How we source our numbers

That sentence is the reason this page exists. It is also the reason we are comfortable publishing at all, because once you know where the numbers come from you can weigh them properly, and almost nobody in this market will tell you.

The three rules

1. Nothing is published without a traceable source

Every figure on this site carries the publisher it came from and the period it covers, listed at the foot of the page it appears on. If we cannot point at where a number came from, it does not go up. This is more restrictive than it sounds and it costs us pages we would like to have.

2. A derived number is never presented as a reported one

An example we take seriously, because it concerns a figure this business itself has used. The commonly cited count of 504 resale closings in 2025 was never published by anyone. The underlying source reported 404 closings in 2024 and a 24.68% increase in 2025. If you apply the one to the other you get roughly 504, and that number then travelled as though it were a measurement.

It is a reasonable inference. It is not a reported figure, and the difference matters. Where we use it, we describe it as implied by the reported change, not as a count. We would rather lose the cleaner sentence than blur that line.

3. When sources conflict, both get published

The most visible informational site covering this market currently states a median San Miguel house price of roughly US$298,000 on one of its pages and roughly US$575,000 on another, both live at the same time. We are not interested in scoring points off that. We raise it because it shows how little scrutiny the numbers in this market receive, and because a buyer working from either figure alone would make a materially different decision.

What we cannot tell you

An honest list is more useful than a confident one. As of September 2026 the following are not knowable from any source we have been able to verify:

• A median sale price from anyone without a commission. Closed-sale medians exist: Rafael Mora Real Estate published a first-quarter 2026 figure of $480K in April, and Mike Fanelli of The Agency San Miguel de Allende has published monthly medians and days to sell from the AMPI MLS since August. Both are commissioned brokerages, and no public registry exists to check them against. Most medians quoted online are still asking-price estimates from listing portals, not sales.
• A reliable 2026 year-to-date volume. Realty San Miguel has reported a year-to-date figure that falls from one month to the next, which cannot be right, and a second brokerage reading the same MLS counts 181 sales for a first half Realty San Miguel puts at 186. We quote each count with its source and publish no 2026 volume number of our own.
• Neighbourhood-level closed-sale data. Appreciation figures by neighbourhood are estimates built from listing data and local reporting, not from registry records. We label them as such wherever they appear.
• Anything about off-market sales. A meaningful share of transactions here never touch an MLS. Nobody knows the size of that share, including us.

Corrected 24 September 2026: earlier versions of this page said no median sale price from closed transactions was published. One has been public since 14 April 2026 (Rafael Mora Real Estate, Q1 2026: $480K), and a brokerage agent has published monthly medians and days to sell from the AMPI MLS since 1 August 2026.

Why we have no commission

We do not list properties. We do not represent buyers or sellers. We take no referral fee from anyone who does. This is not a moral position, it is a structural one: an organisation paid on completed transactions cannot credibly publish the finding that inventory is overpriced and sitting, because that finding costs it money. We can, because it does not.

The site is published and paid for by Diego Lujan Studio LLC. What we ask of readers is an email address, in exchange for the quarterly report, and we use it for one thing: telling you when there is a new edition or a figure has changed. It is never sold, rented or shared. How this is paid for sets it out in full.

Corrections

If you find a figure on this site that is wrong, out of date, or traceable to a source we have mischaracterised, tell us through the contact form. We will correct it and note the correction on the page. Every correction to the report is listed in the archive, beside the edition it corrects.

This is published research, not legal, tax or investment advice. Your notario is the legal authority on your transaction. We have no financial interest in whether it closes.