Índice INGAR methodology — v2.0

Universe and data sources

The index considers sale offers published openly in the Montevideo market, obtained through our own systematic market survey, for apartments (AP), houses (CA) and land (TE), that were active at some point during the closed calendar month (listed before month end and delisted after month start, or still active). Neighborhoods follow a normalized list of 71 neighborhoods within the department of Montevideo: that is the surveyed universe. Of that universe, only neighborhoods that pass each month's quality gates are published (currently 60 neighborhoods with at least one publishable month); the rest are surveyed but not published. Bordering localities of other departments that offers often label as Montevideo (e.g. parts of Ciudad de la Costa, Canelones) are excluded from the universe.

Estimated capital appreciation additionally uses official sources: the INE IAI sale-price index for Montevideo and rental contracts from the DGI (tax authority).

Each property is counted once

The same property is often publicly offered more than once. Offers are consolidated so each property counts exactly once, and all statistics are computed over unique properties. Supply volume is published as a relative level (oferta: alta / media / baja — high / medium / low), defined by terciles within each month and property type, instead of absolute counts.

Per-offer filters

Before computing statistics, each offer must pass plausibility filters: price between USD 20,000 and 5,000,000, surface between 15 and 2,000 m², and price per m² between USD 300 and 8,000. Medians and percentiles use continuous interpolation (percentile_cont).

Surface area and price per square meter

Price per square meter is computed on the dwelling's own surface. When an offer publishes its total surface —which may include the balcony and a proportional share of common areas—, the interior surface declared for the unit is used. Total prices and the composition of the sample do not depend on this measure.

Asking prices, not transaction prices

All prices in the index are asking prices: what the seller requests in the offer, not the final sale price. The last known price of each offer is used. Declared limitation: price changes within the same offer are only partially captured, because re-publication of an offer resets its history.

The only exception is estimated capital appreciation, which incorporates transaction data (INE + DGI) and is therefore labeled and published as a separate metric.

Rent, yields and market metrics

The segment's median rent is obtained from collected rental listings, using the month's latest calculation. Estimated annual gross rental yield relates rental and sale listings in the same neighborhood and property type. When bedroom groups are combined, the result is validated using those groups' components and weights. Overall price and rent medians describe their own samples; their ratio does not necessarily reproduce the published yield.

Yields are published only with a verifiable method, confidence A or B and within a 2–15% gross range. The estimated net return scenario applies the 35.16% deduction detailed below. From August 2026, months of supply and absorption rate are unavailable: removing or relisting a property does not establish that it sold. Days on market are also withheld because the observation window is limited.

Standard reference scenario (not any neighborhood's net yield)

As of September 1, 2026 the Index publishes only gross yield in its tables. This scenario is kept as a methodological reference and as a dataset column (yield_neto_estimado_pct in the CSV and JSON), not as a neighborhood's net yield: because the exact same factor applies to every segment, it does not change the ranking or add comparative power, and it conveys a precision the figure does not have. Net return depends on the individual deal —negotiated price, self-management, tax status, Promoted Housing, condition of the unit— and is computed case by case in the rental yield calculator.

The scenario applies a total deduction of 35.16% on annual gross rent. Components (as % of gross rent):

• Management: 12.4% — professional property management (6% monthly fee + VAT, plus the amortized placement cost).
• Income tax: 10.06% — see detail below.
• Maintenance: 5.0% — annual maintenance assumption.
• Vacancy: 4.2% — assumption of one vacant month every 24.
• Owner taxes: 3.5% — Contribución Inmobiliaria and Primaria (property taxes).

The 6% + VAT monthly fee is a market assumption (midpoint of the surveyed market range, 5–7% + VAT), not INGAR's own rate: INGAR's property management service charges 7% + VAT. Recomputed with that fee, the total deduction rises from 35.16% to 36.38% of gross rent, and the estimated net yield is 0.05–0.12 percentage points lower depending on the segment (for example, a 5.75% gross yield nets 3.66% instead of 3.73%).

Income tax: the index assumes an individual owner opts to treat the 10.5% withholding on accrued gross rents as final (applicable to residents under IRPF, Decree 148/007, and to non-residents under IRNR, Decree 149/007, arts. 24 and 33 lit. a). Alternatively, the general assessment of 12% on net income is available, with the expressly admitted tax deductions; which option is more convenient depends on each owner's deductible expenses. The tax is applied on rent adjusted for the modeled vacancy — which is why it weighs 10.06% of gross rent rather than 10.5%. In projects with Vivienda Promovida (housing-incentive) benefits this tax can be exempt for up to 10 years; the general breakdown does not incorporate that exemption.

