Digital Nomads Are Transforming Medellín’s Housing

To eat lunch in Medellín’s poshest neighborhoods is to be assaulted with the sound of jackhammers. Most of the buildings going up are viviendas turisticas, or “tourist homes,” an emerging style of housing that combines elements of a boutique hotel, a co-living space and a studio apartment.

The short-term rental properties are targeted at the droves of self-described digital nomads who’ve arrived in Colombia from other Latin American countries, Europe and the US since the Covid-19 pandemic. These youngish visitors, most of them under age 45, stay anywhere from a few nights to several months. An estimated 90 viviendas, ranging in cost from $1 million projects with a handful of units to $100 million towers built by major developers, have been constructed or are under construction, according to Growth Lab, a research and consulting company in Medellín owned by Trazos Urbanos SAS, a local developer.