Nuevo Santiago

About Nuevo Santiago:

Law 68 of 30 October 2017 took Nuevo Santiago out of the Santiago cabecera and San Martín de Porres, in the same act that created Santiago Este and Santiago Sur. It borders Urracá to the north, Carlos Santana Ávila to the east, San Antonio in Atalaya district to the south-east, the Santiago cabecera to the south-west and San Martín de Porres to the west. La Rinconada is the seat, and the corregidor’s office is at the entrance to Urbanización San Antonio. Twenty-three communities fall inside it, among them Villas de San Antonio, Brisas de San Antonio, Cañacillas Vía Aeropuerto, the eastern sector of Punta Delgadita, Villa Elisa, Los Tecas, Las Pericas and Guayaquil. Buses run into the city centre from Punta Delgadita, from Guayaquil and from Urbanización San Antonio.

Commerce is the main activity, and a good share of the district’s businesses sit within these limits; Urbanización San Antonio alone has three commercial plazas. Even so, most working households spend the day in Santiago proper, at its offices, schools, shops and hospital. Four schools serve the corregimiento: the Angélica P. de Riera school in Cañacillas, the schools in Guayaquil and San Antonio, and The Oxford School. Urbanización San Antonio also has a police substation, government offices, a synthetic-turf pitch, basketball and volleyball courts and a children’s baseball ground. In March 2025 the Ministry of Public Works patched the worst stretches of the main streets here as part of its routine work on Santiago’s roads.

It reads like a city corregimiento on paper, yet farming and cattle still take up more than 80 per cent of the land. Housing has filled the part nearest the city, with eleven housing projects built in the last twenty years. Further out, Guayaquil was settled by farming families who grew maize and rice and ground sugar cane in trapiches for cane syrup and raspadura. Every 24 June the village celebrates San Juan, its patron, with drums and tamborito, polleras, a cabalgata and a procession that goes from house to house, a festival that families living elsewhere have long come back for.

Urbanización San Antonio was built in 2016 under the state’s Techos de Esperanza programme for families who had been living in poor housing or paying rent, and since 2024 the Banco Hipotecario Nacional has been handing residents the deeds to their apartments in stages. The private residenciales around it are bought mainly by local families taking out a mortgage on a first house, many of them working in the city. The airport road at Cañacillas is where builders are still putting up new homes. In the older barriadas, such as La Rinconada and Jesús Nazareno, houses come up for sale or rent one at a time rather than as projects.

Apartments in Nuevo Santiago:

Nearly all the apartment stock is in Urbanización San Antonio, where the units have two or three bedrooms and about 54 ground-floor apartments were assigned to older residents and people with disabilities. With deeds now being registered in owners’ names, units here can reach the resale market. Before you agree a price, ask for the deed and the registry record, and check whether either shows a restriction on resale or a lien in favour of the Banco Hipotecario Nacional. Ask as well who looks after the stairways, roofs and shared areas, and whether a monthly fee is collected for it.

Houses in Nuevo Santiago:

Single-storey family homes in residenciales such as Villas de San Antonio, Brisas de San Antonio and Residencial El Carmen make up most of the houses for sale in Nuevo Santiago. In Villas de San Antonio, across the road from the Luis “Chicho” Fábrega regional hospital, a resale can be a house of a little over 80 square metres on a lot of about 360. In La Rinconada, the seat, some two-storey houses are let either as homes or as offices. In Guayaquil and the other older communities, houses stand on family lots, so make sure the lot has its own finca number before you agree anything.

New Developments in Nuevo Santiago:

Most of the current building is at Cañacillas Vía Aeropuerto, about a kilometre from the Rubén Cantú airport. One project there offers three-bedroom, two-bathroom houses of around 130 square metres with covered parking on lots from 450 square metres, and other local builders have marketed homes on the same road. In March 2026 the Civil Aviation Authority said commercial airlines were interested in the airport, so think about what more flights could mean for the street you are buying on. On an off-plan purchase, ask to see the approved subdivision plan and the building permit, and have the handover date written into the contract.

FAQ:

• Is Nuevo Santiago part of the city of Santiago?

  In everyday terms, yes: it is the eastern side of the city, a few minutes from the centre, and most property ads simply say “Santiago”. Officially it has been its own corregimiento since October 2017, carved from the Santiago cabecera and San Martín de Porres. Older maps and records can still place Villas de San Antonio or Cañacillas in the cabecera, so check which corregimiento appears on the survey plan and in the registry before you compare prices.

• Can I buy an apartment in Urbanización San Antonio?

  The apartments were allocated by the state to families, and the Banco Hipotecario Nacional has been issuing their deeds in stages since 2024. A unit can only be sold once the seller holds a registered deed. Look up the record at the property registry for any restriction or lien before you pay a deposit, and have a lawyer read the deed itself.

• Is the water supply reliable?

  Most of the corregimiento depends on the Santiago supply, and in the dry season the higher and outlying sectors are the first to lose it. Punta Delgadita has gone days without water in past dry seasons. Ask whether the house has a reserve tank and how the street coped during the last dry season.

• What should I check on an older house in Guayaquil?

  Guayaquil grew out of farming families, and some house lots are still part of a larger family finca or remain in the name of an owner who has died. Ask for the lot’s own finca number, walk the survey plan against the fences, and make sure every heir named in the record signs the sale. If the lot has never been segregated from the family land, that step comes before the purchase, not after.

• Can I get to the city centre without a car?

  Yes. Three bus routes link Nuevo Santiago with central Santiago, starting from Punta Delgadita, Guayaquil and Urbanización San Antonio. If you are looking at a house off those routes, such as one in a new project on the airport road, check how far the nearest stop is before you decide.