171 active rental listings on Encuentra24 for Zone 16 (Cayala), Guatemala City, scraped 2026-09-03 (refreshed weekly). 1 listings were excluded for carrying a sale price posted as monthly rent. 32 carry no published price.
| USD-priced listings | GTQ-priced listings | |
|---|---|---|
| Priced listings | 118 | 21 |
| Median monthly rent | $1,850 | Q7,000 |
| Middle half (p25–p75) | $1,312–$2,500 | Q5,500–Q9,000 |
| Minimum – maximum | $550–$5,800 | Q3,600–Q14,000 |
| Median, 1-bedroom | $950 (n=5) | — |
| Median, 2-bedroom | $1,600 (n=37) | Q7,000 (n=5) |
| Median, 3+-bedroom | $2,350 (n=36) | Q7,900 (n=8) |
Median = the middle listing in each currency; the middle half drops the cheapest and dearest quarter. Source: encuentra24.com.
Methodology. The block above is built from active rental listings on Encuentra24 for Zone 16 and rebuilt every week; the scrape date is printed inside it. The median is the middle listing in each currency, quoted separately because dollar and quetzal listings are two different markets rather than two ways of writing one price. The middle half drops the cheapest and the dearest quarter of the sample, which is the honest way to describe a classifieds pool full of one-off outliers. Listings carrying a sale price in the monthly-rent field are quarantined before anything is calculated. A by-bedroom row only appears once at least five listings in that currency report that bedroom count — a dash means the slice was too thin to publish, not that nothing of that size exists. This is a sample of what is publicly advertised, not a registry of every unit for rent in the zone.
Every figure on this page is rendered from that live block. Nothing is typed by hand, so the numbers and the sentences move together. The comparisons below describe the shape of the sample as of the scrape date shown above.
What the price structure says
About 85% of Zone 16’s priced listings are quoted in dollars. That is a high share — Cayalá’s landlords write for an audience with dollar income, and our Cayalá neighborhood guide covers why: international tenants, embassy housing allowances and USD-denominated multinational salaries, plus the security-and-walkability package that money is buying.
The dollar share is not the whole story, though — it runs high in Zone 14 and Zone 15 as well, and the comparison table further down carries that column for every zone we track. Two other things in the block matter more when you are deciding.
There is a working quetzal market inside Cayalá. The dollar column is much the bigger one, but it is not the only one. The live block publishes a quetzal median for the zone alongside the dollar median, and quetzal medians at the bedroom counts that carry enough local-currency listings to report one; where it shows a dash, that slice was too thin to publish, not empty. That matters for a practical reason: the widely repeated line that Cayalá is a dollars-only bubble is not what the listings say. Converted at market rates the quetzal-quoted listings also sit well below the dollar-quoted ones — compare the two medians in the block.
The zone changes shape at the top of its range. Below the upper quartile in the live table, Zone 16 is an apartment market — two- and three-bedroom units, apartments far more often than houses. Above the upper quartile, houses outnumber apartments by a wide margin in the current scrape. In Zone 16 the top of the market is not a penthouse; it is a four-bedroom house behind a gate, and in dollars the house category rents well above the apartment category — a gap much larger than anything separating this zone from Zone 10.
The dollar ladder by bedroom count
This is the comparison that decides whether Zone 16 is expensive for you, and it does not have one answer:
| Unit size | Zone 16 median | Zone 10 median | Zone 13 median | Zone 15 median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two bedrooms | $1,600 | $1,300 | $1,150 | $1,200 |
| Three or more | $2,350 | $2,600 | $1,700 | $1,912 |
All four columns are live and refresh on the same weekly cycle. One-bedroom medians are deliberately not compared here: they rest on the thinnest slices, and several of these zones do not carry enough one-bedroom listings to publish a median at all. Zone 16’s own one-bedroom figure, when there is one, sits in the live block at the top of this page.
Read the two rows above rather than looking for a single verdict. The medians are recomputed every week, and the gap between Zone 16 and any one neighbour can be wide on one row and narrow — or reversed — on the other, so compare the cells you actually need instead of carrying the idea that Cayalá is the expensive zone over as a rule. What does not move week to week is the trade at the larger sizes: at three or more bedrooms Zone 16 offers apartments and houses in overlapping price territory, so the same budget that rents a large apartment can put you in a house here.
