El Salvador Property Prices Hit US$276/m², Doubling in a Decade

Rio Times · El Salvador

El Salvador’s property market has roughly doubled in ten years, and the pace is picking up rather than slowing.

The same country counts about seven in ten workers outside the formal economy. Both things are true, and they explain each other.

What the registry data show

The Centro Nacional de Registros, El Salvador’s official property registry, presented a decade comparison this year. The average registered price per square metre nationally rose from US$124 in 2016 to US$276 in 2026 – an increase of roughly 123%.

The average value of a registered property rose from about US$16,000 to US$30,600, a gain of around 91%.

The value grew; the number of deals did not. Registered property transactions were worth US$4.212 billion in 2025, 13% more than the year before. But the registry recorded 104,675 sales that year against 104,484 in 2024 – an increase of 0.2% – and the country has still not matched the 124,807 sales registered in 2022. Almost all of the 2025 increase was price, not activity.

The current year is running faster. Camilo Trigueros, who heads the registry, said in May that property transactions were up 20% year on year, against 13% for the whole of 2025, and that on that trend the year would close between US$4.5 billion and US$5 billion.

Registry averages are not what buyers pay

Two very different numbers circulate about El Salvador property, and confusing them produces nonsense.

The registry average of US$276 per square metre covers every registered transfer in the country, including rural land, inherited plots and informal-standard housing. It is a national average across everything.

A private listings platform tracking the market in late July 2026 put the median asking price at US$1,282 per square metre and the median sale at around US$210,000. That is the market a foreign buyer or a salaried professional actually encounters, in specific neighbourhoods of San Salvador and on the coast.

The gap between US$276 and US$1,282 is not a contradiction. It is the distance between the country as a whole and the segment that is visibly booming.

Seven in ten workers are off the books

Set against that, roughly 70% of employment in El Salvador is informal on the broad measure used by ECLAC, the UN’s regional commission, and the International Labour Organization – work without a contract, without social security contributions, and without the documented income history a bank requires. National measures that count only urban formal-sector jobs give lower numbers; the broad measure is the one that matters for mortgage access.

That is well above the regional average of about 50%, and it is the constraint that shapes everything else in this market. A worker without formal income cannot obtain a mortgage on ordinary terms, whatever the price of housing does.

Which raises the question the price data alone cannot answer: if most of the workforce cannot borrow to buy, who is buying?

The registry does not say: it records transactions, not the income or nationality of buyers. But the construction industry offers a partial answer. José Velásquez, president of CASALCO, the Salvadoran construction chamber, said in July 2026 that Salvadorans living abroad buy 30% to 35% of all new homes, often to rent out while they consider moving back. That is an industry estimate covering new-build housing only, not a measured share of the whole market – but it is the closest thing to a published figure, and it points away from local wage-earners.

What to watch, and what not to conclude

A market rising this fast in a dollarised economy with a largely informal workforce invites two opposite readings, and both outrun the evidence.

No one publishes a full breakdown of buyers, so the non-resident share of the market as a whole is unknown. The one figure on the record – a construction-industry estimate that the diaspora takes 30% to 35% of new homes – covers new build only, and cannot be stretched into a claim about the whole market.

What the data do support is narrower and still useful: prices have roughly doubled in a decade, volumes are accelerating, and the formal-employment base that would normally underpin mortgage lending has not moved to match.

For anyone considering buying, the practical implications are about liquidity. A market where most local buyers cannot access credit is a market that depends on cash purchasers, and cash markets thin out quickly when sentiment turns.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much have El Salvador property prices risen?

The national average registered price rose from US$124 per square metre in 2016 to US$276 in 2026, about 123%. Average property value rose from roughly US$16,000 to US$30,600.

Why is the listings price so much higher than the registry average?

The registry average covers all registered transfers nationally, including rural and inherited property. Listings data reflect the segment actively marketed to buyers, which was a median of about US$1,282 per square metre in July 2026.

How informal is employment in El Salvador?

Around 70% on the broad measure used by ECLAC and the ILO, against a regional average near 50%. National measures counting only urban formal-sector jobs give lower figures. Informal workers generally cannot document income for a mortgage.

Sources: Centro Nacional de Registros (CNR), presented at ExpoBienes El Salvador 2026 · CNR president Camilo Trigueros, May 2026 · CASALCO, July 2026 · TuLugar market data, July 2026 · ECLAC and ILO informality estimates