Colombia Construction

Although it is affected by a slowing economy, the construction sector remains one of the country’s most important industries. The sector posted negative growth in the first quarter of 2019, contracting by 5.6% year-on-year (y-o-y) compared to a decrease of 0.9% in the same period of 2018. Despite government efforts to subsidise low-income...

Urbanisation is a mega-trend redefining contemporary life in both developed and emerging markets across the world. According to the UN, in 1950, 751m people lived in urban areas; however, by 2018 this number had risen to 4.2bn, equivalent to roughly 55% of the world’s population. By 2050 the UN estimates that this figure will rise to 68%. This...

The real estate industry in Colombia and wider South America has undergone substantial change in recent years, driven by an influx of private capital investments from local and international fund managers, sovereign wealth funds and Canadian pension funds.

From 206 BCE to 220 CE, China’s Han dynasty fostered a booming trade industry for silk, a precious commodity in high demand among the elites of the Mediterranean. The Silk Road was the name given to the network of trade routes connecting the East and West at the time. Later, spices and other precious cargo would be traded using the system,...

Following a challenging three-year period characterised by an oversupply of new homes and a growing housing deficit, data from late 2018 and early 2019 indicate the beginning of a revival in the Colombian real estate market. While inventories from the pre-2016 construction boom underscore the old mismatch between developer interests and the...

With economic growth reducing poverty and increasing the size of Colombia’s middle class, government programmes are having a major impact in lowering the country’s housing deficit.

Programmes to allocate free homes to the lowest-income segments, reduce the costs of acquisition and ease access to banking credit for other segments of the population...