Most people renting in Mexico City for the first time look at four areas: Roma Norte, Condesa, Polanco and Coyoacán. They differ in price, in the age of the buildings and the ground under them, and in distance from the Metro. This guide compares them for a month or a year, furnished or not. Dollars are at 18.16 pesos, the XE mid-market rate on 4 October 2026.
What the rent figures measure
The Inmuebles24 index for June 2026, built from the asking prices of listings on that portal, puts the city's average two-bedroom rent at MX$21,921 a month (US$1,207), up 9.6 per cent in a year. It does not separate furnished from unfurnished, and it reports by borough:
- Cuauhtémoc (Roma Norte, Condesa) — MX$29,149 (US$1,605), up 13.7 per cent.
- Miguel Hidalgo (Polanco) — MX$27,786 (US$1,530), up 10.1 per cent.
- Coyoacán — MX$17,306 (US$953), up 15.5 per cent.
Its dearest colonia was Hipódromo de la Condesa, at MX$38,419 (US$2,116). A PollsMX ranking reported by Tus Buenas Noticias on 9 July 2026 put rent per square metre at MX$371 in Polanco, MX$361 in Condesa and MX$353 in Roma, the top three in the city. Furnished flats and short leases cost more; our cost-of-living guide has the premium.
Roma Norte
Suits: first-time arrivals and people without a car.
Roma Norte has the city's largest concentration of English speakers and remote workers, and it led rental demand in its borough on Inmuebles24 in January 2026 with 20 per cent, El CEO reported. Bars and clubs cluster around Avenida Álvaro Obregón, per Wikipedia, so ask what is downstairs. Mercado Medellín is just south, in Roma Sur.
Metro Line 1 runs along its northern edge, with stations at Sevilla, Insurgentes and Cuauhtémoc; it reopened in full on 16 November 2025 after modernisation. Metrobús runs down Insurgentes.
Housing: about 1,100 mansions and other significant buildings, mostly from 1906 to 1939 and many now offices, among later apartment blocks. Roma is red on the soil map below.
Condesa
Suits: couples and families who want parks, and people who want Roma's convenience on quieter streets.
Condesa is three colonias, Condesa, Hipódromo and Hipódromo Condesa, per Wikipedia. Parque México fills what was the centre of a racetrack, ringed by Avenida Ámsterdam; Parque España is a few blocks away. Mercado Michoacán, from 1946, is the covered market. Line 1 stops at Chapultepec and Juanacatlán to the north, Line 9 at Patriotismo and Chilpancingo to the south.
Housing: Art Deco from the 1920s to the 1940s among newer blocks. It shares Roma's earthquake history: NPR reported on 29 September 2017 that in Condesa and Roma "more buildings cracked, shattered and collapsed than in the rest of the city", and the 1985 quake had hit Condesa as hard.
Polanco
Suits: people working in Polanco, on Reforma or in Santa Fe, and anyone who prefers a newer high-rise to a walk-up.
Polanco is five colonias, Polanco I to V Sección, north of Chapultepec Park, per Wikipedia: wide boulevards, embassies, high-end restaurants, the boutiques of Avenida Presidente Masaryk and Parque Lincoln.
One Metro line serves it, Line 7, at Polanco and Auditorio; it meets Lines 1 and 9 at Tacubaya. For Santa Fe, the El Insurgente train has run from Observatorio, at the end of Line 1, since 2 February 2026.
Housing: Colonial Californiano houses and the high-rises that replaced many of them after 1985. Rent per square metre is the highest on the PollsMX list. We found no reliable source placing Polanco on the soil map; check the address.
Coyoacán
Suits: families, long leases, and people working at UNAM or in the south.
The old town is about 10 km south of the Zócalo, per Wikipedia: cobbled streets around Jardín Centenario and Jardín Hidalgo, the Frida Kahlo Museum on Londres Street in Del Carmen, the Mercado de Coyoacán of 1956, and the Viveros de Coyoacán park. Metro Line 3 runs along Avenida Universidad, west of the plazas, at Viveros/Derechos Humanos, Miguel Ángel de Quevedo and Coyoacán. Ecobici, which covers Roma, Condesa and Polanco, added 37 stations here, Expansión reported on 17 January 2024. It is the farthest of the four from Polanco and Reforma.
Rent: the lowest borough average of the four, though the fastest rising, and it covers 140 colonias, pueblos and housing estates, so it says little about the old town. Coyoacán is orange on the soil map; much of the borough sits on the Pedregal lava field.
