About
A guide for people who plan to stay in Bogotá
Bogotá Apartments is a guide to finding, signing, and settling into a long-term apartment in Bogotá. It is written for expats, retirees, and permanent relocators — people looking for a home in the city, not a place to crash for a month.
What the guide covers
The core of the site is the long-term, unfurnished lease: the standard 12-month contract that most locals sign, and everything a foreigner has to get through to sign one too. That means the property viewing, the credit study, the póliza, the lease signing, and the key handover, in the order they actually happen.
Around that core sit the relocation essentials that only matter if you are staying: how the estrato system decides what you pay for utilities, how to get around the city, what temporary housing looks like while you search, and what it costs to ship your belongings from the United States rather than buy locally.
- Neighborhood profiles with unfurnished monthly price ranges
- The 12-month unfurnished lease, step by step
- Utilities and the estrato system
- Transportation, temporary housing, and the suburbs
- Shipping, money transfers, and US Social Security
- Senior living and care options in Bogotá
Neighborhoods with a personality and a price
Every neighborhood on the home page is introduced the same way: a short character tag, a sentence on who it suits, and an unfurnished monthly range in US dollars. Usaquén is the top pick for families and long-term expats, with international schools, Sunday markets, and village charm inside the city. Chapinero Alto is walkable and diverse, the best mix of culture and convenience for younger expats. Santa Bárbara is quiet, upscale, tree-lined, and popular with diplomats.
Each profile links to a longer article, and the map lets you see where the areas sit in relation to each other before you commit to a viewing. Beyond the city limits, the guide also covers Chía, Cajicá, and La Calera for retirees and families who want space and nature, with plain notes on commute times and car dependency.
Written for people who are staying
Plenty of Bogotá content is aimed at tourists or nomads passing through. This site is aimed at the opposite reader: someone who plans to make Bogotá home. So the blog spends its time on questions like whether you can receive US Social Security in Colombia and how the proof-of-life requirement works, what senior housing looks like from aging in place with domestic help to assisted living, and which money transfer services actually work with which accounts.
The frequently asked questions on the home page collect the things every new arrival asks, and the blog now runs to dozens of long-form guides that go deeper on each of them.
Need help finding a place?
If reading is not enough, the home page has a contact section for people who want help with the search itself. Use the contact page to get in touch, and browse the blog for the guides that match where you are in the process.