Most real estate websites in Guatemala are agency websites. They show their inventory, with their photos, framed by their copywriting, ordered by their commission. They don’t tell you the price per square meter, they don’t compare listings against each other on objective value, and they don’t flag the risks specific to a property’s location.
We’re not an agency. This page explains exactly how livinginguatemala.com captures Guatemala real estate listings, what the grids calculate and how they are ordered, and why every listing gets the same treatment.
Correction (8 October 2026): earlier versions of this page described a weighted “Best Buy” score built from price per m² of lot, days on market, construction-to-lot ratio, region-specific risk overlays and data completeness. No such score was ever computed by the scripts that build our listing grids. The sections below now describe what the grids actually calculate.
The data sources
Listings in our index come from public platforms where Guatemalan real estate is publicly advertised. We currently capture 33 sites, which between them carry 14,332 deduplicated listings advertised by 382 named agencies and sellers. Those three numbers are read from the data file the grids are built from, so this page cannot quote a total the listings themselves contradict.
| Source type | Examples | What we extract |
|---|---|---|
| Agency websites (captured directly from the seller’s own site) | Antigua Fine Homes, Remax Colonial, Propiedades Antigua, CityMax Antigua, Nova Antigua, Living Antigua, Real Estate in Antigua, Atitlán Solutions, Mayan Lake Realty, NL Punto, Grupo Tala, M2Guate, Homes Guatemala, Consulta Inmobiliaria, Inmobiliaria Santander | Price + currency, beds, baths, lot/construction m², property type, municipio/zone, coordinates where the listing publishes them, first photo, link to the original advert |
| Portals and classifieds (where agencies and private sellers both advertise) | Encuentra24, CBR Guatemala, MapaInmueble, ApartamentosGuatemala, Inmobiliaria.com, Casa.gt | Same fields, plus the name of the agency or seller who placed the advert |
| Agency CRM platforms (one adapter serves every agency on the platform) | Wasi, AlterEstate, WPResidence | Same fields |
The authoritative, always-current list is the Agencies & sellers we track table at the top of every listings grid — it is generated from the corpus itself and names every seller, its listing count, whether we captured it from its own website or from a portal, and the date of the last capture. The table above groups those sources by type; it is not a substitute for it.
We extract factual data — price, dimensions, location, basic features. We do not reproduce listing descriptions or host listing photos. Those remain the property of the original source. Every listing in our index links back to the original page where the buyer can see the full description, photos, and contact the listing agent directly.
This is the same legal pattern under which Zillow, Redfin, and Trulia operate in the United States. Factual real estate data is not copyrightable. Editorial analysis built on top of that data is.
What we calculate
For every listing, the grid shows:
Price per square meter (construction) — asking price divided by the built m² the listing states. Lot and construction areas are both shown as the listing gives them; we do not compute a ratio between them.
% vs zone median — where a house’s or apartment’s $/m² of construction falls against the median of its zone. It is published only for listings with at least 20 m² of construction, in zones with at least 5 priced houses and apartments; otherwise the field is blank. A property 25% below its zone median may be a deal, or may be hiding something.
Price-cut, new and days-listed badges — computed by matching each listing between two captures on the seller’s own listing ID. A cut badge needs a drop of at least 2% in the asking price; new means the listing appeared since the previous capture; a days badge (for example 20+ days) means it was listed in both captures, that many days apart. Only sources whose listing IDs stay stable between captures, and that already have a previous capture, carry these badges. We do not compute a full days-on-market count.
What the grid does not score: location risk
The grid carries no risk flag and no risk score. Location-specific risks are covered in prose in the regional buying guides. Two of them come straight from Article 122 of the Constitution:
- Pacific coast (Monterrico and the rest): the 3-kilometer strip along the oceans, counted from the upper tide line, that Article 122 reserves to the State
- Lake Atitlán: the 200-meter strip around lake shores that Article 122 reserves to the State, for everyone. Urban property and rights registered before 1 March 1956 are excepted, and a foreigner needs authorization from the Executive to acquire an excepted property (corrected 8 October 2026: this line used to describe a 200-meter limit on foreign owners solved by a sociedad anónima)
How the grid is ordered
Each grid opens with the listings whose asking price was cut since the previous capture, deepest cut first, then the newly listed ones, then everything else by asking price from highest to lowest. You can re-sort by biggest cut, by price in either direction or by $/m². There is no weighted score and no “Best Buy” label.
Use the grid as a filter, not a final answer. Read the per-region buying guide for the location-specific risks. Visit the property. Hire a Guatemalan real estate attorney for title search.
What we do not do
- We do not represent buyers or sellers. No commission. No exclusive listings. No conflict of interest.
- We do not host listing photos. Photos belong to the agency that took them. We link to the source.
- We do not reproduce listing descriptions. The agency wrote them. We extract factual data only.
- We do not mix sponsored content into the grid. Sponsored placements, when they exist, appear in clearly labeled “Sponsored” slots and never affect the grid order.
- We do not change the order or the badges based on who lists a property. Every listing — including listings from agencies the publisher has personal relationships with — goes through the same rules.
Disclosures
If you find an error in a listing, a badge or a $/m² figure, or want to flag a listing for review, email stu@livinginguatemala.com.
If we ever begin accepting paid sponsorships from agencies, that will be disclosed on this page and on every page where sponsored content appears.
The method is public and the source list is public. That’s the trust contract.