Maintenance, repairs and insurance are not admitted tax deductions: they enter the breakdown as the real cost of operating the property, not as a tax deduction.

Precision of the total: 35.16% is the sum of the five lines already rounded to two decimals. With the same assumptions unrounded the total is 35.13%, because management works out to 12.4033% and vacancy to 4.1667%. Fee treatment: this breakdown applies the management fee to the full annual gross rent, while income tax is adjusted for the modeled vacancy. Computed consistently —fee charged on rent actually collected— the total deduction is 34.83%: 0.30 percentage points below 35.13%. The rental yield calculator uses the consistent treatment; the breakdown on this page keeps the published figures so the historical series is not altered.

This scenario does NOT include acquisition costs (notary, transfer tax, fees) or property appreciation. The former enlarge the invested capital and lower the return; the latter is estimated separately, from the INE IAI purchase-sale series and DGI contracts, and published as its own metric.

Estimated capital appreciation (INE + DGI)

It anchors on the INE IAI sale-price index for Montevideo (full-series CAGR, auto-updating), multiplied by a relative neighborhood factor built with rent-tilt over DGI rental contracts (76 neighborhoods with their own factor; those 76 refer to the coverage of this appreciation metric, not to the number of neighborhoods in the price index). The scope field indicates whether the neighborhood has its own factor or inherits the city average. It is NOT the change of the index's own series: it is a different metric and is labeled as such.

Changes

Month-over-month change compares the month's median price per m² with the published historical price for the previous month, for the same neighborhood and property type: (current price ÷ previous price − 1) × 100. Cumulative change uses the published March 2026 price as its baseline. If the reference price is missing, the change is unavailable. Year-over-year change requires 12 months of comparison.

Publication thresholds

We prefer declaring “insufficient data” over publishing a noisy number. A neighborhood-type segment is published in a given month only if it meets:

• Minimum sample: at least 30 unique properties offered in the month (n ≥ 30).
• Stability: month-over-month change within ±20%; larger changes exclude the segment that month, with the reason recorded.
• Yields: a verifiable method, confidence A or B and a value between 2% and 15% gross.
• Final review by an AI model (see next section).
• Excluded segments are declared each month with their reason — the gap is part of the data and is never filled or interpolated.

Publication checks

Before publication, checks cover percentiles, changes against published historical prices and the correspondence between each yield and its supporting calculation. Automated review uses the segment's actual method and components; a yield aggregated across bedroom groups is not required to equal the ratio of overall medians. Exclusions and verification results are recorded internally.

Typical volume

Verified in the March–June 2026 backfill: about 200 segments computed per month, of which ~120 are publishable (~50 neighborhoods for apartments, ~50 for houses and ~15 for land).

Declared limitations

• Short series: the index starts in March 2026; no year-over-year comparisons until 12 months are complete (Feb/Mar 2027).
• Days on market (DOM): not published yet. The observation window starts in February 2026 and is still too short to measure them without bias (left-truncation). They are computed internally and will be published once the series accumulates at least 12 months of observation (2027).
• Relisting: a re-published offer for the same property resets its history; price changes within the same offer are only partially captured despite the consolidation.
• Asking prices: all price levels reflect seller expectations, not closings.

License and attribution

Índice INGAR data is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0): free to use, including commercially, with mandatory attribution. Required citation: “Source: Índice INGAR — ingar.com.uy/indice”. Full downloads at /indice/datos.csv and /indice/datos.json. The official series we republish (INE rents, City of Montevideo construction permits) are free to use citing the original source stated in each dataset.

Version and changes

Current version: v2.0, applied to the entire published series. Each data row identifies its reference month and methodology version in the dataset. The series starts in March 2026.

Version changes:

• v2.0 (8 September 2026): price per square meter is calculated on the dwelling's own surface instead of the total listing area, which may include balconies and common areas. The revision applies to the entire published series and changed prices per m² and ranking positions. The publications also differ in median total prices and publishable segments; those differences are not attributed solely to the area change. The comparison below documents both editions.
• v1.4 (first monthly edition: August 2026): the methodology record introduced two decimal places instead of integers for the per-m² medians used in yield calculations. It applied prospectively; previous editions kept their figures. The archive preserves the original August publication and its values.
• v1.3: yield-component columns (renta_m2_yield_usd and precio_m2_yield_usd) and supply level (high, medium or low) were added. This expanded the dataset without changing the figures published at the time. Archived March–July editions identify this version.