Surco: prices, rental yield & Airbnb income
Santiago de Surco is one of Lima's largest and most residential districts — leafy family neighbourhoods, gated communities, big malls and international schools, spread well back from the coast. It's where established local families live, so demand skews long-term and stable. Who buys here: investors after dependable long-term tenants and more space per dollar than the coastal core.
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 comes out near 5% net, after property tax, arbitrios, rental income tax and a vacancy allowance; the tenant pays mantenimiento, so that does not come off. Entry is about $1,780 per m2, roughly $124,700 for a typical apartment, and rent runs near $9.67 per m2. That is a working yield rather than a spectacular one, and it is the number I would underwrite on.
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 2.9%; the top quarter earns 6.3% — 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 at the top line, near 6% gross, but the net lands around 2.8% once the platform fee, host-paid utilities and internet, income tax, mantenimiento, property tax and arbitrios are taken off. The revenue rests on an average daily rate near $44 and occupancy around 47%, and the top quartile reaches roughly 6.4% net on an ADR near $71. The gap between that top quartile and the typical owner is the whole story here.
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 Surco: Airbnb income · is long-term worth it?
In Surco, Airbnb nets 2.9% 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.