Where the listings are
Zone 16 is not one place. The listing titles split it into three groups, and the group determines the price band far more than the zone number does.
The Cayalá-branded developments. Lirios de Cayalá, Ramblas de Cayalá, Nogales de Cayalá, Acantos de Cayalá, Bouganvilias de Cayalá, Granada de Cayalá, La Miranda. These are the buildings and gated house clusters that carry the development’s name, and they run through both halves of the dollar sample rather than sitting only at the top. Lirios supplies most of the branded listings in the band between the lower quartile and the median; Nogales clusters between the median and the upper quartile; Ramblas, Acantos and Bouganvilias appear above the upper quartile, with four-bedroom houses.
The San Isidro and Kanajuyú residenciales. Lomas de San Isidro, Jardines de San Isidro, Campos de San Isidro, Villata, Kanajuyú, Cumbres de San Gaspar, La Montaña, Puerta de Hierro, Montesano, Villas de San Isidro — all names taken straight from the listing titles. They contribute a real share of the quetzal-priced rows, though not the bulk of them, and in dollars they sit overwhelmingly at or above the zone median rather than below it. Lomas de San Isidro is a house market at the top of the range; Villata and Jardines de San Isidro sit in the band between the median and the upper quartile.
The standalone buildings. Caledonia, Nagano, Monet, Lindora Loft, and the Shift Cayalá units. Several of these are quetzal-priced, which is part of where the local-currency column comes from. They are not, however, what fills the bottom of the dollar range: most entry-band dollar listings carry no building name at all — just “Apartamento en Renta Zona 16” and a price.
The practical consequence: neither name search is the cheap one. In the current scrape both the Cayalá-branded titles and the residencial names sit mostly at or above the zone median, and neither group reaches below the lower quartile at all — the entry band is almost entirely unnamed listings that no name search will surface. What separates the two groups is not price but the thing the neighborhood guide describes: walkability to the Paseo, lot sizes, and how far you are from a car-free daily routine.
Pricing tiers, anchored to the live sample
The bands below are anchored to the quartiles in the live table rather than to fixed numbers, so they stay honest as the sample moves.
| Tier | Monthly rent (USD) | What is actually in this band |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | below $1,312 | Almost entirely apartments, and mostly unnamed ones — plain “Apartamento en Renta Zona 16” posts rather than a named building. Bedroom counts here run from one all the way to three, so a small unit is not the price of admission. Houses are rare but not absent. Converted at market rates, most quetzal-quoted listings would land in this band too. |
| Mid | $1,312–$1,850 | Mostly two-bedroom apartments, with the Lirios buildings the name that recurs most in this band. A couple of the residencial-named houses reach down into it as well. |
| Premium | $1,850–$2,500 | The crossover band: larger two- and three-bedroom apartments alongside houses — houses are not new at this level, they appear from the entry band upward, but here they stop being the exception. Nogales de Cayalá, Villata and Jardines de San Isidro recur in this band. |
| Top | above $2,500 | Houses outnumber apartments by a wide margin, four bedrooms is the most common configuration where a count is given, and Lomas de San Isidro, Ramblas de Cayalá, Acantos de Cayalá and La Montaña are the names that recur. |
The quetzal bands work the same way against the quetzal quartiles in the live block, with one difference worth knowing before you start calling: the quetzal maximum in Zone 16 sits far below the dollar maximum, so the top of this market is reachable only in dollars.
What active listings look like across the range: a four-bedroom house in Ramblas de Cayalá sits in the top band, a two-bedroom apartment in Lirios 3 in the lower half of the dollar sample, and a one-bedroom in Edificio Lindora Loft shows what the quetzal column looks like at the small end. Listings turn over weekly; treat these as shapes, not as offers.
How Zone 16 compares with its neighbours
| Zone | Median, USD listings | Median, quetzal listings | Dollar share of priced listings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zone 16 (Cayalá) | $1,850 | Q7,000 | 85% |
| Zone 10 | $1,925 | Q8,000 | 88% |
| Zone 13 | $1,175 | Q6,600 | 65% |
| Zone 14 | $1,600 | Q17,780 | 90% |
| Zone 15 | $1,350 | Q9,000 | 85% |
| Mixco | $1,100 | Q5,500 | 23% |
Read the medians alongside the middle-half ranges in each zone’s own live block. In the current scrape Zone 16 and Zone 10 begin at a similar lower quartile, while Zone 16’s upper quartile and its maximum both sit below Zone 10’s. A maximum is a single listing and one new post can move it, so treat that as a reading of this week’s sample rather than a fixed property of the zone — and check both blocks before repeating it. The durable point is the method, not the ranking: budget from the table, not from the reputation.
