Long-term tenancies, under Colombian lease law.

For owners

• Rent setting against genuinely comparable units, including the administración, which foreign owners routinely forget is a monthly cost that does not stop when the unit is empty.
• Tenant screening and the guarantee arrangement. Colombian landlords normally require either a co-debtor or a rent-guarantee policy; foreign owners often skip this and then discover how long a recovery takes.
• A written contract of arrendamiento de vivienda urbana with the term, increase mechanism and inventory properly specified.
• Handover inventory, meter readings and condition record — the thing that decides every deposit dispute.
• Ongoing rent collection, maintenance coordination, and a report you can read from another time zone.

For tenants

If you are arriving from abroad, the friction is rarely the rent. It is the guarantee: most owners will want a Colombian co-debtor with property, or a policy from a guarantee company, and neither is instant. Start that conversation before you find the apartment you want, not after.

A word on short-term letting

I do not operate short-stay arbitrage, and I will tell you plainly if a building's propiedad horizontal regulations prohibit short-term rental — many in El Poblado now do, and enforcement has become considerably less relaxed. If your investment case depends entirely on nightly letting, verify the building's rules and the current municipal position in writing before you buy. Do not take an agent's word for it, including mine.