield 4.8%.
Jesús María — $2,110/m², about $147,693 for a typical 70 m² flat. Rents at $11.57/m² a month. Net long-term yield 5.1%.
Magdalena — $2,162/m², about $151,316 for a typical 70 m² flat. Rents at $10.85/m² a month. Net long-term yield 4.8%.
Miraflores — $2,423/m², about $169,638 for a typical 70 m² flat. Rents at $12.82/m² a month. Net long-term yield 4.8%.
San Isidro — $2,510/m², about $175,728 for a typical 70 m² flat. Rents at $13.98/m² a month. Net long-term yield 4.4%.
Barranco — $2,545/m², about $178,125 for a typical 70 m² flat. Rents at $14.55/m² a month. Net long-term yield 4.7%.
Each district page carries the full breakdown behind these figures, including the per-bedroom split, which moves yields considerably more than the choice of district does.
How these numbers are built
Prices here are medians of asking prices per square metre across the tracked sale listings in each district, and rents are medians of asking rents on the same basis. The yields quoted alongside them are net: running costs — maintenance, property and municipal taxes, a vacancy allowance and non-resident rental income tax — come out, and purchase costs go onto the price.
Everything above is a median across 0 sale listings, not a valuation of any particular apartment. Medians hide a wide range: individual buildings in any of these districts sit well above and well below the district figure, and a single good or bad purchase moves your return far more than the district you buy in.
These are asking prices and asking rents, not transaction prices — Peru has no public sold-price register, so nobody computing Lima yields has better. Treat the levels as indicative and the comparisons between districts, which use the same method throughout, as the useful part. Figures are district-level medians across tracked listings, not a valuation of any single apartment, and not investment advice.