Who Zone 16 is for
- Households that need three or more bedrooms. This is one of the two largest slices of supply in Zone 16 — the live block carries the counts — and the size at which you genuinely get to choose between an apartment and a house, which is not true everywhere in the city. Whether that costs more or less than a neighbouring zone is a question for the by-bedroom table above, and the answer moves as the sample does.
- Anyone whose priority is the gated, walkable, low-traffic package described in our Cayalá guide — and who accepts that this is what the money buys, rather than square meters.
- Quetzal-paid renters willing to search by residencial name. The local-currency market here is real at every unit size; it just does not carry the Cayalá brand in the title.
- Families comparing schools and commute rather than nightlife. Zone 16 sits on the eastern edge of the city, connected by the Carretera a El Salvador and with no Transmetro service; that trade-off is fixed and worth pricing before you sign.
Who should look elsewhere
- Single renters and couples hunting a small, cheap unit. Check the two-bedroom row in the table above before assuming Zone 16 is where the cheap small units are, then read the live blocks on Zone 13, Zone 15 and Zone 11 on the same measure. All four rebuild weekly, so the comparison is worth making rather than remembering.
- Anyone who wants a Cayalá-branded address at the very bottom of the range. The branded buildings do reach below the zone median — Lirios carries much of the band between the lower quartile and the median — but in the current scrape none of them appears below the lower quartile at all. If the entry band is your budget, you are shopping Zone 16 generally, and the listing titles will mostly carry no development name.
- Renters who need public transport. No TransMetro service reaches Zone 16; the working assumption is a car or daily ride-hailing.
- Anyone shopping the very top of the market. A maximum is one listing and it moves from week to week, so compare the maximum in Zone 16’s live block against the ones in Zone 14 and Zone 15 before assuming the ceiling is here. If you are shopping the ceiling rather than the middle, that is the check to run.
Frequently asked questions
What is the median rent in Zone 16 (Cayalá) Guatemala City?
The live table at the top of this page carries the current median in both currencies — one for the dollar-priced listings, a separate one for the quetzal-priced listings. They are not the same market and should never be averaged together. The table rebuilds weekly from active Encuentra24 listings, and the scrape date sits inside the block.
Is Zone 16 more expensive than Zone 10?
It depends on how many bedrooms you need, which is why a single answer misleads. Compare the by-bedroom rows in the live table here against the same rows on our Zone 10 page: in the current sample the two zones separate in opposite directions at small and large unit sizes.
Can you rent in Zone 16 and pay in quetzales?
Yes. Most priced supply is quoted in dollars, but part of it is quoted in quetzales, and the live block publishes a separate quetzal median for the zone plus quetzal medians at the bedroom counts that carry enough local-currency listings to report one. Those listings rarely sit in the Cayalá-branded developments — they turn up in the residencial-named and standalone buildings.
Are there houses for rent in Zone 16, or only apartments?
Both, in different parts of the price range. Apartments dominate the cheaper half of the dollar sample; houses take over above the upper quartile in the live table. If you want a yard rather than a terrace, you are shopping the top of the range.
Why does the live table sometimes say listings were excluded?
Classified sites in Guatemala regularly carry a sale price posted in the monthly-rent field. Anything above $20,000 or Q150,000 a month is quarantined out of every statistic on this page and counted separately, so one mis-posted sale price cannot drag the median or the maximum.
Why do some bedroom rows show a dash?
That currency and bedroom count did not reach the minimum number of priced listings we require in the latest scrape, so no median is published. It does not mean nothing of that size is available, only that the slice was too thin to report honestly.
Related resources
- Guatemala City real estate overview — every zone we track, compared
- Average rent in Guatemala — national and city-level medians
- How to rent an apartment in Guatemala — leases, deposits, and what landlords ask foreigners for
- Living in Cayalá, Zone 16 — the neighborhood guide behind this data page
- Paseo Cayalá, Zone 16: neighborhood review — what the zone is like on the ground
- Cost of renting in Zone 10 · Zone 13 · Zone 14 · Zone 15 · Mixco
- All Guatemala real estate guides
