I Found an Apartment in Medellin Without Speaking Spanish. Here Is Exactly How.
I arrived in Medellin with about forty words of Spanish. I could say hello, thank you, and “where is the bathroom.” I needed to find a furnished apartment in a safe neighborhood within a week.
I found one in Laureles. $600 a month, furnished, fast WiFi, walking distance to coworking spaces and cafes. This is exactly what worked.
Before You Land: Join the Facebook Groups
This is the single most important thing you can do. Search “Medellin Expats” and “Medellin Digital Nomads” on Facebook. Join both. Spend fifteen minutes scrolling through the housing posts. You will see the price ranges, the neighborhoods that keep coming up, and the landlords who post repeatedly.
These groups are where the off-market deals live. Apartments that never appear on Airbnb or booking platforms get posted here by owners who want foreign tenants but do not want to pay platform fees.
Post your own ad before you arrive. Keep it simple: “Remote worker, quiet, looking for furnished 1BR in Laureles or El Poblado, $500-$800, move-in [date].” You will get five to ten responses within a day.
Where to Look: Pick Your Neighborhood
If you speak zero Spanish, start in El Poblado or Laureles. El Poblado is the default nomad hub. English widely spoken. More expensive. Laureles is quieter, cheaper, and has a growing expat community. It is also flat and walkable, which matters more than you think in a city built on hills.
Budget ranges for furnished one-bedrooms in mid-2026: El Poblado $700-1,200 per month. Laureles $540-850 per month. The difference pays for your Spanish lessons.
Do not rent in Envigado, Sabaneta, or Belen unless you have basic Spanish. These neighborhoods are great values but you will struggle to communicate with landlords and neighbors. Save them for your second or third stay.
The Apartment Hunt: Six Days
Book a short-term Airbnb or coliving space for your first week. Do not commit to a long-term rental before you arrive. Photos lie. Neighborhoods feel different in person than they do on Google Maps.
Day one: settle in, walk your target neighborhood, get a feel for the streets. Days two and three: respond to the Facebook messages you received, schedule viewings, and visit five to seven apartments. Use Google Translate for any messages in Spanish. It works fine for basic logistics like “Can I see the apartment tomorrow at 2pm?”
Days four and five: revisit your top two or three choices at different times of day. A quiet street at 10am can be a party zone at 11pm on a Friday. Test the WiFi speed inside the unit. Check the water pressure. Days six and seven: choose, negotiate, sign.
The One Colombian Rental Quirk You Need to Know
Colombia requires renters to have a fiador, a local guarantor who co-signs the lease. As a foreigner with no Colombian family or employer, you do not have one. Instead, you use a poliza de arrendamiento, a rental insurance policy that acts as your guarantor. Companies like Inmobu and Unifianza provide this. It costs roughly 20-30% of one month’s rent. Your landlord or real estate agent can help you arrange it. Most furnished short-term rentals marketed to foreigners skip this requirement entirely and just ask for a deposit.
What You Will Actually Spend
My furnished one-bedroom in Laureles was $600 a month including utilities and WiFi. A comparable Airbnb in the same neighborhood would have been $900-1,100. The Facebook group approach saved me roughly 30-40%. That is $300-500 a month, every month, for the effort of scrolling through posts and sending a few messages.
Neighborhood data from MiFinka and Expat.com 2026 guides. Rental practices from ColombiaVisas and firsthand nomad reports. Prices in USD as of mid-2026.
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