Magdalena: prices, rental yield & Airbnb income
Magdalena del Mar is a coastal district on the rise — cheaper than neighbouring Miraflores and San Isidro, with a wave of new-build apartments and a quieter, more local feel. The lower entry price and firm rents make it one of the better long-term yield plays in the investor belt. Who buys here: value-focused investors who want coastal proximity without prime-district prices.
Net of predial · arbitrios · 3% vacancy · 5% income tax, with 5% purchase costs on the price base and no management fee — self-managed. No mantenimiento: in a Lima long-term let the tenant pays it, and it was never inside the advertised rent either. Vacancy is the one figure here we chose rather than measured. What comes out, line by line →
The long-term figure nets out at about 4.8% after property tax, arbitrios, rental income tax and a 3% vacancy allowance; mantenimiento is not in that number because the tenant pays it. Rents run near $12 per m2, and the owner self-manages. It is a modest, unspectacular return that depends on keeping the flat occupied.
Net of 3% platform fee · utilities & internet (a real bill, not a % of revenue) · mantenimiento, plus predial, arbitrios and 5% income tax, on the same price base, and no management fee — self-managed. Mantenimiento sits here and not on the long-term side: the host pays it every month and no guest reimburses them. Furnishing is left out as one-time capital, which flatters this figure slightly. The gross yield above is before all of it. Empty nights need no allowance here: they sit inside the measured occupancy. What comes out, line by line →
Long-term returns cluster tightly across Lima; Airbnb returns do not. The middle listing earns 4.7%; the top quarter earns 6.7% — measured on both axes at once, each listing’s own nightly rate times its own occupancy. How the top quarter is built, and its two limits →
Airbnb looks better on paper at roughly 7.3% gross, but that is before the Airbnb-specific costs, and once the platform fee, host-paid utilities and internet, income tax, mantenimiento, property tax and arbitrios come off, the net lands near 4.6%. Occupancy sits around 57% at an average daily rate of about $52, and the host pays mantenimiento here because no guest reimburses it. The top quartile reaches about 6.9% net, which tells you the gap is operational, not structural.
Occupancy counts near-term nights only: a calendar read months ahead shows nights nobody has booked yet. Neither yield carries repairs, insurance or a refurbishment reserve — no yield on this site does, on either side. Why, and what it means for the figure →
Returns differ a lot by unit size. Net yields per bedroom count — after each strategy's own costs, the same model as the figures above, so the table agrees with the headline:
Net on both sides, decided the same way as the verdict above. Every cell carries its sample: n = sale/rent comps for long-term, n = priced/with a calendar week for Airbnb. Read a thin cell as a direction, not a rate. Why the samples are small, and the floor we publish above → Compare districts
More on Magdalena: Airbnb income · is long-term worth it?
In Magdalena, Airbnb nets 4.7% after costs. A long-term tenant nets 4.9%.
Not a hunch — we price every listed apartment in eight districts both ways, self-managed, after tax, HOA and real occupancy. One email a week: what moved, which listings the numbers actually favour, and where the consensus looks wrong.