The new housing market in Bogotá and Cundinamarca registered a start to 2026 with contradictory signals: sales grew and employment in construction remained solid, but purchase withdrawals increased worryingly. The same way,
Camacol warned that the market could become unsustainable if structural reforms are not applied and proposed a series of measures to maintain access to housing and respond to the challenges of informality and urban development. The initial balance shows that between January and March 16,300 housing units were marketed, which represents an increase of 7.6% compared to the same period in 2025. The union entity reported that 920 active projects operate in Bogotá, of which 73% correspond to social housing.
This was explained in detail by the manager of Camacol Bogotá and Cundinamarca, Edwin Chiriví, who highlighted that “Today it is a priority to strengthen the public-private alliance to maintain the dynamism of the sector.” For its part, the construction sector supports approximately 229,000 direct jobs, driven, among other factors, by the district program “My House in Bogotá.” According to the union’s report, new home sales advanced by 25%, launches by 33% and licensing by 26% until the month of February.
The boom in sales and employment contrasts with the increase in purchase withdrawals. It was reported that 3,679 buyers abandoned the process of purchasing a new home in the first quarter of 2026, a figure that represents an increase of 11.3% compared to 2025. The union emphasized the urgency of making structural adjustments to mitigate this trend.
Regarding this, the social housing segment (VIS) faces a more worrying outlook. The executive president of Camacol, Guillermo Herrera, indicated in the assembly that there were 32,002 withdrawals in this type of housing and 9,669 in priority interest housing. He argued that two factors explain this phenomenon:
- Paralysis of the Mi Casa Ya program.
- New requirements that ended up affecting families that were already in the purchasing process.
The consequences include:
- Increase in rent due to lack of supply.
- Persistent inflation in the real estate sector.
- Destruction of formal employment.
- Advancement of informality.
- Decrease in investment in residential construction.
During the assembly, Camacol warned about the advance of urban informality and the impact on vulnerable households. The union highlighted that families living in informal conditions have incomes 50% lower than the average and suffer from overcrowding 2.7 times higher. The problem increases the rates of monetary poverty, limits school access and aggravates citizen security problems.
“The most important problem in the sector is the inability of the formal housing policy to stop the growth of precarious settlements”, Herrera pointed out, citing a report from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) from 2024. This report warns about the stagnation in the reduction of these settlements in the region and the urgency of effective measures.
In this regard, the mayor of Bogotá, Carlos Fernando Galán, supported the need to strengthen public housing policies. He argued that “Strategies to facilitate more families’ access to their own home cannot be a government policy, but rather a permanent commitment.”
During the assembly, Galán highlighted the social nature of the “My House in Bogotá” program. He explained that 60% of the beneficiary households have incomes of less than $2,000,000 per month and that 64% of the beneficiaries are women, many of them heads of household. The president insisted that gender equity and the inclusion of vulnerable families must be priorities on the housing agenda.
From the union, it was warned that the electoral context and economic challenges require maintaining public policies that guarantee effective access to housing. The continuity of these programs, especially for lower-income families, is a key condition for sectoral sustainability.
As part of the roadmap to the next government, Camacol Bogotá and Cundinamarca presented five key proposals for the sustainability of the housing market in the assembly:
- A renewed version of the Mi Casa Ya program, called “Mi Casa Ya 2.0”, which would seek to expand coverage without increasing the fiscal cost.
- Reactivation programs that include rate coverage both in social housing and in other segments.
- Recovery of savings incentives, such as AFC accounts, to facilitate home acquisition.
- New business models, mainly specialized leasing and the internationalization of the sector, to expand the offer and adapt to market changes.
- Development of orderly and sustainable cities through the provision of developable land and urban renewal, in order to consolidate a modern policy that responds to current challenges.
The macroeconomic environment places additional pressure on the industry, due to the impact of increases in the minimum wage and construction costs.
“Construction costs for a new project would increase between 10% and 15%. The data becomes especially relevant if one considers that 90% of the companies in the sector are MSMEs, with less capacity to absorb these types of shocks,” Guillermo Herrera warned in the assembly.
The situation affects job stability and the viability of projects, since the increase in costs reduces the operating margin and complicates the sustainability of small and medium-sized companies in the face of market challenges.