Old buildings and soft ground
Much of the city stands on old lakebed, where soft, waterlogged clay amplifies seismic waves, per the UNAM zoning described by El Universal. A map by the UNAM geographer Baruch Sanginés, published by UnoTV on 10 September 2021, colours red the areas where quakes are felt hardest, among them Roma, Narvarte and Santa María la Ribera; Condesa and Coyoacán orange; Las Lomas and Santa Fe yellow. It describes ground, not buildings: orange Condesa still took heavy damage in 2017, when Expansión named Roma, Condesa, Cuauhtémoc, Juárez, Del Valle, Narvarte and the Centro as the worst-hit colonias. Ask what the listing will not say:
- When was the building built, and was it repaired or reinforced after 2017?
- Is there a lift? Many older walk-ups have none.
- How does the gas arrive? Piped natural gas, or LP gas from a rooftop tank or from cylinders swapped at the door.
- Where is the assembly point for the seismic alert?
Other colonias renters consider
Sourced data thins out here.
- Juárez. Between Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida Chapultepec, with Metro Insurgentes, Sevilla and Cuauhtémoc, per Wikipedia. Second in the June index at MX$34,044 (US$1,875), per Expansión.
- San Rafael. Laid out in 1891 west of the centre, with 383 catalogued historic buildings, theatres and Metro San Cosme; Wikipedia still describes artists arriving for the lower rents. The index puts it third in the city, at MX$33,810 (US$1,862).
- Santa María la Ribera. Late 19th century, around an alameda with the cast-iron Kiosco Morisco; Metro San Cosme, per Wikipedia. Red on the soil map. No colonia-level rent we could verify.
- Roma Sur. South of Avenida Coahuila, "predominantly residential" and less gentrified than Roma Norte, per Wikipedia. No verifiable average rent.
- Escandón. In Miguel Hidalgo, just south of Condesa, with Line 9 at Patriotismo and Chilpancingo and a Tuesday street market on José Martí, per Wikipedia. MX$271 per square metre on the PollsMX list.
- Del Valle. Residential, in Benito Juárez, with Parque Hundido, Parque Tlacoquemécatl and Line 3 at Etiopía, Eugenia and División del Norte, per Wikipedia. MX$259 per square metre; the borough averaged MX$20,486 (US$1,128) in June.
- Narvarte. East of Del Valle, built up from the 1940s, with the same three Line 3 stations and Metrobús lines 2 and 3, per Wikipedia. MX$253 per square metre, ninth and last on the PollsMX list. Red on the soil map.
The rules on short stays and rent rises
Short stays. A reform published in April 2024 made hosts join a city register, and in October 2024 the city congress limited a property registered for short stays to half the nights of the year, 182, Expansión reported in December 2024. Social housing and flats rebuilt after 2017 cannot be let this way, per Xataka. The register opened online in May 2026; platforms must show its folio on each listing and remove unregistered ones, El Financiero reported on 21 May. A short-stay listing with no folio deserves a question.
Rent rises. Under a reform approved on 22 August 2024, the yearly increase on a residential lease cannot exceed the previous year's inflation, Chilango reported. The Supreme Court upheld it on 19 February 2026, per Crónica; with 2025 inflation at 3.69 per cent, that is the 2026 ceiling, per Xataka. Enforcement lags: Expansión noted on 13 August 2026 that asking rents still rose 2.6 times as fast as inflation, and that the city has no register of leases and no office for tenants' complaints. A constitutional amendment to the same effect, sent to the city congress in April 2026, was put off until September; we could not confirm whether it has passed. Put the yearly increase in the contract.
Choosing by situation
- First weeks in the city: a furnished monthly rental in Roma Norte or Condesa, near Line 1 or Insurgentes; look around before signing for a year.
- Remote work on a budget: Narvarte, Del Valle or Escandón, MX$253 to MX$271 a square metre against MX$353 to MX$371 in Roma, Condesa and Polanco.
- A family: Condesa for the parks if the budget stretches; otherwise Coyoacán or Del Valle.
- Work in Polanco or on Reforma: Polanco, or Juárez along Reforma.
- Work in Santa Fe: somewhere on Line 1, then El Insurgente from Observatorio.
- A year or more, unfurnished: any of the four at local prices, with the increase clause read closely.
These rents are asking prices, not signed contracts, and borough averages hide the street-by-street differences that decide a lease. Everything above was checked in early October 2026 against the source linked beside it. Visit at the hour you would come home, and check where the rent rules stand before you commit.