The property market in Santiago de Cuba

Santiago de Cuba is the country’s second city and has a property market with a personality of its own. The city is built on hills running down to the bay, and that shapes everything: access, gravity-fed water supply, drainage in the rainy season, and even the value of a home depending on its elevation.

Vista Alegre is the reference neighbourhood at the top of the market: spacious houses from the 1920s to the 1950s, with gardens and garages, in leafy surroundings. The historic centre around Parque Céspedes holds colonial and republican housing with the usual virtues and problems of an old building stock. Outlying neighbourhoods and microbrigade estates complete the market at the lowest prices.

The particularity no buyer should ignore is seismicity. Eastern Cuba is the most seismically active part of the country, and Santiago has suffered destructive earthquakes throughout its history. That turns structural quality from a maintenance question into a safety one, and makes cracks, shoring and improvised extensions weigh far more here than in Havana.

Heat is the other everyday factor: orientation, cross ventilation and high ceilings are qualities that command a price in Santiago and that you appreciate every day of the year.

Neighbourhoods and areas

• Vista Alegre
• Historic centre
• Sueño
• Santa Bárbara
• Altamira
• Siboney
• El Caney

What to check before buying here

• check_circleStructure, with seismic criteria in mind: active cracks, shoring, added storeys built without calculations, and the state of party walls.
• check_circleElevation and drainage: how the street and the plot behave in heavy rain.
• check_circleWater supply depending on the home’s elevation, and whether there is a cistern and pump.
• check_circleOrientation and ventilation: in Santiago this is not a luxury, it is habitability.

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